Interesting email

Here is an interesting email I recived with my responses.

From: Tim Barounis

Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 17:10:01 -0600

Subject: your blog = JoyofSurgery



Hi Dr. Evans,



I found your blog today and enjoyed reading it. Glad you did.

I'm a 3rd year medical student at Rush and, as a matter of

fact, in the middle of my surgery  rotation right now.

Hope you are enjoying it!

Up until a few months ago, I actually had a blog of my

own - very similar to yours.

Good for you, I heartily approve!!

Where was your blog?

I was forced by the administration (which one?)

to stop doing it because of concerns about revealing

confidential information. Like you, I never revealed

names or other identifying data. But I did discuss,

in frank detail, some of the interesting cases I had seen. 

That is appropriate.

What do you think about this? 

Concern for patient data is everywhere!

Like you, I was not blogging anonymously and I was

asked by more than one person - What if one of your

patients saw your blog and recognized him or herself?

Well the obvious ironclad solution is to have obtained

permission from the patient then there is

no dispute by anyone.

I didn't have a response for them other than  that

I believed what I was doing was both within the confines

of the law  and medical ethics.

I agree.

Do you think there is an ethical question here?

No ethical question whatsoever.

Maybe a HIPPA patient privacy question.

What would you do in my place?

A - either get patient permission or B- transfer my

blog to an area not controlled by administration.

What would you do if hospital administration asked

you to stop blogging?

Explore all my options. Since so many sites such as

Medscape, etc. have message boards which actually

discuss cases, it seems far fetched to be concerned

as long as there is no identifying information.



Also, if you want to share my blog for your surgery

cases we can discuss that.



Tim