This chapter considers some of the legal and professional implications of social media use. These are discussed from two perspectives: firstly, how the law is changing to help ensure harmful and false information is not distributed, and secondly how professionals should responsibly use social media. To illustrate each of these, the chapter focuses on proposed reforms to the UK law and the UK General Medical Council’s (GMC) guidance for doctors. The principles discussed will apply to other jurisdictions and professional groups, but individual professionals should ensure they are familiar with the frameworks within which they practise.

This chapter focuses on professional implications of journal article publication. It has five major sections, Intuitive Thoughts, Mark and Hulio, Professional obligations, Professional challenges, and Practical suggestions. It starts with a discussion of intuitive thoughts of graduate students and then a discussion of two real-life cases (Mark and Hulio) so that we can see how new authors think and act related to the central question of the chapter. After that, two core concepts, Professional obligations and Professional challenges, are discussed in detail, followed by several practical suggestions. In brief, there are two major implications. Publishing journal articles not only concerns major professional obligations to disseminate knowledge and improve human life but also generates various professional challenges of communicating knowledge scientifically.