HIPAA and me

Cross posted from The Weekend Scrub.

So there is this law that says that we medical folk can't divulge patient's medical information without a good reason. We also can't act on it for any reason other than to treat or aid the treatment of the patient. The rules are so strict that if I saw my mother's name on the surgery schedule, I couldn't go and see her after surgery unless I also got the information from a non-hospital source. HIPAA can cause some problems for bloggers, as the best stories involve patient information. I feel that on this blog I am abiding by these rules in the following ways.

I, of course, never use patient names. I don't use my name or the name of my hospital. I don't even explicitly name the city where my hospital is located, although it probably isn't difficult to figure out. However given my other interests, as seen on my other blogs, anyone who knows me would recognize me here. I am the only scrub in my town, who works the weekend shift, with my set of interests. I have a limited set of patients, so it theoretically may be possible to figure out which patient I am talking about. I doubt anyone will actually go to the trouble to figure out which town I work in, then who I am, and therefore which hospital I work at, and then connect my patients with a blog post. It could be done, but only by someone who has access to my hospital's records, and who knows me. Still I protect myself further by lying. When I say "this weekend", I mean, "sometime in the last 19 years". I can and will change the nature of a patient's injuries, disease or treatment in ways that don't change the core of the story. If I can, I might even change the patient's gender. In other words, this isn't the patient you're looking for. Go away.

Blogging

I haven't written much lately, but I think I'm going to be getting back to blogging on a regular basis. I've been inspired, at least in part by my brother's pledge to post at least once a day. So far he has kept it up, and I'm going to try to at least once a day on my days home. I have some specialized interests and will be running separate blogs on those interests, while continuing to cross-post here. I have been posting all of my medieval stuff at Monstrous Beauty, which I am reviving after a six-month lapse in posting. I have done a couple of posts on Tulsa's architecture history. I have cross posted them to the newly created Tulsa Architectural History, where I intend to write more regularly. I work as a scrub tech and have blogged on my work life, I have cross-posted those posts to The Weekend Scrub, where I will continue to thrill the world with inner workings of the OR. I have had a fitful music blog, where I comment on pieces of music that I like at Dafydd's Random Music. I will continue to post there, but am going to start cross posting those things here. So if you are primarily interested in Medieval Art, Tulsa history, Surgical Technology, or Random Music, it might be easier for you to follow those blogs. If you are interested in my Random musings on all of those things and more you should stay here. All three of you.

The irony of the internet.

On my music blog, I posted about a couple songs on shipwrecks, specifically "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot and the "The Sinking of the Reuben James" by Woody Guthrie. In light of the "What were their names, What were their names" chorus of the "Reuben James", I initially wanted to include list of the names of the men lost on both ships. However, a Google search failed to turn a list of the names of the men lost on the Reuben James, but it did turn up a list of the names of the men on U-Boat 552, the German submarine that sank the USS Reuben James.

Hot chicks with guns

One of the medical blogs I read, M.D.O.D. is written by several ER docs. One of them is vacationing in Israel. He seems to be have made a hobby of taking pictures of attractive young female IDF members and including the pictures in his blog entries. Just because. He doesn't really talk about them, he just puts the pictures in.

Yet another blog.

I started yet another blog. This one is basically masturbatory exercise. (Not that any other blog isn't). This one will consist of links to and my commentary on music I like for various reasons. I don't expect anyone to be too interested. It is over there.

Scrub tech blog?

It seems that scrub techs don't blog much about their jobs. There are several emergency room and ambulance people blogging, but I have yet to find a single scrub tech blogging about the job. There are scrub techs with blogs, but they seem to all be for sharing family pictures and stories. I guess this is because the job doesn't provide the same number of interactions with a wide variety of people. I really big case will have maybe six or seven people in the room plus the (unconscious) patient, and will last for several hours. The average ER person will see dozens of people in that time. Just more opportunity I guess to have those unusual experiences.

Schizophrenia

Taking a cue from my brother, I have sort of split up this blog. I have copied all of my medieval art posts over to a new blog, Monstrous Beauty. Although I will be posting all of my medieval stuff there, I will also post it here, so if you are interested in finding out what birds I've seen lately and whatever manuscript takes my fancy you can read here. If you are only interested in the art, you can stay over there. I expect I will split out the birds also. I also will be starting a blog on Oklahoma architecture and history and another on political rants. Again if you want the full experience, stay here. There will be material here that won't be found elsewhere.

On the new blog, I intend to discuss not only manuscripts, but the whole range of medieval art. I reserve the right to define "medieval" and "art" however the hell I wish. I also hope to be able to point to other resources on medieval art. On the name, Monstrous Beauty, it comes from Bernard of Clairvaux, who when discussing (and denouncing) the Romanesque art that decorated the churches of his day railed against the "beautiful monstrosities and monstrous beauties" he found. I like Romanesque art, and the term "Monstrous Beauty" is indeed a great description of it.

To start

So how does one start a blog? I'm not talking about the mechanics, but the actually writing. What should be the content of the first post? This question has actually delayed my starting this, or any other blog, for some time. However, an old friend recently started blogging, and that was my kick in the pants to do something. I think I will take some comfort in the idea that in all probability no one is actually reading this.

Today we decided to go do a little nature hike at the Oxley Nature Center in Tulsa. Got everyone into the car bright and early, about noon. Drove down to Tulsa. It seems that trails are closed because they are still blocked by limbs from the ice storm last month and branches are still falling. Sigh. Plan B, we'd go to Gilcrease, see some good art, read the copy of the Declaration of Independence. Sophie could commune with Moran's Shoshone Falls. Museums are closed on Monday. Sigh. We ended up getting fabric for Sophia's Easter dress. Perhaps next time.