Looks like the Mayo Clinic is recognizing the dual nature of the privacy violations in this case. From the Mayo Clinic Website today –
Ultimately this episode reduces to two actions by two different individuals who violated our policies concerning respect and privacy. One was the inappropriate cell-phone photograph taken by a resident physician, subsequently displayed to others internally but to our knowledge not shared in any other fashion. The resident responsible for the photograph is receiving appropriate disciplinary action.
The second breach by a different person was the reporting of the incident along with the actual patient’s name to the media. The identity of the person who disclosed the patient’s name is not yet known.
I still fault the reporter who wrote that story as much as I fault the person who called the media. They could easily have written the story without revealing the patient’s name. The law may not require them too, but I think ethics do.
Then again, perhaps I am just as much at fault for disseminating the story with my blog…
The reporter called the patient, who was willing to have his name published in an article.
He wanted the story out.
If the patient had not confirmed this incident incolved him or given details about it and the tattoo, this probably would not even have been paragraph in the newspaper.
Decisions to pursue these kinds of news stories are not made in a vacuum.
Most likely the anonymous phone tip was discussed with at least one editor who said, “Run with it.”
In the same way that physicians don’t always get to pick and choose their patients, reporters don’t always get to pick and choose their stories. Stories are typically assigned, or they automatically fall within someone’s bailiwick because the reporter covers the crime beat or the health beat or the education beat or whatever.
Although it’s the reporter’s byline that appears on the story, newsrooms in reality function as a team.
Since we’re on the topic:
How is this any different from the subject matter I see on a regular basis in medical blogs? The Internet surely reaches as wide an audience as any newspaper.
There are plenty of bloggers who routinely disparage their patients in ways that are far more cruel and disrespectful than any news story would ever be. I see patients’ X-rays and CT scans posted on blogs. I read individual stories about individual patients, who more than likely have no idea they’re being blogged about for the whole world to see. True, it’s all anonymous… but how is this any different? Is it somehow better or OK because it’s a blog, or because a physician or nurse is the blogger?
I smell a double standard here.
P.S. I don’t think this includes you, TBTAM.
But there are plenty of other medical bloggers who don’t have your scruples.
just curious, the doctor who took the photo was described as chief resident, or in training. Doesn’t that require an attending physician to be in the OR also? If so, does the attending bear any responsibility for the “violation” happening on his watch?
From a non-doctor not living (currently) in the U.S.: Have these people lost all bits of common sense?
Doesn’t anyone believe in treating other humans with any dignity at all?
This rated even a sentence in an actual newspaper?
The whole thing is very sad!