Confidentiality is crucial in health care. The Doc Gurley blog complies with all HIPPA mandated guidelines for patient confidentiality, both in letter and spirit. Be sure that if there is a “patient” mentioned, any characteristics that could be identifying have been changed–age, gender, organ, personality, and, especially, nostril shape. So are we talking pure fiction here? Well, in many ways, yes. However, recurring issues and problems in health care are often swept under the carpet, and “confidentiality” has become an excuse in health writing for erasing all kinds of uncomfortable subjects (read: patient experiences).
Second, if you read anything in the Doc Gurley site that smacks of health care advice, be warned, this is a blog, not a visit to your doctor. A blog is not where you get a disease diagnosed or treated. If you’re worried about the difference, take the following Doc Gurley quiz:
1) Responds to questions about professional qualifications by becoming surly and insecure–
A) Doctor
B) Blog
2) Can put on a glove and give you a mumbled assessment of the surface quality of your prostate–
A) Doctor
B) Blog
3) Uses only the finest (and coldest) stethoscope in existence–
A) Doctor
B) Blog
4) Says “this might hurt a tiny bit” immediately prior to doing something under a paper sheet that feels like your spleen is coming unhinged–
A) Doctor
B) Blog
If you answered A to all four questions, congratulations! You win a free spleen unhinging, redeemable at your next primary care visit. Be healthy, be safe, be critical of distant, uninformed, one-way advice.