Catching up, Part II

From my previously referenced post:

2. Why I have been radically paranoid about posting anything for the past 2-3 years:

Well, it has to do with my fear of getting in trouble with my employer or with coworkers. You see, I've tried pretty hard to keep my blog anonymous. I've changed the name of the people involved, hidden some patient information and even edited a few photos to remove identifying marks and such. So far, as a simple medic in the big pool of medics out there, it's been pretty effective.

Then I got a job teaching at a university.

The privacy laws there are pretty strong. Also, my school is pretty unique and, I imagined, it would be very easy to figure out who I was and where I was teaching if I was blogging about my experiences there. Which is too bad. There were a TON of funny stories that came out of the classroom, let me tell you. So, you can imagine that I'm already unsure whether I should blog about my experiences at the Alma Mater.  The job is time-consuming enough that I'm not getting out on an ambulance very much but I am teaching, guiding and, in some cases, precepting paramedic students who do. Lot's to write there, like I said.

Then one day, I'm walking down the hall from my office and one of my students walks by and says, "Hey there 'Maddog!'"

He doesn't use my name (Mr. So-and-so). He calls me Maddog. I don't go by that name on a regular basis and I require my students to always use title and last name when addressing anyone on the faculty and staff. Now I'm thinking, "Crap! One of my students is reading my blog!!!! ...and that means they probably are ALL reading it!!!"

This effectively shuts down any blogging I do about that job! It also tells me that I'm not nearly as clever as I think in regards to hiding my identity and such. Now I'm paranoid that everyone is reading what I've written and knows who I am and is furious with me! This paranoia extends to all areas where I'm working and has lingered with me for the past 2.5 years. Only now, with much to write about and the weight of this blog being 6 years old, am I working to overcome that and get more words out to you, my readers.

So, there you have it. I've had some sweet part time jobs in the interim, done some pretty neat calls at the volunteer house but, here again, I've been too paranoid to write about them. My intention when I started this blog was to keep the content focused around my experiences in EMS and related topics however, in the past two and a half years, I've been worried about violating privacy laws and offending people in my EMS world.

All of this leads me to the next item on my list:

3. A discussion about what I intend to do with this blog.

I still want this to be EMS related but, living in another country, there will be a bit more of the "personal crap about maddog" stuff in it. I've got a lot of content already from being here but not a lot of calls. I ran my first actual ambulance call just the other night and I've been here for almost two and a half months (yes, it's slow). Expect to see a comparisons of how EMS is delivered here vs the United States, a few stories about some cool calls and a bit of content about my travels outside work. I still need to work out how I'm going to write a lot of this and keep within the guidelines of my employer. You see, my employer is very clear about how quickly they will fire me if I break their rules of confidentiality and such. I like this job so far and I'm not keen on getting fired. We'll see how it works out.

I encourage my readers (if I have any left) to use the comments function and ask me questions. I'll write about what I think is interesting but let me know what you want to hear about. Thanks for reading!!

--maddog