ER Pocketbooks

ER Pocketbooks is a non-anonymous blog which posts clinical images. It’s the latest subject of the recent flurry of posts which relate, in one way or another, to the hazards of blogging. The site got the attention of KNSD, channels 7/39, San Diego which ran this: A North County emergency room doctor is generating controversy by posting X-rays and pictures of patients' injuries on his Web site, NBC 7/39 medical correspondent Peggy Pico reported.

Although a hospital where the blogger works as an emergency physician was concerned about how the images were obtained the KNSD report concludes there were no HIPPA violations since the images contained no patient identifying information.

The blogging fears that have been expressed recently have been all over the map, it seems to me, without a really consistent theme. After all, the individual blog shutdowns occurred for different reasons. That makes it difficult to know just what is the lesson of Black Wednesday.

At any rate, regardless of where one weighs in on the controversy, ER Pocketbooks looks like a site worth checking out for its educational value. Here, for example, he presents a well discussed and well referenced case of an underappreciated entity: Wellens syndrome.