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My 2 cents about the recent loss of 2 more great medical bloggers, Fatdoctor and Dr. Flea: I think it stinks.

Blogging about your workplace is a dangerous thing. Throw in HIPPA compliance and it becomes even more treacherous. If only we could all be like dooce and get fired from our jobs and become full-time bloggers. I blame my shortage of good work stories lately on the fact that I haven’t actually been working. But before I stopped working I noticed that there was a story to be told almost every time I set foot in the MICU. Then I would come home and the logistics of telling the story and distorting the details to protect patient privacy just bogged me down.

And distorting the details also makes the stories seem kind of bogus.

For instance, a lot of my good “stories” would involve hepatic encephalopathy. I’ve yet to find a “disguise” that would adequately capture this particular brand of mental status. The liver patients seem to flicker in and out of reality and many times they seem comfortable with this. Then there’s the lung transplant patients. I don’t know of any other medical condition that is similar to their plight. I think they have the toughest road as far as transplant patients go; if I were to replace this detail, I wouldn’t be doing them justice. So I refrain from writing about them at all and their stories remain untold. For now.

Many times I have been tempted to reveal where I work. You could probably figure it out if you were so inclined, I’ve left clues. But I continue to refer to my hospital as the GHOAT (the Greatest Hospital of All Time) because if I ever called GHOAT by it’s real name it would become fodder for google. And then I’d be in trouble. Also by not naming where I work I provides another layer of patient privacy.

So maybe password protecting your blog is the way to go. It just seems so depressing that way, like locking your doors when you live in a bad neighborhood. But I guess if the alternative is losing medical bloggers on a weekly basis that it may just be worth it.