Here is an article about medical/physician blogs, which also pertains to nursing blogs. Well-written article! The focus of the article is on ER physicians. (Scan down below the article on paramedics to read the article on blogging.)
The article does raise some good points. Namely, if you read a journal article, you will read patient case synopses, with identifying information taken out of it. This is very similar to how we (bloggers) write about patient situations. However, because a blog is open to the public, anyone can be reading it. Not just health care professionals, as in the case of reading case studies in medical/nursing journal articles.
So, I believe that we, as bloggers, need to privatize our blog posts even more than we would if we were to be writing for a medical/nursing journal. Some of my readers know who I am, or where I work, so I certainly wouldn't want them (or anyone else) to figure out exactly who I am blogging about. That would violate patient privacy. So, I change details. I change ages, gestations, certain details of situations, genders, apgar scores, etc. I combine several situations/patients and turn it into one patient composite.
Sometimes though, I do chronical my day as it happened. However, I leave out the itty bitty details that could identify my patients. For instance, I might just say "I had a rule out labor who was only 1cm with no cervical change, so I discharged her home." That could be literally ANYONE. No personal identifying info there.
I enjoy blogging. It's almost like a diary for me. I like looking back on my posts, and recalling situations. Sometimes I've changed details so much that even I don't remember the situation or the patient! How's that for good HIPAA??
I like to keep this blog real. There are several nursing students who read this blog, and I want them to know the reality of nursing, especially being an L&D nurse. Keeping this blog real means having to keep specific details true to form, as it happened. It's a challenge sometimes to make sure that it's still private enough that someone doesn't recognize the person that I am referring to in a post.
What a fine line we nursing and medical bloggers must follow!
Heads up to ER Stories for the link.
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9 comments:
Hey, it's my first time commenting but I just wanted to say I appreciate you going out of your way to respect HIPAA but still keep it real. I am about to enter my senior year of nursing school and L&D/PP is where my heart is for sure!!! It's the entire reason why I even went to nursing school & I LOVED my OB rotation!!! I was up really late after I found your blog last night reading, reading, reading!! It made me excited for my chance someday to be an OB nurse of some sort!
You are 100% correct. I think Medbloggers should realize that no one is every really anonymous on the internet. Someone out there knows who we are. Anything I write about a patient (usually I'm the patient!) is also a composite of patients I have worked with over my many years and many places of employment, from nursing school to now. Same with any staff I write about. It is a real glimpse into nursing, with real situations and made up characters.
Let's be careful out there!
I hear you! I go out of my way to make sure that my patient is not recognizable (I, like you, even go to the extent of changing apgars, sex of the baby...).
I want to absolutely keep the essence of the story and capture the experience. I think that can be done without revealing our patient.
I love blogging and I would hate to have to shut it down and to be disciplined...or worse, sued!
I can see that you keep it real and I appreciate that.
Thanks.
I have just started orientating to L&D after working 2 1/2yrs in a large teaching hospital doing ante & post. I love following your blog and appreciate what I read. You have become an inspiration for me. I also want to be a midwife. During nursing school while on a school sponsered nursing mission trip to Kentucky I had the chance to tour Frontier nursing school. I also plan to attend, hopefully soon. So thank you for the wonderful blogging!
Well you all know I am golden because I am really not a L&D nurse but a 300lb gay convict in the Concord State Prison. They have a great library here! So none of what I write is real.
You make a good point Cervix.
Too funny Pinky! I also agree with the need to protect patient privacy and it's not too hard to figure out who people are if one wants to search hard enough on the internet.
as one of those students, I just wanna say "thank you!" to you and to all of the authors of the awesome medical blogs I read. you make a huge difference in my education, and it helps a lot to see a "day in the life" when trying to figure out what to do for my internship this spring.
-snurse8
Thank you so much for "keeping it real". I am a nursing student and hope to be a L&D nurse once graduated. Your stories and experiences help me so much and create such an excitement in me. I also love hearing your "real life" tips on certain situations since all we see are the book versions.....and real life is def different that book. I look forward to reading your next post as soon as I have finished reading the current one. I know HIPPA is crucial, but I appreciate you taking the extra effort to give the "meat" of the post without violating anyone's privacy. Thanks again!!
I do the exact same things.. I mostly want to portray the basic feeling ... positive or negative..that came out of an experience.. for instance, I had a positive hospital birth, and we were proud of all parties.. so I changed things -- details -- using combinations of many separate doc/pt/nurse encounters to portray the overall positive aspect everyone was left with. I hope this is OK. I am very very new at this. thanks for this info!
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