Changing your professional name?

[Chimed]

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This might sound like a strange question, but I'm curious what others think of this...I've heard of a few incidents of psychiatric patients stocking their psychiatrists or psychologist by finding out where they live and/or getting their home phone number--probably off the internet. After thinking about ways to help avoid this in the future, I was wondering if one could use a different name with their patients without legally changing their own name. I would think an easy way to do this is by dropping their last name and only using their first and middle name. So instead of being "Dr. Chimed Clark Clapper" they could just tell their patients they are "Dr. Chimed Clark." Honestly, I don't think I would actually do this, but I was just curious if this was even possible given the legality of getting a medical license. Any thoughts?

 

[michaelrack]

I was wondering if one could use a different name with their patients without legally changing their own name. I would think an easy way to do this is by dropping their last name and only using their first and middle name. So instead of being "Dr. Chimed Clark Clapper" they could just tell their patients they are "Dr. Chimed Clark." Honestly, I don't think I would actually do this, but I was just curious if this was even possible given the legality of getting a medical license. Any thoughts?

not possible. Have you considered as an alternative solution using "Chimed Clark" as the name you list your phone under and "Chimed Clapper" as the name you give patients. In other words, it is far easier to use the wrong name for your phone than for you medical practice.

 

[diosa428]

If you get married after you get your license, and don't legally change your name, you could theoretically give your patients your maiden (legal) name, and have everyone else address you as your married name I guess. This probably really only works if you're female.

 

[Solideliquid]

LOL this is awesome!

Doc: "Hi, my name is Dr Jack Frost. And just so you know, that's my pen name. You know, in case you turn out to be a borderline cracker and try to figure out where I live."


Patient: *walks out of office*


LOL but on a serious note, a recently saw a patient for 50 minutes for a psychotherapy session, at the end when it became apparent I wasn't going to prescribe this person additional benzos I got hit in the head with the borderline stick *hard*. This followed some loud name calling of me in the waiting room. Needless to say, I really did look around for this patient when I walked to my car, in case he/she was out there trying to see what car I drive, etc.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Setting proper boundaries can takes care of the majority of cases, and for the other ones, if a person wants to find you....they will, which is why it is important to take proper precautions when working with more dangerous patient populations.

 

[Anasazi23]

There are so many reasons why this couldn't work, though I have heard this brought up by some of the more paranoid residents.

This would be headache beyond belief in terms of coordinating with pharmacies, renewing licenses, providing credentials, publishing if you're into that, state licensure lookup and physician information disclosure (required by law), DEA issues, etc. And, the forensic legal ramifications should a patient be injured seem astronomical.

It's not that bad. Many branches of medicine have this issue, and to a degree, it's part of the territory. Strong but professional boundaries will mean the difference.

 

[Doc Samson]

As above, if they want to find you, they'll find you. Take the basic steps (unlisted phone number, no photos of spouse/kids in the office, no facebook page, etc.) but don't obsess over it.

Interesting recent article in JAMA on this:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/conten...do&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

 

[Chimed]

This would be headache beyond belief in terms of coordinating with pharmacies, renewing licenses, providing credentials, publishing if you're into that, state licensure lookup and physician information disclosure (required by law), DEA issues, etc. And, the forensic legal ramifications should a patient be injured seem astronomical.

Yeah, I assumed this would be the major issue. I suppose I'm a little protective of my family...Maybe a bit paranoid, too? 😉

 

[Solideliquid]

no...facebook.....?


*noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo*

 

[whopper]

I've heard of a few incidents of psychiatric patients stocking their psychiatrists or psychologist by finding out where they live and/or getting their home phone number--probably off the internet

Well one of my patients grabbed me & stuffed me into a giant x-mas stocking. It was very traumatic.... (hey I make spelling errors all the time, that's why almost all my posts are edited).

