Medical blogging and criminal legal risks of digital medicine

The subject of the research is the criminal law risks arising from the dissemination of medical information in the digital environment, primarily within the framework of medical blogging as a new form of professional communication. The study analyzes the legal grounds and limits of permissible behavior for medical professionals on the Internet, the relationship between medical blogging and telemedicine services, as well as the conditions under which educational activities may acquire the characteristics of illegal medical practice or violations of service safety requirements. The research aims to identify the criteria for distinguishing lawful information dissemination from actions that could lead to criminal law consequences. Special attention is given to the problem of the legal status of the physician-blogger, the protection of medical confidentiality, the safeguarding of personal data, and the inadmissibility of disseminating inaccurate medical information. The research is based on systemic, comparative-legal, and formal-legal methods, as well as the method of legal modeling, which allows for the identification of the specifics of medical blogging in the context of digital medicine and the determination of the limits of criminal law liability. The scientific novelty of the conducted research lies in the comprehensive understanding of medical blogging as an independent legal phenomenon of digital medicine, distinct from telemedicine practices. It is suggested for the first time to consider medical blogging as a form of public professional information dissemination, associated with specific criminal law risks arising when transitioning from educational activities to remote consultation. The necessity of normative consolidation of the concept of "medical blogging" and the development of methodological recommendations defining the boundaries of lawful behavior for medical professionals on the Internet is justified. It is concluded that preventive and ethical regulation mechanisms should take precedence over criminal law repression. It is emphasized that criminal liability should arise only in the presence of actual harm to citizens' health or deliberate violations of medical information confidentiality.