On Anonymity

I thought this was so glaringly obvious that it without saying, but apparently it was not.

Confidentiality is not quite the same in veterinary medicine as in human medicine -- we don't have HIPAA, etc. Nevertheless, clients are still entitled to protection of their privacy. Which is one reason I've kept this blog semi-anonymous. I'm not under any illusions of total anonymity (I think it would be naive to believe that anything you post on the internet is going to be completely anonymous) and I know for a fact that several people I know IRL read this blog and know who I am. And that's fine; I prefer to keep my name and location off the blog but I'm not saying anything scandalous, or even anything of much interest to anyone who's not a vet student or dog lover. Google Analytics tells me exactly how big my readership is, and where everyone's coming from, and believe me -- I'm not getting offered corporate sponsorship anytime soon. :) But if you really wanted to figure out who I am (for whatever odd reason you cared), it wouldn't be all that hard.

The primary reason I write the blog is so that *I* have a record of what vet school was like, since it has occupied most of my time and attention for the past 3.5 years. I already have only vague memories of first and second year, and it's fun to go back and read about what I was doing way back then. :) When I look back at first year, I think about being in the Anatomy lab, and in the library. That's it. When I think about second year, I think about being in the library and the classroom. There was a lot more to it than that! But I wouldn't remember the details on my own. So, I'm happy to have this blog. And I've made some online buddies whom I enjoy staying in touch with, which is a nice perk. And, when I was applying to vet school and just starting the program, I was completely addicted to several vet student blogs, and in fact one of them (My Vet School Days) helped convince me to apply in the first place! So I'm happy when I can return the favor for another prospective applicant or new vet student.

Anyway, getting back to confidentiality, here's the thing. If you think I'm talking about your dog? I'm not. Pretty much the only thing I DON'T change about every patient I write about is their gender (since if I always changed that it would be the same as never changing it, being a binary variable). The name, breed, age, presenting complaint, etc all get changed. And if something is so extremely rare that I think the patient MIGHT be recognizable even with the details changed, I just don't talk about it. The cases that I specifically mention concern extremely common conditions that affect multiple breeds. Frequently they're not even individual cases, but composites of multiple patients I've worked with over the past several weeks (since I see a lot of the same things over and over and over again. I never thought I'd be so excited to see a cat with diarrhea, but I feel confident working up a diarrheic cat because I've seen at least 8 of them in the past 2 weeks! And that's fun. And endoscopy is really neat!!!).