Dr. Cranquis' Mumbled Gripes
(Disclaimer: Questions related to medical topics will be answered to the best of Dr. Cranquis' (and Google's) knowledge, but the internet-delivered wisdom on this blog CAN NOT AND SHOULD NOT SUBSTITUTE for your Real-Life Doctor's personal attention + examination, and your own common sense too! If you think you're having a medical emergency, hang up and go email 911. The author of this blog takes no responsibility for any medical, relationship, scholastic, financial, or other decisions you may make based on information found in this blog.)
And since people seem to be a bit confused about this: any "real-sounding" patients names are just horrible puns, and not HIPAA violations.
I know more than a few people who need to have this pressed against their face until they somehow absorb it by osmosis.
Or until the noise stops.
Before you get your jimmies rustled over the condensed message in the image, I’d suggest heading over to the link and reading the entire article.
Good stuff.
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(via klbyrd)
In this episode, we will be exploring social media use in the medical community and its impact on the profession. It is an unlikely mix that has many physicians struggling to understand where the boundaries of use are. We sit down with Dr. Cranquis, a pseudonymous urgent care physician currently practicing in the United States to talk about his experiences with social media.
Hey, what’s this? A 20-minute radio interview with yours truly? (As part of a 30-minute program by HealthOnTheHill, an episodic project by medical students of the Northern Medical Program.) Enjoy!
Doctor experiences first-hand the useful side of consulting Dr. Google.
Cranquis: Well that tiny slightly-tender scabbed area in your groin, which is “already much smaller than it was yesterday”, looks like an ingrown hair to me, sir.
30-something Male Patient: No, I disagree.
Cranquis: What do you think it is?
Patient: Syphilis.
Cranquis: Um, you said it only shows up after you shave your groin hair, about once every 6 months, and then goes away after 2 days. That doesn’t sound like any syphilis chancre I’ve ever heard of.
Patient: No, I looked it up online, and I think it’s syphilis. Plus I’ve noticed that my brain doesn’t work well sometimes, and that happens with syphilis too, right?
Cranquis (ignoring that too-easy opportunity for a sarcastic comment a la House): So you’re saying you have a syphilis chancre that goes away 2 days after it shows up, without any medication?
Patient: Well, I have a strong immune system, so I probably cure it on my own.
Cranquis (struggling not to cry or laugh at this point): Ok, let’s cut to the chase — did you just come in to get tested for syphilis today? Because I’m happy to order that lab test.
Patient: Oh, I don’t know, how much does that test cost? Cuz I can get tested online for $80 and I don’t have health insurance.
Cranquis: Way more than $80.
Patient: I’ll just come back some other time.
Cranquis: I’m so glad I could help you today.
But to debate whether patients should or should not Google their symptoms (which a surprising number of doctors seem to enjoy engaging in) is an absurd exercise. Patients already are doing it, it is now a fact of normal patient behavior, and it will only increase as Internet technology becomes ever more ubiquitous. The average Joe has more health information at his fingertips — both credible and charlatan — than all the medical libraries ever built put together. So the real question is, What can professionals do to translate this phenomenon into better health for their patients and the public?
Another article related to “Googler” patients (this one in a more positive light compared to the previous article I posted), with some concrete suggestions (and accompanying links) on how doctors and patients can use the internet in a mutually-beneficial way.
There’s so much information (as well as misinformation) in medicine — and, yes, a lot of it can be Googled — that one major responsibility of an expert is to know what to ignore.
Great article about an orthopedist’s over-informed patient, and the way that doctors have to adjust their communication styles for “Googlers”.
![ANONYMITY FOR MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS
Hi Dr. Cranquis,
I’m going to be a medical student next fall and would also like to keep my blog running. What are the advantages of anonymity on the internet for doctors and what information is best kept private as possible? Are there specific issues I should think about if I do decide to tell readers about my identity?
Thank you!
First of all, surfnrunnr, bravo to you for being one of that Next Fresh Generation of Med Students: an internet-savvy web-friendly social-media-using boundary-pushing future physician. We (the current stale and moldy healthcare system) need as many of you as we can get!
Your timing for this question is quite appropriate, since I’ve just been having a small conversation with Tom (the 2nd-year med student who writes Medical State of Mind) about this very issue, and he’s written a few posts about it himself lately. You might want to ask him your question, from the point of view of “If you could ‘start over’ with your med-student blog, would you have kept your blog identified, or do you wish it was anonymous?” (I know he’s mentioned that his med school gave some vague advice/warnings about “being a med-student and a blogger” during his freshman orientation.)
I think anonymity for (present or future) “internet doctors” helps protect your “real-life” reputation. As I’ve mentioned before, for a doctor, reputation is everything. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are at your field — if your patients start hearing “bad” rumors about you, it’ll affect your bottom line. Even something as truly innocuous as a doc’s “HIPAA-compliant anonymous mumbled gripes” blog (or a blog you wrote BEFORE you became a doctor, on topics which have nothing to do with patient care) can be held up by employers or patients as “proof” that the doctor “doesn’t value patient-care or “doesn’t live up to [someone’s subjective] standards of being a physician” — and regardless of the truth, that claim would cause at least SOME patients to seek care elsewhere, or could even jeopardize your job.
Personally, even though I believe that I am an excellent physician and take my patient-care responsibilities seriously, I’ve chosen to keep a few things secret about myself: name, specific geographic location of my job, and details about my education/training (med school, residency, etc). Along with helping protect me and my job, my anonymity also makes it SO much easier to protect my patients’ privacy. If people knew my name and location of practice, it would be harder to keep patients’ identities secret/HIPAA-compliant.
