Just another week in the Australasian medical blogosphere…
No.
This week Ian Miller’s blog impactednurse.com along with his twitter account and Facebook page have been removed as a result of ‘issues’ with his employer (The Canberra Hospital).
The impactednurse blog attracted more than 2000 subscribers worldwide and was universally praised for its informative advice to the nursing profession and for its skilled and compassionate attitude to the profession – The RiotACT
Just as it looked like we are getting somewhere in Australia with regards to open source medical resources, online contextual learning, integrated commentary and the interaction of healthcare professionals online…another speed bump arises
Ian certainly cut to the quick on a number of issues, but maintained a high degree of professionalism throughout his medical blogging career. His blog was not anonymous; his picture clearly visible; his clinical cases were HIPAA compliant, and the department at which he worked was aware of his medical blog and his association clearly documented.
“For the record: I was not ‘forced’ to close down ImpactedNurse. But it did become a very wise thing to do…” – Ian Miller 08/2011
This event raises two major questions, firstly why have we seen the overnight dissolution of such a high-profile and Internationally recognized blog? and secondly – where can I continue to get my daily fix of ImpactedNurse?
Firstly, this latest ‘self-imposed exile’ raises significant questions.
- What were the ‘issues‘ that caused such concern?
- How can the
dwindlingremaining band of committed ANZ healthcare bloggers review their blogging practices to comply with their employers wishes?- Should healthcare professionals be blogging at all?
- Should we just ban all social media interaction for healthcare professionals?
- Should we procrastinate, evaluate and then obstinate through validated research?
- …or should we just get on with it – explore this new media, malleate the boundaries and find our feet through trial and error rather than be bound by officious bureaucrats
..or maybe Australian hospitals should take the cover-all-bases approach…
NO SOCIAL NETWORKING EVER, YOU KIDS DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU AND WE DON’T TRUST YOU ANYWAY SO SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP AND READ YOUR DAMN SYLLABUS [Michelle Au]
…and finally - fear ye not there are still three ways for readers to get their daily fix of Ian Miller and his inimitable blogging style.
1) PANDORA - Australians National Web Archive. They deemed ImapctedNurse to be of national significance and as such have retained a permanent archive of every blog post, including the more controversial offerings such as “things I have found in folds of fat”. Here is the link to the entire Impacted Nurse PANDORA archive.
2) Fans of ImpactED nurse can still maintain their fix with a selection of short PDF booklets still available:
- How to be a nurse.
- Emergency nursing unscrewed.
- The Back Passage.
- Hardcore Nursing.
3) Ian is still blogging (though in a non-medical way) over at WobbleWax.com
“At risk of getting all glum and gloomy, I think the best thing to do is to crack on and keep writing.”
and, if you like a good fight….the debate looks likely to continue
“To those who have in the past made defamatory, and derogatory comments about my professionalism or capability as a nurse from behind their shields of anonymity, I invite you to step out of the shadows and repeat them” – Ian Miller 08/2011
About Mike Cadogan
Really disappointed about this. impactednurse is one of the few emergency nursing blogs that remained respectful to patients and encouraged professional development among nurses. It had great resources for students and graduates. I would be very interested to know what issues there may have been.
The thing is I always viewed the ANZ system to be less stuffy and bureaucracy ridden than their US/UK counterparts! It is just sad that IM had to take his entire online persona down…
I’m devastated my favourite Australian nursing blog had to shut down. Apart from the excellent clinical information it was Ian’s considered reflections on the art of nursing and male perspective that kept me coming back.
I’ve been looking through the site on the Pandora Archive and I can’t see what’s wound up the hospital to the extent of shutting him down -- was it the nurse staffing ratio discussion?
I dearly miss Ian’s insight, blog, humor & discussions! I am an RN & an NP student in the US and his posts/blog were a highlight of my online reading. Hope to see him back sometime. Thanks for the update, Mike.
Ian, Keep up the fight… Thank you for all of your hard work. You will be dearly missed.
I used to work with Ian many moons ago and his work inspired me to start my own student nursing focused blog -- Bed15 (search on facebook if you’re keen to see). I’m a final year student nurse right at the start of a career and wanted to help share experiences between students and graduates.
Since I started, I’ve been buffetted with emails telling me to ‘be careful’ with my writing, one anonymous contributed even recommending I avoid future issues by just stopping now. I never mention the names of my employers or educational institution, patient names or other privacy data and I still cop this.
What more can healthcare bloggers do??