Joey: Over the line?! You-you’re-you’re so far past the line, that you-you can’t even see the line! The line is a dot to you!

I've been thinking about an article titled "Content of Weblogs Written by Health Professionals: More Bad than Good?", which I found via Medicine 2.0 (this week hosted by Monash Medical Student).

The article discusses good, bad and unethical blogs, as well as giving a few examples. It goes some way to commenting on what should and should not be included in Medical/Health blogs, and makes particular reference to disclaimers. It recommends the use of the following disclaimer;

This sparked three thoughts; firstly, as a Pharmacist, I'm officially a self-employed locum, with regular shifts. Technically, my boss is me. After reading a number of stories about this doctor or that nurse whom got the axe for saying something out of line on their blog, I was a wee bit disheartened. Being independent, I guess the worst thing I can do is really mess up my professional reputation, and have to go looking for work a couple of hundred km away. Hmmm.

Secondly, I consider one of the more unique points of this blog to be its dual nature; that is, student of one discipline whilst 'master' of another. I guess this can be a double edged sword; comments I make might be totally inappropriate for a physician to say, but on the other hand, an outspoken, somewhat cranky pharmacist can talk a lot of trash without copping any flak at all. Where does one draw the line between Practitioner and Student of similar fields?

Thirdly, the disclaimer makes no real statement about confidentiality. I reckon that's a big-ass mistake. Most of the good blogs I've read usually mention something along the lines that 'the patients mentioned within aren't real', or some such language. The best one though, took a few cases from throughout the week and mashed them all together, in order to emphatically illustrate their point. Kind of a 'worst case' scenario. I like that, and that's probably what I'll do.

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It's after 9.30pm, and I'm well into my 28th hour of work in two days. Tonight's 110km drive home will be at least an hour and a half. Longer if I stick to the speed limit. Buble is on the store stereo, "I wanna go hoooe-wooooome". He echoes my sentiments exactly; right down to the drawn out notes. Hmph.

Why do we do it to ourselves? It's crazy that I'm even considering bitching about this now, what with intern and residency yet to come. I'll be honest, usually the whole idea of trial by fire quite appeals to me. So does the notion that the more time you spend on the field, the more plays you see. But tonight, I'm tired and I'm not learning shit about shit. Plus, I just got threatened and busted a shoplifter inside the last hour.

Right then, home time. Pacific Highway, here I come...