BACKGROUND: Medical weblogs (“blogs”) have emerged
as a new connection between health professionals and
the public.
OBJECTIVE: To examine the scope and content of
medical blogs and approximate how often blog authors
commented about patients, violated patient privacy, or
displayed a lack of professionalism.
DESIGN: We defined medical blogs as those that contain
some medical content and were apparently written by
physicians or nurses…
RESULTS: We identified 271 medical blogs. Over half
(56.8%) of blog authors provided sufficient information
in text or image to reveal their identities. Individual
patients were described in 114 (42.1%) blogs. Patients
were portrayed positively in 43 blogs (15.9%) and
negatively in 48 blogs (17.7%). Of blogs that described
interactions with individual patients, 45 (16.6%) included
sufficient information for patients to identify
their doctors or themselves…
CONCLUSIONS: Blogs are a growing part of the public
face of the health professions. They offer physicians and
nurses the opportunity to share their narratives. They
also risk revealing confidential information or, in their
tone or content, risk reflecting poorly on the blog
authors and their professions. The health professions
should assume some responsibility for helping…
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Filed under: Practice of Medicine | Tagged: blogging, patients, privacy, The Internet
