Sorry for no posts this week. I worked four days straight. Did zero calls on Sunday, and then was flat out for three days. The highlight of the week was was a lights and sirens response to a nursing home for a stroke, only to be told the patient was outside having a cigarette and would be back in a few minutes. I did do one interesting call to the trauma room but can’t write about it yet because it was in the papers.
I’m trying to be extra careful on calls that could potentially be identified. If its in the news or involves anyone who might read this blog, it will appear at some date later in time with enough details to obscure it.
Baby Medic had a A Problem lately that he seems to have weathered. The rumor was he had used a patient’s first name in a post (now removed from his blog) about encountering a patient who on first impression seemed to be a drug addict. Someone told a family member about the post and the family member was very upset. Well, it turns out he did not use the patient’s name. And the story was not derogatory to the patient. It was a well-written lesson story, full of humility, about how we shouldn’t judge our patients. Still, the controversy just goes to show as bloggers we have a responsibility not just to tell the essential truths about our experiences as care-givers, we have to go the extra yard to protect patient’s privacy. I’d like to be able to write about a call exactly as it happened, but sometimes I have to change the patient’s sex, age, setting or other characteristics to protect them, while still staying true to the experience of the story.
***
I finished my latest rewrite of 10 Things Every Paramedic Should Know About Capnography.
***
I’m in charge of getting the articles for the April Journal Club, so I have been working on that. I’m looking at a couple articles:
1. Withholding resuscitation: a new approach to prehospital end-of-life decisions.
I haven’t decided on a third one yet.
Area Paramedics and EMTs are welcome to attend. It’s Wednesday April 18 7:00 P.M at the big hospital on the north side of the city. Flyers will be posted next week. You should RSVP a day or two ahead of time to get the articles to read. Dinner is provided free, and you get either 2 or 3 hours of CME. Stop by the hospital or see me for more details. We usually get 7-8 people.
***
My new preceptee starts on Sunday. She is part-time so it won’t be an everyday deal. I am working on a “Letter to a New Preceptee” post, which I hope to have done on Saturday.
I’ll be working a lot this month so hopefully I’ll have some interesting calls to write about.
Until then, stay safe everyone.
I’ve changed jobs recently and thought about writing about some calls that I’ve done at this new place. After reading about all the problems people have with their employers, it really makes me cautious. There’s only a few options as I see it:Entirely anonymous. I mean no city names, street names, or even the slightest revealing of my name or anything. No references to unique protocols.Clear it with my employer. Problem with that is then the people I work for and with will scrutinize the calls I do and what I write about. There’s pitfalls to both. The first is an issue if someone does tie it back to me. Then it looks like I was trying to hide something or get away with something.What a mess.
It is a difficult choice — I think particuarly so for someone who is either new or changed jobs. In EMS it seems a new person just can’t make any kind of waves. We seem very quick to judge others — maybe because we have so much time on our hands.I think blogging is easier if you are in a big city or busy service than in a small town. Most of the bloggers I have heard about getting in trouble have been from smaller communities.Good luck and be careful. Blogging is not worth losing your job.
I’ve decided to go the anonymous route. Not that I don’t trust my friends, but you just never know who they know. I won’t be telling anyone who knows me about the blog. Or even anyone who doesn’t know me. I had a blog a while back unrelated to pre-hospital care. I had a decent following, about 500-700 people each day, but there’s just too much risk in that.In paramedic school, I remember the instructor telling a story about how one student got kicked out of class due to a privacy violation. Seems that at this urban hospital, the student saw a name on the ER board. Some embarrassing medical condition. She tells the story to her mom. Her mom tells the story to a coworker. The coworker knows the story because she knows the patient. It got back to the hospital, and back to the school. Bye student.I think there’s too many lessons that I pass by every day because I don’t write them down and they become part of my own personal story. As time passes, I forget even the lessons that came into being due to my own mistakes. Not to be so bold, but I think that hearing the Personal Narrative story of others tells important lessons, no matter how insignificant it seems on the outside. I know it saved me on a handful of bizarre calls. I heard stories from other medics and thought, hmm, this odd preoblem seems to be similar to that situation. It took me down a different road, and in the end was exactly what needed to be done.
I have not been posting about calls at all over the last couple of weeks. I just started a new job for a county agency (I was working for a national corperation in a city) I love my new job and the people I work with/for. I am not willing to risk getting fired over my blog so I havn’t been posting anything that could remotly be taken as a HIPPA violation. So for the time being I am avoiding posting call realated stuff. Its killing me though because I have had some really interesting calls since I changed jobs.As for my part time job, I on occasion work in a town of 2,000ish people. I would feel pretty bad if one of my patients stumbled on my blog and put two and two together. They would probably feel pretty violated. So I try to be really careful.
Its a scary thing. I had read your warnings about HIPAA, as well as the links you referenced with even further warnings. …But the reality of the situation never really hit home until I got caught up in this whole mess. Everything seemed fine until the moment that someone had a problem, and all of a sudden I’m looking at my writing with the perspective of someone else. Someone much less understanding to my intentions, no less.I know now, with the clarity of experience, how important it will be to proofread my writing using the perspective of my patients. …The perspective of my administrators and coworkers. Like you said, it seems things have weathered: but this ordeal has certanly left it’s mark on me. Thats not necessairly a bad thing.Good luck with your preceptee, Peter. Hopefully we’ll cross paths at the station.