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Photos of bleary-eyed college students, wall posts with profanity and sexually suggestive comments are no strangers to a student’s Facebook.

But what happens when the student goes off to medical school?

A new study published in the September 23-30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 60 percent of medical schools reported an incident of a student posting inappropriate content.

Since that figure only includes content that came to the administration’s attention, the actual number of inappropriate posts is probably much higher, said Dr. Jeanne Farnan, assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine.

“The numbers for anyone ages 22 to 26 posting information that’s deemed unprofessional, using profanity or intoxication is nearly 100 percent,” Farnan said.

Dr. Kathleen Kashima, senior associate dean of students at the University of Illinois in Chicago's College of Medicine, said medical students are just expected to act differently.

“The bottom line is that there’s a higher expectation for physicians to uphold ethics," Kashima said, "because of the kind of role they play in society."

Scandalous photos aren’t the only problem for web-savvy medical students. The study also found 13 percent of medical schools reported violations of patient confidentiality online.

Dr. Katherine Chretien, lead author of the study, said students weren’t malicious in disclosing patient information. “It’s natural to want to write about your work, especially when you’re going through hard training and powerful experiences,” Chretien said. “People were trying to be discreet about identities.”

UIC medical student Olga Cherepanova said she hasn’t seen anyone violate patient confidentiality online. She said the bigger danger comes in students’ verbal conversations when someone might slip and say something they shouldn’t.

As far as posting inappropriate content online, Cherepanova said people are used to screening their Facebook profiles.

“I haven’t seen any keg stand pictures or anything in medical school,” she said. “Medical students are pretty tame.”

Ryan Hong, 31, said he doesn't see why students can't post pictures of themselves relaxing and having a drink.

“There’s a lot of pressures with work and student loans,” said Hong, who studies microbiology at Northwestern’s medical school. “If it’s off the clock, I think it’s fine.”

Only 38 percent of schools said they had a policy to deal with inappropriate content online.

Major Chicago schools, including those at U of C, UIC, Northwestern and the Rosalind Franklin University of Science and Medicine on the North Shore, don’t have specific policies governing student online posts. These schools currently classify online behavior under the umbrella of professional behavior expected of their students.

Pritzker’s Farnan said that creating a generalized policy about online professionalism isn’t the right way to go. Instead, schools should be educating their students on the consequences of posting inappropriate material online.

“A lot of the policies noted [in the study] are reactive policies that happened at that school. It's better to have a proactive stand,” Farnan said. “We need to try to educate our students, to say 'We know you're all using these applications and this is how you can protect yourself.'"

Dr. Cathy Lazarus, senior associate dean for student affairs and medical education at Rosalind Franklin, said any policy dealing with online professionalism would not rule out specific behaviors.

“We don’t need a policy that lists specific detailed behaviors and situations,” Lazarus said. “We need to help students draw a line somewhere and help them see where they are in relation to it.”