Confidentiality Sucks

I hate confidentiality.

No, I don't mean I disrespect or disregard the value of confidentiality. What I mean is, I hate having to keep a secret.

Some people are good at keeping secrets. Some people even enjoy keeping secrets - they are proud that they are being great confidants, and that they hold the key to the secret corner of many a heart. Derived from this is a sense of importance which confers immense emotional gratification in many people.

Despite all that, I hate to keep a secret.

It's not like I am not a nosey person (I am); but after knowing some secrets, it's really hard to pretend that I don't know about it. You see, the love of sharing flows in my vein - I love to share things like stories, knowledge, tips etc - but keeping a secret is the very opposite of what I love to do. Keeping things to myself is painful. I still keep secrets though, but it is excruciating.

Today, I am starting to feel the challenge I face as I am more exposed to the clinical environment. All patients' identities are to be kept strictly confidential. I can't tell you about the identity of any single patient, regardless of how interesting they are.

For example, today I saw an interesting guy who used to work for an international bigwig; but heck, I can't tell you more lest you find out that this particular guy has done a colonoscopy today. The only things I can tell you are:

A 70-year-old man came in for a colonoscopy procedure, and the investigation showed that he had a normal bowel.

That sucks (for me).


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