About | The Blog That Ate Manhattan

Margaret Polaneczky, MD, FACOG

I’m a board certified obstetrician-gynecologist and Associate Professor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City, where I live with my husband, who I call Mr TBTAM, and our kids.

A Gyno-Food Blog?

I know, I know. What was I thinking? It’s not like I planned it this way.

It was supposed to be just a food blog, which you can probably tell by the name. But once I got started, I couldn’t shut up, and pretty soon I was writing about other things, including my day job. Eventually, the blog evolved into what you see today – food, medicine, my life and my opinions. And the occasional silly song.

But seriously, the more I write, the more I realize what this blog is really about. It’s about creating what I hope is an unbiased, non-commercial space that helps women make sense of the conflicting, confusing and voluminous health information they are receiving in this digital era, much of it from sources with huge commercial bias and a product to sell. Let me help you separate the pitch from the pearls.

Who reads this blog?

This blog is written for both health professionals and laypersons, women and men, New Yorkers and those who love New York, those who love to cook and those who love to eat. It’s for my patients who ask me what I think about HRT. And my friends and family who asked about my trip or for a recipe, and for the couple I met on the bike trail who asked about our last ride. I’m not targeting any particular audience, and I don’t have anything to sell.

When it comes to medicine, I try to straddle the gap between the lay public and medical professionals by posting from a doctor’s perspective in language that hopefully anyone can understand. My lay audience is the health consumer who wants to learn more. I won’t talk down to you here. I assume you are here because you are interested in learning more, and are prepared to think a bit and even to be challenged (and to challenge me). I hope my blog posts will also engage other health professionals in a dialogue around topics that are often controversial, and usually complicated. Because if it were simple, what would there be for us to talk about?

Who is TBTAM?

That’s me. It’s the acronym for The Blog That Ate Manhattan, and was my moniker during my first few years of blogging, when I was anonymous. I took a bit of heat from some for my anonymity, but I had a day job to protect, and having read about other bloggers being fired from their jobs for blogging, I wasn’t taking any chances. After a while, though, pretty much everyone who knew me knew I blogged, including folks at work, so I came out of hiding in 2009 and haven’t looked back.

Does this blog have any policies?

Actually, it does. I subscribe to the Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics, which basically says I make clear my perspective (ie, bias), reveal any commercial interests, write reliably and cite references where appropriate, practice courtesy in the blogosphere, and protect the privacy of my patients. To that end, I won’t blog about a patient without her permission. When I do, personally identifying information is removed or disguised so that HIPAA Privacy Laws are followed.

Who Funds this Site?

I do. Occasionally, you may notice me writing something about a product in a post. That’s because I’ve used it and have something to say about that experience. No one is paying me to write anything. If I’m ever sampled on a product to review it, I’ll clearly state so.

Advertising policy

I currently am running no ads on this site, but have in the past. When present, all ads are labeled as such and separate from blog content. Our editorial content is not influenced by the funding sources. Our website hosts Google sponsored ads and links. We do not control the Google ads’ content.This blog has no context or text-linked paid advertising.

I deliberately do not allow health-related ad copy, so there will never be a question of conflict of interest in this realm. However, the Google ad blocking process is far from foolproof. So if you should see an ad for a medically related product in my sidebar, please know that it is not an endorsement. (And if you let me know what ad you saw, I can then block that ad specifically.)

If you are interested in advertising with The Blog that Ate Manhattan, you can contact me at tbtam@rcn.com. Only legitimate, non-medical ads will be considered. No context or link-based ads will be considered.

This site does not collect any personal or identifiable information, other than what you choose to share in the comments section. We respect the law(s) on confidentiality applicable to this website and we will never pass on these data to any third party, unless required by law. Our website does not collect any cookies.

Currently we use Google Ads on this site.

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Currently we are using Google Analytics to analyze the audience of the website and improve our content. No personal information is collected from Google Analytics. For further information on the privacy policy concerning Google Analytics, please go here.

Comment Policy

All comments are moderated by Dr Polaneczky. Although I welcome all points of view, comments that contain medically incorrect or misleading medical advice or links to sites that are not authoritative or medically correct, will be deleted. I will also delete comments asking for individual medical advice. Sorry.

Comments posted on this blog are public and visible to everyone. If you’ve posted a comment and wish to have it amended or deleted, you may contact me and request that it be removed.

Commenters should only post information they know to be true and correct to the best of their knowledge. .

Users of this site are by default considered to be non-medical professionals, and their comments taken in this context. If you are a health professional giving health information in the comments section, you must identify yourself as such. No one, health professional or otherwise, should use the comments section of this blog to give out medical advice to others.

If you provide medical or scientific information in your comment, please provide a recognized authoritative source for the information you’ve given. This could be another website, a book, an article, a database or any other support, but it has to be specified. The references specified has to lead us to the article mentioned. You have to provide a precise link to the source, whenever it is possible and the references should be in relation with the content referred.

Users of this site are expected to behave honestly and with respect towards others. Comments with abusive or foul language will be deleted.

No advertisements are permitted in user’s comments. Comments contain advertising or advertising links will be deleted.

Are there any disclaimers?

Of course there are. This is America, land of disclaimers. Here is mine –

Can I email you?

Sure. My email is tbtam@rcn.com. But please do not email me for medical advice. (See disclaimer above). As always, you should consult your health are provider about any questions related to your health.