Another One Bites the Dust
In the course of all of the upset over our dear Dr. Flea and our irrepressible Fat Doctor (YEAH!), I got an email from Cathy with more sad news. Dr. Dork, our poet blogger from Australia, has set his blog to private.
Four days - three blogging colleagues.
I researched the links which were left for me in the last post (thank you Mama Mia!) … and as I did, the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach kept rising. There’s an atmosphere of fear across the medical blogosphere.
In my meanderings yesterday, here are a few things I ran across. This really deserve some serious thought:
Found on Dr. Rob’s wonderful blog:
[...] I was called into the office of one of our attendings because the parent of a child was angry at me. I had made an off-hand comment on the elevator about a certain medication being worthless. We were just talking shop and doing our usual resident strutting. Apparently, this parent had felt that the drug that fell under my derision had done wonders for their child. They were so upset about this that they took down my name and told the attending of my waywardness. I thought this was ridiculous. If I had said that I don’t like Ford Escorts, would I have been pulled aside and chided because the child was brought to the hospital in a Ford Escort? I was voicing an opinion. It is certainly the parent’s right to disagree and even get angry, but I have equal right to hold and express my opinion.
I think some people feel it is their job to get offended. They look for ways to feel pain from innocent statements and then blame the person who made the statement for callousness. There is nothing wrong with talking about our lives, and even our frustrations with other people. We need to be sensitive in how we do it, but so does everyone. I would not talk about my neighbor any more harshly or openly than I do a patient. It is just plain courtesy.
[...]
My partners know I blog. My staff knows I blog. My wife and my Mom know I blog. If my patients ask, I give them the URL of my blog. I am me on my blog - faults and all. Some people out there seem to think that medical professionals aren’t just normal people. Thanks to the “professionally offended,†we are losing voices of real people doing hard jobs.
This is ironic, given the popularity of the new book: How Doctors Think. People want an author to tell them how doctors think, but God forbid that the doctors themselves should say how they think!
From over at BabyMedic:
I have never written about a patient or a call in a manner that I thought would enable direct identification of that person. All of the written names are pseudonyms, locations are changed (if they are mentioned at all), and I have done my best to be ambiguous, if not facetious, about demographic type details. I am familiar with the HIPAA regulations and I have taken great efforts to make sure my entries here are in accordance with them. It is my strong belief that the details I have written here cannot be used to determine the identity of any of my patients, through either direct or indirect means. These are the guidelines that I have written my entries by, and reading through the archives, I have not strayed.
From PDXEMT over at Drug-Induced Hallucinations:
While I greatly enjoy blogging, certain events recently have led me to believe that even though I am following HIPAA standards and protecting patient privacy, this may not protect my job.
Remind me where it says ‘Land of the Free & Home of the Brave.” Declaration of Independence or the Constitution or Grimm’s fairy tales!
I’ve been telling my son about what’s happened, and he had an idea. He’s going to install a Forum for us, which will have open areas for anyone to write in, but will also have closed areas that no outsiders can access - not even the search engine spiders, and will only be accessible by the direct invitation of someone in that part of the forum. I’ll post a link to it as soon as it’s ready. Honest and open talk will be possible in there. The “closed rooms” will truly be bug free. It will be up to the people in each private segment to allow/disallow individuals who inquire about joining. We need a safe place to regroup, pull together, and fight back.
Blogdom Medical Hospital … (complete with doctors’ lounges, nurses’ stations, patient rooms, a public cafeteria served by a real life chef, and lots more) … coming soon to a location near you!
Vanishing Bloggers:
- One Injustice after Another
- Since When … ?
- Another One Bites the Dust
- Contacts!
May 19th, 2007 at 11:37 am
How sad that it has come to this.
May 19th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Hi Moofie,
I was all panicked yesterday when I noticed Dr Dork had a red exclamation mark on my bloglines feed. I hustled over and found that closed/only invited message. Then, later, at Dr A’s blog, Dr Dork commented that it was only temporary and he’d be back. I hope you have seen that by now. I’ll watch with interest to see what you have in mind for the forum.
regards
jmb
May 19th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I agree with the forum. What can be done to protect us? I am doing the HON code, but I am not sure that really covers what we want to do. We need to discuss.
Rob
May 19th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
FWIW, I like the idea of group blogging by invitation. However, even that comes with risk. All it takes is one person to sign up under false pretenses - say, for instance, someone who knows one of the bloggers in real life - to get in, print out or link to a private post and use it to expose that person. As long as the risks are known, I would think that prospective bloggers could make a more informed decision about how and under what circumstances they would like to participate.
For some, that may mean blogging under a new pseudonym. For others, it may mean choosing different subject matter, or approaching it differently. And others - it may not impact at all.
But I was stalked in real life from posts that were made completely under a pseudonym. It was a highly read and trafficked blog, and the person who did it simply proclaimed himself a private investigator to gullible site users. He was neither private nor a professional investigator after I filed a complaint with another state’s licensing board. he disappeared into the ether, and I know he has all of my personal identifying information, but I do not even know what he looks like.
So, consider nothing private, Assume that all of your information is public. If you can live with that, you are probably going to be OK. But if not, I’d seriously reconsider blogging. (From the blogosphere, it appears to happen to women more than men, but in healthcare blogging, it may be more of a physician/nurse risk factor than a gender issue.)
May 28th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Moof,
Lurker here. Any way I could get an invitation to the forum? I don’t write much on my blog precisely of this concern. If you’re concerned that I’m not legit, I could provide you with my personal blog for verification (I’m very careful to dissociate my personal blog from the medical!)
Enjoy your writings, and so agree!