Without evidence of benefit, an intervention should not be presumed to be beneficial or safe.

- Rogue Medic

Blogging and Anonymity

CCC – Captain Chair Confessions writes anonymously.[1] Is that bad?

Are we so incapable of assessing the content of the blog, that it only becomes relevant when we can attach a normal looking name to the blog, no matter how fictitious that name might be?

I don’t put my name on my blog.

Does that change the validity of the research I write about?

What about when I criticize someone? Is that criticism less valid than if I put a name on my blog?

I criticize some big companies. None of them have contacted me about any kind of libel suit, or any kind of slander suit for any of the podcasts I have been on.

My email is right there in the upper right of the blog. I have always has been.

People think that attaching a name to something gives it accountability.

Oprah Winfrey has made a career of giving a stage to frauds – Deepak Choprah, Jenny McCarthy – even Dr. Oz is promoting nonsense. There are plenty of others.

We know their names, but they are frauds.

Where is the accountability for all of the fraud that has come from her show?
 


 

Deepak Chopra is one of the highest paid entertainers in the US.

There is a lot of discussion of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. They use their names. Does anyone think that both of them are trustworthy?

What about Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh? They are both famous liars, who will distort anything to make a political point. Having their names on their lies doesn’t seem to encourage them to behave ethically.

Requiring a name on a blog is like requiring a medic to make the magic phone call to a medical command doctor. It has the appearance of making things better, but none of the substance.

This is a salve for the people who are not capable of determining what is real – people who think that a good argument for something is, What if somebody sues?

Does the blog identify an employer?

Does the blog portray that employer in a negative light?

Is the blog encouraging people to abuse patients?

There are many similar questions that may be asked.

There are a variety of ways of answering some of these questions.

The most important question is does this blog get me to think about what I do, so that I want to be better at patient care?

 

The problem is not anonymous blogging.

The problem is people who want to discourage views, but don’t have any valid criticism of those views.

Medicine and EMS are very traditional. We need to destroy those traditions and start doing what is best for the patients.

Organizations that harm patients in order to do what they think protects them from liability need to be criticized.

During the creation of the United States of America, there were plenty of discussions about the way the government should be set up. The Federalist Papers were written under the pseudonym Publius.[2] We still do not know who wrote some of the essays. The contrary position was taken in the Anti-Federalist Papers, written under the pseudonyms Cato, Brutus, Centinel, and Federal Farmer.[3]
 

If an anonymous blog is not good enough for you, buy some tissues and go whine somewhere else.
 

I am proud of my fellow anonymous and semi-anonymous, bloggers.

I am embarrassed by people incapable of substantive criticism, who resort to sniveling about anonymity.

It is not about agreement, or disagreement, but about getting ideas out there to move medicine, and EMS, forward.

By the way, I seem to have pointed out that anonymity is traditional. Darn, I wrote something positive about tradition.
 

Anonymity IS free speech.
 

Free speech is progress. Obstructing free speech is bad for patients.

Lead, follow, get out of the way, . . . .

Creative destruction is progress.[4] Without creative destruction we would not be communicating with computers (and your cellular phone is often a computer).

Footnotes:

[1] A blogger outed
Captain Chair Confessions
September 7, 2012
By the anonymous CCC
Article

[2] Federalist Papers
Wikipedia
Article

[3] Anti-Federalist Papers
Wikipedia
Article

[4] Creative destruction
Wikipedia
Article

.

Comments

  1. If my name was more known, I would certainly have less credibility, if I have any at all.

    You make very good points. i hope that I never speak too ill of my employer. I do actually enjoy working there, and they are a fantastic group of great people who are really motivated to provide quality care. Kind of like some bloggers out there.

    But I will be printing this article and stashing it in my bag in case I get outed to the bigwigs.

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