Comments on: When patients blog about doctors

By: DR. MARY JOHNSON

DR. MARY JOHNSON — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:53:00 +0000

I've unfortunately had to think about it a great deal . . . both as a doctor and a patient.

Sometimes the patients are right.

I don't believe legislation is necessary to address this "problem". Once a patient "violates" the privilege and starts talking openly, doctors do have the legal right to respond. Most don't.

Just like most doctors do not discuss a malpractice case once its resolved, and even if they "won".

And allow me to make the observation that the press is just lazy most of the time. They could get the patient making the allegations to sign a release for medical records (which, by my experience, doesn't generally tell the story the press is looking for anyway - medical mistakes often don't get a lot of detailed documentation).

By: Christine

Christine — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:38:00 +0000

I dunno, maybe cause they psychiatrist isn’t spilling their guts to the patient? C’mon folks.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:11:00 +0000

of course not, because Congress, in it’s desire to shield their members with STD’s, didn’t include that in HIPPA

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:01:00 +0000

boy this is an interesting post! Never really thought about this before....but...

How about some legislation that says IF a patient starts discussing in public their care, particularly if it happens to be disparaging of the care practitioners, that it implies consent for the care practitioners to respond in kind (i.e. public dissemination of information)?

Isn't there some precedent that allow for this?