Posted By Damjan DeNoble
over at a really well thought out blog, Health Care Organizational Ethics, by Jim Sabin, who according to the bio on his blog is a health care industry veteran. The post is about the potentially damaging consequences of doctors attempting to limit patients freedom to talk about their health care experiences via online social networks and forums.
Bloggers know better than most about the annoying habits of posters writing with an agenda and hiding behind the mask of made up identities, but, unlike doctors, we are free to openly confront such posts, or delete them all together. On the other hand, the Hippocratic oath prevents doctors (in theory) from talking about their patients, and so when an anonymous poster criticizes a doctor online, that doctor has few options for how to retort. Since a doctor’s business depends on her reputation, the availability of options for such attacks to take place can be frightening. Wanting to defend oneself is only natural. But, Jim Sabin covers this and more in his article, in a much more detailed way than I ever could. His conclusion is below, but go to his blog because its definitely worth a read.
There is definitely a danger to physicians from maliciously intended anonymous postings. But that danger is outweighed by the potential for the web to provide patients with a better level of guidance about the humanistic dimensions of how we physicians comport ourselves than is currently available
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