Those who can, (should) teach.

Those who can, (should) teach. Born with a digital identity and raised in concert with digital pacifiers, tomorrow’s doctors face new and unprecedented horizons. Will they always exist in the digital world, will the digital crumbs they leave always allow others to find them, anywhere in time or space? Where will their digital selves live? Should they be the ones who decide? As they progress towards learning to care for the health needs of others, how much will they need to interact with digital or physical entities? Will the curtain between who they are where they are become more diaphanous? Should they allow it to? Digital literacy is a distinct, given (almost) entity, although advanced levels of literacy may need to form a foundational element of what it means to be a digital healthcare professional; to navigate and help form the agenda of future professional practice (open to digitally influenced change) will require individuals with deep understanding of the effect and reach of digital platforms, and how to access and use them well. In this age of digital evolution, case-based learning is likely to form another important foundational element; the way core societal values such as right to privacy, inform digital culture, or the way digital culture affects traditional doctor-patient boundary-setting, needs to be understood. Social values are learnt through instruction and modeling; it behooves all practitioners to urgently teach and model digital professionalism. Governments and medical regulators can help by establishing and re-enforcing the foundational elements, and investing in a ongoing research agenda.