Worst that ever happened to me was one of my patients who threatened to kill me, I saw him at a DVD store. Though when I saw him, he was cleared up & doing a lot better & nicely said hi to me. I still though had a cold sweat.

Someone I know, one of her patients did stalk her & followed her around. She had to confront him & ask him to stop it or she would have had to drop him as a patient. He complied, though for the few weeks this happened, this made her very uncomfortable. Suffice to say--this doc's pretty cute.

If you've ever had a phone, utility bill or pretty much anything that requires payment in your name (other than a credit card) there's a good chance your name (even if unlisted in the phone book) is listed on Zabasearch.com.

The good news is that most patients aren't computer savvy enough to figure that out.

The bad news is that pretty much all of you are on Zabasearch like it or not.

 

[Chimed]

Well one of my patients grabbed me & stuffed me into a giant x-mas stocking. It was very traumatic.... (hey I make spelling errors all the time, that's why almost all my posts are edited).

What makes you think it was an error? Being "stocked" is one of my worst fears!

(Oh well...I suppose I can't use the "Cut me some slack, I'm an intern" excuse anymore....😀)

 

[pingouin]

no...facebook.....?


*noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo*

One of my former therapy clients found my Facebook account while I was still seeing her, but my security settings are at their highest so all she could see was my name and photo (which is not of myself for this reason). She sent me a message saying how weird it was to see me on there and compared it to seeing a teacher outside of school. It was good therapy fodder for our next session as I inquired about what had led her to search for me. 😉

The weirder thing- that actually happened before that- was when I got a Facebook friend request from one of the psychiatrists who used to refer patients to me. Now THAT I didn't expect.

 

[marie337]

It was good therapy fodder for our next session as I inquired about what had led her to search for me. 😉

What did she have to say about it? Isn't it relatively common for patients of all types of physicians to be curious about their docs' lives? I used to work in a primary care office and patients would often inquire about the doc's new car, or say "I don't see his car out front, is he here?" I know this is different from the stalking that we're discussing, but these patients had obviously spent some time figuring out which car was the doctor's. Do psychotherapy patients frequently take this to the next level, i.e. searching for them online, facebook search, etc.?

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

If you work with teens, 'tweeners, college, and/or post college people....they will probably have the know how to try and track you down, which is why it is really important to be pro-active in these areas. I've had this happen before, and it offers a great inlet into a discussion on boundaries, the therapeutic relationship, etc. I tend to work from a pretty blank slate, so there is often an initial want for more information by the pt, and it offers a chance to talk about the therapeutic relationship, and how the focus is different than their other relationships in their lives.

 

[pingouin]

If you work with teens, 'tweeners, college, and/or post college people....they will probably have the know how to try and track you down, which is why it is really important to be pro-active in these areas. I've had this happen before, and it offers a great inlet into a discussion on boundaries, the therapeutic relationship, etc.

And that is exactly what happened. She's right in that 18-24 y/o age group and very into Facebook, MySpace, etc etc etc.

What did she have to say about it?

To preface, my practice group didn't have an office manager- we all did our own billing/scheduling/practice management. I found that I saved a lot of time/cell phone minutes by emailing people directions to my office (and initial paperwork), so many of my clients had my professional email address, including her.

Facebook allows you to run a search of your email address book(s) to connect up with people. My FB account is connected with my personal email address, and absolutely no link to the email that my clients have.

So what she TOLD me (initially) was that my name popped up when she was running an address book search. Which would be impossible. I confronted her on it, and she basically admitted what T4C said above- she was intrigued about who I am and my personal life and did a name search, and that she was somewhat disappointed but not surprised when she couldn't see anything. It never came up again after that.

 

[RaistlinMajere]

no...facebook.....?


*noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo*

You could just have a facebook profile that only your "friends" can see.

 

[Solideliquid]

Yeah, that's what I've done. My picture on the facebook looks very unlike, shall we say my professional persona. I doubt my patients will even recognize me 🙂