A post I knew I’d eventually have to write

I just found out that other students at Metropolis are reading this.  It surprised me, but realistically I knew it would happen – I just had no idea it would spread this fast.  So if you’ve been reading Action Potential and realized we go to the same school*:  Hi!  I’m harmless.  Feel free to read it, comment on it, ignore it, or check out the page I wrote on semi-anonymity where I explain things more.

This would probably also be a good time to mention that I’m aware of the numerous issues with medical blogging.  Here’s my deal: In the future, if there’s an agreed-upon standard for blogging about anonymized patient cases, I have a strong suspicion it will include author anonymity – because, well, knowing the identity of the doctor, or even the location in which they work, is a potential patient identifier.

So, since deanonymizing myself might close that door for good – and I really do love narrative medicine – I’m staying as anonymous as possible for now**.  In the meanwhile, since Metropolis doesn’t have a set policy on blogging yet, I will never discuss patients or cases unless I’d already set up a meeting with the Metropolis Med administration, informed them of the blog, talked about exactly how I planned to balance narrative medicine and HIPAA compliance, and get their official okay.

I have no problem involving the school if I decide to go down that road, but I actually think I’d rather keep strictly on the personal side of the medical blogging street: lack of sleep, slight inferiority complex, being overwhelmed by information, trying to figure out my future. Seems like that’s enough material for one blog, honestly.

* Although, it does seem totally possible for 2 different schools to have the same test dates.  For example – Antarctica Med.  You never know.

** Although if you saw me in my backwards sweater yesterday, that would mean you’d probably have me figured out.  But that also means you just let me wear my sweater backwards all day.