Category Archives: Blogging

 

June 1st, 2007

Flea and Crisis Management


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.

 

May 31st, 2007

More on Doctor "Flea" Being Outed On The Witness Stand


The outing of Flea’s real identity in the Boston Globe is now generating an immense amount of comment in the blogosphere. (For those new to the story, see Doctor “Flea” Settles Malpractice Suit After Blog Exposed In Court): So I’d like to add a few additional observations and links:

First, I learned of Flea’s outing yesterday when Jonathan Saltzman of The Boston Globe called me for comment. To say I was stunned would be an understatement. While I had discussed the risks of his posting confidential trial prep work back on May 8th, I told Saltzman I was surprised to see it actually happen.

Second, I wrote this morning’s lengthy post last night, and then held it for today, since the story belonged to the Globe, and not me.

Third, I picked up a hard copy of the Globe. The story is front page, above the fold. Which is to say, his patients and colleagues will all see it.

Fourth, the Globe story said the outing was on May 14th, and the settlement was the 15th. Flea took down his blog in totality on the 16th. So the blog came down after it was all over.

Fifth, while I hadn’t appreciated it before, the Flea photo from his blog (with guitar, above) is apparently that of the musician by the same name. (Hat tip to Michael Grant.)

Addendum — Sixth, Saltzman informed me during our conversation yesterday that Flea’s attorneys were unaware of the blog, which means of course, that Flea didn’t tell them and he wasn’t prepped by his attorneys on the subject on how to deal with it if it should come up.

Below are some of the medical and legal blogs that have already picked up various parts of this story today:

There will be others and I will try to update later…

More:

Somehow, I don’t think we have seen the end of this…

Addendum 6/1/07 — More:

Addendum 6/4/07 — More:

Last Addendum: After interviewing plaintiff’s counsel, I wrote three more posts on the subject:

 

May 31st, 2007

Doctor "Flea" Settles Malpractice Suit After Blog Exposed In Court

A Boston pediatrician blogging under the pseudonym Flea has been outed. It happened in court. During cross-examination. On his own medical malpractice trial. And now it is the top story in the Boston Globe.

Flea had written several posts about the upcoming trial, a wrongful death case involving a child. In the process he discussed his private prep sessions with his attorney, explaining how he had been coached to answer questions to be appealing to the jury, how he had been videotaped, and what materials his lawyers told him to read.

After seeing this, I wrote of the extraordinary risks of such disclosures, even under cover of pseudonymity. (See, Medical Malpractice Trial Starting For Med-Blogger.) The issues I raised, in the event plaintiffs’ counsel discovered his blog, ran to the risks of losing his attorney-client privilege for all such communications. If this happened, he could be cross-examined on how he was coached by his defense team to act in front of the jury and the advice they gave him. He also ran he risk of his own insurance carrier trying to disclaim coverage if it thought he was hindering the defense.

Shortly after, he took down three blog postings (Med-Blogger, On Trial For Malpractice, Takes Down Trial Posts), asserting he was superstitious and didn’t want to jinx things that were going well. Then he took down the entire blog, without explanation (Med-Blogger Flea, Previously Live-Blogging His Trial, Takes Down Entire Site).

Dozens of medical and legal bloggers had commented on the live-blogging of the trial, as well as the subsequent, unexplained disappearance of the popular, award-winning doctor-writer.

Well, as revealed in today’s Boston Globe, it appears that plaintiff’s counsel did find out about the blog. And at the end of the day when Flea was on the witness stand in “a Perry Mason moment,” the questions came:

Do you have a medical blog?
Are you Flea?

As per the Boston Globe article, court adjourned for the day, and the case quickly settled.

Why did he do it? While I don’t know Flea, and have no connection to him other than these postings, my best guess was this: He loved writing and this was great material. The subject was, simply put, irresistible. I know that I found his activity fascinating, not only for its raw content, but also for the walking-a-high-wire-without-a-net danger of what he was doing. As seen in the links below, I clearly wasn’t the only one rubbernecking.

How many people took note of this ongoing saga? These links help tell the tale (and there are others), both for the uniqueness of a doctor live-blogging his own malpractice trial and also due to the huge popularity of the blogger:

Finally, this case was a tragedy for two parents, and a nightmare for a doctor. If the parents had lost the trial, it would have added yet another layer of extraordinary emotional trauma. If Flea lost, it would no doubt have been emotionally difficult for him. A settlement allows each to move on with their lives without the additional fallout of a jury’s verdict. The parents might feel they had their day in court and that the settlement was based on the merits, while Flea might feel it was based on his own carelessness with his writing and the concerns a jury might not like the way his legal team was trying to manipulate the jury. Neither won and neither lost. And sometimes that is all for the best.

Addendum: Here is a cached version of Flea’s old site before it was taken down. (Hat tip to Hub Blog)

2nd Addendum: More on Doctor “Flea” Being Outed On The Witness Stand

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York)

 

May 24th, 2007

Avandia Attorneys, Blogging and Google

While doing some quick research on lawyer’s pay-per-click ads for “Avandia Attorneys” I noticed something odd:

My own post from yesterday on the subject came up on Google’s first page of its natural search.

Now my office isn’t looking to handle such cases, but if my modest little posting appears there it certainly speaks to the enormous marketing potential of these forums. This is a good example of a subject Kevin O’Keefe writes of often.

 

May 16th, 2007

Med-Blogger Flea, Previously Live-Blogging His Trial, Takes Down Entire Site


Pediatrician and med-blogger Flea, who had been chronicling his own medical malpractice trial regarding the death of an infant, has apparently taken down his site. Not just a few posts as he did last week, but the whole thing. My initial thoughts on the risks of his losing the privileged nature of his contact with his attorneys and the risks to his own insurance coverage if his pseudonymous identity were revealed, were first published in Medical Malpractice Trial Starting For Med-Blogger. He was believed to be the first person to live-blog his own trial.

Best guess from here? He told his attorneys what he was doing and their heads exploded due to the risks I had discussed. But win, lose or settle, I think we’ll see his award-winning blog reappear when the litigation is over.

On a side note, posts can still be seen in my RSS reader, probably due to his having deleted them instead of “modifying” them. Had he modified (by simply by substituting anything else), I think that all RSS readers and caches would then have been updated to show only the new content. Something to think about if any of us wants to delete a post for any reason.

Addendum 5/31/07 – Doctor “Flea” Settles Malpractice Suit After Blog Exposed In Court