Confidentiality

I’d like to speak a bit on confidentiality. Confidentiality is incredibly important in my profession. Being sick is not something people like to be. Nobody is in their best frame of mind when they’re sick, and they often say or do things they regret. This includes doctors. Every doctor has their strengths and weaknesses and some of them cannot handle crashing patients. It’s not something that nurses talk about to make the patients or doctors embarrassed. We talk about it because we have to.  Call it venting, de-briefing, decompressing or just bitching.  

Walk through a hospital and listen closely, and you’ll hear patients being discussed everywhere. Elevators, cafeterias, hallways, even coffee shops close to the hospital. Nobody means to break confidentiality, and yet that is considered a breach.  Do you talk about your patients in the break room? Breach of confidentiality. Do you post a facebook status or twitter about your bad day because of a patient? That could be considered a break in confidentiality.

People have approached me about this blog, as they feel they know the situation I was describing, or they felt I was breaking confidence. In the situations where they felt they knew the patient/doctor/hospital I was speaking out, they did not. I change almost everything about the situation. I read and re-read the posts before I publish them, making sure that there are no identifying characteristics.
But, if you have a concern, e-mail me or contact me and I’ll be happy to discuss it with you.