So says Dr. Wes, when he compares patient privacy in case reports in JAMA and NEJM with what’s going on in medical blogs:

While this concern is worthy of consideration, are we asking physician bloggers to uphold a double standard? While most physician bloggers I know are keenly aware of the perils of patient identity disclosure, it seems we must go to unprecedented lengths to conceal the identity of any case we discuss. This is in stark contrast to case reports discussed in prestigious medical journals like the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), which only requires that a release form be signed by an identifiable patient before publication.