To follow up on my last post I had intended to write something that follows the style of an FAQ:
- What if your patients read your blog?
- What if your boss reads your blog?
- What if your patients ask you for medical advice through your blog?
Fear underlies all of those questions, though, and it seemed to make more sense to address that fear.
If you are a physician and you are concerned about the vulnerability of having an online presence, what do you worry about? Do you worry that patients will learn to hate you? That your boss will find a reason to fire you? That random patients will “bother” you?[1. Why do some physicians worry that patients will find them online and “bother” them? What low opinions we must have of patients if we automatically assume that they will “bother” us! And what little faith we must have in ourselves to establish and maintain boundaries should that happen! And how grandiose we must be to believe that patients want to expend the time and energy to “bother” us!]
Would you do something on the internet that you wouldn’t do “in real life” as a physician?
All the people you interact with as a physician—your patients, your colleagues, that person who works in the system, but you see him only every few months—already have opinions about you. You build your reputation with the little things you do every day.
If you think patients are lazy, your behavior will reveal that belief. If you tell someone (a colleague! a friend! another patient!) that you think patients are lazy, that will eventually become common knowledge. If someone confronts you about that, you’ll manage it the way you manage it… and people will observe that, too.
Recording your belief on the internet that patients are lazy seems like a bad idea (because it is). Stuff stays online for a long time and people will find it. If that scares you, it should. But if you’re not doing things like that “in real life” now, why would you suddenly start doing that on the internet?
You might think that the lack of an online presence (or having an anonymous presence[2. It may be true that physicians, under cloaks of ostensible anonymity, can report and discuss problems in medicine with greater candor. Whistle-blowing can be a good and necessary thing. However, anonymity is ultimately short-sighted: It is difficult to maintain true anonymity on the internet. More importantly, if people know who you are, you have greater power and credibility to identify and solve problems.]) will protect you because if they can’t find you, they won’t talk about who you are, what you think, and what you do.
That’s not true. People already talk about you.[3. Yes, people are talking about you, but let’s be realistic: They don’t talk about you all the time. Or even all that often.]
And these are people who know what you look like, know where you work, and have experience interacting with you. Patients who don’t like you will continue to dislike you. They’ve probably told someone why they don’t like you. Who knows: They might’ve even shared their opinions about you on the internet. (As I have noted elsewhere: Having an online presence gives you the opportunity to shape your reputation on the internet. You already take active steps to shape your reputation “in real life”: Maybe you make a point of greeting everyone at work with a smile. Or overtly washing your hands in front of patients.)
The internet may be different medium, but the messages we send are the same. It’s also a place to learn and exchange ideas: What are other medical professionals learning? What do patients want? What problems are we trying to solve? How can we make things better? We’d like you to join the conversation.
As a physician you’re trained to discuss risks, benefits, and alternatives about interventions with patients. Having a presence online has its own risks and benefits. If you do decide to step into the online arena, know that you aren’t alone: There are many physicians who write on the internet. Join us.
Maria Yang, MD 