Blog with Care

Ken Margolin

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A great front page article in today's Boston Globe, told of a doctor on trial for medical malpractice, who used his blog site to comment on the ongoing trial. The doctor's blog name was "flea." The case against him was serious, alleging that his negligent failure to diagnose diabetes, resulted in the death of a 12 year old girl, from diabetic shock. The free-blogging doctor had been commenting harshly on the plaintiff's attorney, claiming that some jurors occasionally dozed during testimony, and regaling the blogosphere with the excellence of the consultant who trained him on how to answer questions to win over the jury. Somehow, the plaintiff's lawyer discovered the blog site, and at the end of the day, asked the defendant, on cross-examination, "are you `flea?'" After the doctor acknowledged his blogging identity, the day ended. The case settled before any more testimony was taken. Apparently, the defense didn't want to risk testing how much of the defendant's blog writings could be used on further cross-examination. To paraphrase the words of the Dierks Bently country and western song, "I know what he was feeling, but what was he thinking?"