There are two sides to the issue of physicians blogging online about their work. One one hand, is the opinion that patients own their own medical stories. Publishing those stories should call for permission, say some observers.
Alen over at GruntDoc has a more realistic view…
“IMHO there is nothing unethical in blogging about patient interactions provided they’re suitably anonymized, and not illegal (which is different) providing you follow the HIPAA guidelines. Although I won’t hold myself out to be a paragon of blogging perfection, when I blog about patients they’re so anonymized that frankly I’m more at risk of a non-patient of mine thinking I’m writing about them than my actual patient (or patients) that spurred the post.”
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