I decided to delete my last post. I think I am not ready to put my patient’s stories in my blog. After putting it up, I didn’t enjoy myself at all today.
Don’t get me wrong. I am quite comfortable that it was anonymized, and that no one reading it could ever identify the patient involved. I followed all the rules for medical case reporting, and all the HIPAA privacy rules were intact. But I think if this patient were to read the post, she might recognize herself and our conversation. And that just wasn’t sitting right with me.
Althouse had a similar reaction to a story published in the NY times by Perri Klass, a renowned physician author, about her interaction with a 13 year old boy. Althouse writes: “Sure, I’ll keep it private! I’ll publish it in the New York Times, but other than that I’ll keep it private.” I recall now reading that same article by Klass and having a similar reaction.
Oasis of Sanity takes the opposite point of view. She says: “Several people in the comments thread agree with Ann, but I don’t, and said as much, over there — there is no way to identify a particular patient from the narrative of the article.” Check out the comments sections of both posts for a spirited discussion of both sides of the issue.
My own decision is not to be interpreted as a criticism of the great patient stories I read on my fellow med bloggers sites. Patient stories abound in both the medical and popular literature(Oliver Sacks comes to mind) and the medical case report is a time honored tradition, one that I have been honored to be a part of. It’s just that I am just not sure my personal blog is the place for it. (At least not right now.) So I am going to sit with this awhile, and see how my blog evolves over time. (I may just call that Perri Klass to see how she deals with the issue herself.)
Most importantly, I want to thank Lisa for her sage advice. I had emailed her and asked her to read my post and give me her comments, which she graciously did. She is one wise woman who went above and beyond the blogosphere in really considering my questions, and I urge you all to head on over to her site and read her rules for blogging.
This one piece of Lisa wisdom, however, really struck a chord, and I think that’s why I decided to pull the post. Here’s what she said: “Remember too that blogging should be fun…. .You’re not required to write anything that’s not fun or that youfeel uncomfortable with. We don’t pay anything to read your blog, whatyou give us is a freely given gift.”
That’s what did it. I work long hours, spend a lot of stressful energy at my profession, and the last thing I need to do is to reproduce the stress exponentially in my free time. This blog is supposed to be for me to enjoy myself, a distraction, a letting go. Publishing a post should feel like fun, and not an internal tug of war (which is what I’ve been going through all day).
So to all who read and commented on the post, I thank you. And I hope you understand. I promise more posts to come. I think I’ll just keep it light for now.
Category: [Second Opinions]
I see why you deleted the post and respect your decision but, FWIW, I really liked reading it.
If you don’t want patients to find out that you are writing about them then you probably shouldn’t write about them at all (not that you asked me!) but if I were the patient you described I don’t think I would have been bothered by your description. It was respectful and compassionate and was unlikely to “out” her to anyone else who might have stumbled across it.
I also thought it was a terrific post. But this post is also terrific.
We disguise as many identifiers as we can, and then for added protection, we can preface it with: “A colleague from another state told me about this case…”
But if there’s ever any doubt, it’s a good idea to “Delete Post.” Blogging should indeed be fun. It should not give us more headaches than we already have!
Hearing about the process by which we decide what to post or what posts don’t sit well with us are very helpful in the blogosphere.
I would not say that blogging need only be fun and light. This is not life and many people come to our blogs for education as well as entertainment. My most intense piece was one I wrote about an experience I had at an “anonymous” restaurant. Few people have cared which one it was, but the message has resonated with more people than I can count.
Professions as emotionally draining as ours are complicated and those who see our blogs as a portal into that world read for a gamut of reasons and I feel showing all aspects is of utmost importance.
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