Finally, writing this blog anonymously provides an extra layer of space between myself and my readers, which makes me more comfortable with providing public replies to questions about medical topics. I try to avoid the appearance of “establishing a doctor-patient relationship” on this blog, and I also don’t want to tread on any (lawsuit-happy) toes by appearing to be “practicing medicine outside of my state of licensure.” The entire field of “being an educated medical professional discussing medical information with complete strangers over the internet” is still filled with rocks and mines (when it comes to the opinions of the medical and legal status quo), so I’m treading carefully.
I hope my experiences help you make a decision as you proceed. Good luck with school!
***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 8; Inbox: Closed***](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lw7kkzGovc1qcw86wo1_500.jpg)
ANONYMITY FOR MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS
Hi Dr. Cranquis,
I’m going to be a medical student next fall and would also like to keep my blog running. What are the advantages of anonymity on the internet for doctors and what information is best kept private as possible? Are there specific issues I should think about if I do decide to tell readers about my identity?
Thank you!
First of all, surfnrunnr, bravo to you for being one of that Next Fresh Generation of Med Students: an internet-savvy web-friendly social-media-using boundary-pushing future physician. We (the current stale and moldy healthcare system) need as many of you as we can get!
Your timing for this question is quite appropriate, since I’ve just been having a small conversation with Tom (the 2nd-year med student who writes Medical State of Mind) about this very issue, and he’s written a few posts about it himself lately. You might want to ask him your question, from the point of view of “If you could ‘start over’ with your med-student blog, would you have kept your blog identified, or do you wish it was anonymous?” (I know he’s mentioned that his med school gave some vague advice/warnings about “being a med-student and a blogger” during his freshman orientation.)
I think anonymity for (present or future) “internet doctors” helps protect your “real-life” reputation. As I’ve mentioned before, for a doctor, reputation is everything. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are at your field — if your patients start hearing “bad” rumors about you, it’ll affect your bottom line. Even something as truly innocuous as a doc’s “HIPAA-compliant anonymous mumbled gripes” blog (or a blog you wrote BEFORE you became a doctor, on topics which have nothing to do with patient care) can be held up by employers or patients as “proof” that the doctor “doesn’t value patient-care or “doesn’t live up to [someone’s subjective] standards of being a physician” — and regardless of the truth, that claim would cause at least SOME patients to seek care elsewhere, or could even jeopardize your job.
Personally, even though I believe that I am an excellent physician and take my patient-care responsibilities seriously, I’ve chosen to keep a few things secret about myself: name, specific geographic location of my job, and details about my education/training (med school, residency, etc). Along with helping protect me and my job, my anonymity also makes it SO much easier to protect my patients’ privacy. If people knew my name and location of practice, it would be harder to keep patients’ identities secret/HIPAA-compliant.
Finally, writing this blog anonymously provides an extra layer of space between myself and my readers, which makes me more comfortable with providing public replies to questions about medical topics. I try to avoid the appearance of “establishing a doctor-patient relationship” on this blog, and I also don’t want to tread on any (lawsuit-happy) toes by appearing to be “practicing medicine outside of my state of licensure.” The entire field of “being an educated medical professional discussing medical information with complete strangers over the internet” is still filled with rocks and mines (when it comes to the opinions of the medical and legal status quo), so I’m treading carefully.
I hope my experiences help you make a decision as you proceed. Good luck with school!
***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 8; Inbox: Closed***
I just realized, I could’ve made a killing with this blog if I’d pseudo-named myself “Dr. Webb, MD.” DANGIT. :)
(via adenosinetriesphosphate)
thatonewannabechef reblogged your chat: TSK: OH NO, MONO?
it’s only helpful when the person looking through it doesn’t get hysterical XD
Yeah, I think that any Google search for medical symptoms should force a “signs of hypochondriasis” page to the top of the results list. >:E
(And 2nd place should be MY blog, of course). :)
- Cranquis: So how can I help you today?
- 18-year-old female patient: Well, I have a sore throat and, uh...
- Cranquis: And?
- Patient: *bursting into tears* I THINK I HAVE MONO!
- Cranquis: *nudging Kleenex box in her direction* Why do you think that?
- Patient: *all in one breath* Well because I woke up today, and I had this sore throat, and then I looked it up on the internet, and they were saying that if you have mono you'll be feeling really fatigued, and I didn't know what fatigue WAS, but when I looked THAT up, it said 'feeling tired and weak' and I've been feeling like that ever since yesterday, only maybe that's because I was out at a party until 1 am, and they said my spleen might be enlarged, and I don't even know what the spleen IS, and I think I have mono!
- Cranquis: Well-l-l, it's possible. But it could just be a common cold virus, or it could be strep bacteria, too.
- Patient: But I have ALL the symptoms of mono. I have sore throat and I'm tired!
- Cranquis: *mumbling under my breath* Some days, I really HATE WebMD.
The internet is great for research and general knowledge when it comes to health, but don’t forget that webMD shows you the worst case (and every case) scenario when it comes to a headache. Don’t forget that the blog you read, unless they are citing sources, cannot diagnose you or give accurate medical advice tailored to your body. I have said this before and I will continue to say it again and again: the internet cannot take the place of a physician’s opinion or advice and pseudoscience is not welcome here.
As I always say: The only doctor you should rely on is a doctor you can smell. :)
The next evolution of WebMD. #MLIMS
So… I could save myself a lot of blogging time if I just reply “Differential: Stress, Virus, Cancer” to all my Cranquis-Mails? ;)
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