Earlier this week, Stilton published a new edition of Good Medical Practice, the lance of many prongs which he and his goons use to skewer hapless doctors. Stilton’s premise is that doctors are a lawless reckless lot, and left to their own devices they will get up to all manner of mischief. From their hidden position behind the net curtains, Stilton’s goons have perceived a new mischief: the menace of doctors who appear incognito on social media. A prong – a somewhat bent prong, since most content on social media is publicly accessible – has been added to Stilton’s lance. New explanatory guidance alongside GMP warns: ‘If you identify yourself as a doctor in publicly accessible social media, you should also identify yourself by name’. Although framed as a ‘should’ rather than a ‘must’, this bent prong has its sights clearly set. For doctors foolish enough to carry on the anonymous caper, Stilton is coming to get you: ‘You should also be aware that content uploaded anonymously can, in many cases, be traced back to its point of origin’. Dr No is not entirely persuaded that GMC goons can trace their arses from their elbows, let alone trace Dr 212.58.244.70 through the complex web of shared internet service provision; but, be that as it may, anonymous medical bloggers are up in arms.
Month: March 2013
The Ghastly Passage
Without so much as a hint of irony, a character in one of Susan Howatch’s novels gives orders that under no circumstances should that ghastly passage by Scott Holland be read at her funeral. The ghastly passage is Death Is Nothing At All:
“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was.”