So, yeah. That, apparently, is my new nickname on Labor and Delivery. Hurricane Whoo. Because it is more than just a "black cloud." Because just about every time that I happen to be on call, it's bound to be a sh*t storm. It has gotten to the point, so I am told, that the entire nursing staff offers up a collective groan when they hear that I am the physician on call. Yikes. They hasten to add that they still love me, though. HA! Apparently babies and pregnant ladies love me, too. A lot. The last weekend that I was on call, I delivered 12 babies admitted 2 more in labor before I was finished. It makes the time fly by too quickly, and I hate to find myself wishing my life away. To say that work has been busy would be an understatement, add to that increasing children activities (soccer! Daisies! tumbling!), the arrival of warmer weather, and the presence of a pool at our ready disposal, and my blogging has languished in the corner for more than two months with hardly a glance in its direction! Sorry about that. It's not you, it's me.
If you have been reading for a while, then you may know that my blog started as a primarily anonymous outlet (and boy, have I used it to vent!), save for a few people (Mr. Whoo and one friend who also happened to have an anonymous blog). Well, it so happens that those few people told a few more people, then I told a couple of people, and made a couple of bloggy friends, who were then my face.book friends and boom! Not so super-anonymous any more. This was not a big deal, as it was still mostly amongst my circle of friends, from whom I lived far, far away, and trusted to know me as the person behind the words. Then I moved, and I was closer to some friends, and those friends knew friends, and friends of friends, who also went to the practice where I am working. This is where I keep running into an ethical dilemma. Some people reading this blog know who I am, where I live, and where I work, but are not my close personal friends (friends of friends of friends). Given the atmosphere surrounding the Internet, face.book, and social media with respect to physicians in general, this makes me a bit edgy. Let's face it, I'm not the type to mince a lot of words on this blog, and this is who I am when I am being me. (Because this is my blog, dammit!) My professional persona is not nearly as raw. In fact, if you asked most of my patients, I do believe the word "sweet" would come up more than once. (STOP LAUGHING!! It's totally true!)
At any rate, now I am unsure of my reading audience, and I find myself trending more and more toward self-censorship, which I hate. I just keep wondering if the patient sitting across from me is wondering if I am filing her experience for a blog post for another day. I don't want this to interfere with my relationships with my patients. It was never meant to be a blog that my patients, who knew me as a professional, would read. Maybe that is narcissistic. For all I know, my patients could care less about my ramblings in cyberspace. Patient confidentiality has always been, and will always be protected. Any clinical scenarios that I post are altered from actual occurrences, I imagine I will be posting less of these in the future, as well. So, this blog will be evolving as I try to navigate this slippery slope. Bear with me, readers, and thanks for sticking with me this far...
