I was updating the blog postings on Flea’s outing, and was stunned at how many there are…and they continue to pour in and are now expanding beyond the legal and medical blogospheres.
But this particular posting is important for Flea, if he or his friends are reading this: Blog Scandal Hits Home
When I got home I found an email from a friend requesting an urgent referral to a new pediatrician. I emailed back and said, oh, so-and-so loves her pediatrician, ask her. My friend then replied, yeah, so-and-so has the SAME one and is also looking for a new one – see sordid story on front page of Boston Globe. So I read the story, and there was that blogger scandal again. I couldn’t believe it – a Law and Order type of story in my friends’ lives…
…Judging from my friends’ responses, I imagine his entire practice scurrying to jump ship. It’s scary to think that someone who had some good qualities as a clinician, judging from what my friends told me, and from some stuff he has written for his practice’s website, might have his career ruined by poor judgment (or perhaps hubris? or a false sense of security behind a pseudonym?) about where and how to vent his frustrations / indignation / contempt / stress.
With the Globe’s decision to blast Flea’s name on the front page, Flea has, as I see it, two choices as his practice that will no doubt undergo a substantial drop-off in the coming months:
1. Crawl under a rock and hide;
2. Find a good crisis manager to help go public by saying:
- It was really stupid to blog this stuff in real time;
- I should not have let my distress at being sued get the better of me in my writings;
- This was a tragic case that not only devastated the parents of the child, but has caused me endless sleepless nights due to the death of a patient. But it settled due to my blogging and not my medical conduct;
- Do not say anything that, in any way, requires a response from the parents;
- Read Kevin, M.D.’s post on the importantance of your Google reputation, and start a plan to take back your name so that this story doesn’t pop up on the first page of Google three years from now when new patients pop your name into the search box.