My favorite part of Midyear

[BenJammin]

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It used to be talking to residency programs and wasting their time. My preceptors in school used to hate people like me who would wait in line to talk to directors but have absolutely no interest in applying. I can't stand people with that kind of ego.

But something has changed.

My new favorite thing to do is locate the applicants to my hospital on Facebook. There's been this trend of students changing their names in anticipation of people like me but it never works. I won't share my secret but it's extremely easy to find you guys. You're not fooling anyone so instead of hiding behind a name, why don't you stop posting inflammatory content?

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

Post some redacted examples for our entertainment please

 

[Leper Messiah]

Dumbkids that don't remove their phone number?

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

Dumbkids that don't remove their phone number?

Google's crawlers don't update Facebook that often.

He's probably just googling name + school and finding posts they're tagged in

 

[PolarPop]

When I applied I deleted my facebook from December to March. Too many mutual friends in pharmacy, it's like one to two degrees of seperation all over the country.

 

[confettiflyer]

Pfff it's easy, if you change your name, likely your URL is still your name. So if you're John Smith, and your URL is johnsmith88, you can change your name to Jo Smth but your URL still stays the same.

Someone brought up google cache.

You can also just type the person's name in facebook and chances are some friend wrote their whole name in a searchable post. You go on the friend's page and look at their friends list and there you go. Same with other associations, chances are your applicant is in a "SOP c/o 2018" group or you can easily find one of their classmates/friends with no sense of privacy settings.

The somewhat smart applicants will deactivate their FB entirely so far ahead of time the google cache is blank/empty (or they've had good posting hygiene since the beginning).

The really smart applicants will present a curated version of themselves that supports the image they want to present.

I think if you go on my FB today as a public member all you see are New York Times and WSJ articles about healthcare and a few public check-ins at baseball games that essentially give you the vibe that "I'm a 50 year old white man on the inside."

 

[lord999]

Pfff it's easy, if you change your name, likely your URL is still your name. So if you're John Smith, and your URL is johnsmith88, you can change your name to Jo Smth but your URL still stays the same.

Someone brought up google cache.

You can also just type the person's name in facebook and chances are some friend wrote their whole name in a searchable post. You go on the friend's page and look at their friends list and there you go. Same with other associations, chances are your applicant is in a "SOP c/o 2018" group or you can easily find one of their classmates/friends with no sense of privacy settings.

The somewhat smart applicants will deactivate their FB entirely so far ahead of time the google cache is blank/empty (or they've had good posting hygiene since the beginning).

The really smart applicants will present a curated version of themselves that supports the image they want to present.

I think if you go on my FB today as a public member all you see are New York Times and WSJ articles about healthcare and a few public check-ins at baseball games that essentially give you the vibe that "I'm a 50 year old white man on the inside."

I just don't get why keeping a Facebook or an SDN account is so difficult and privacy invading. It's trivially easy to figure out who most of us are from the IP callback system (unless you are using a VPN and you are using a burner card and...). And which of us really use a system that isn't COFEE or Elcomsoft compatible to not figure out exactly what accounts and such are in that machine (hint, the Feds do know). There isn't any harm in them knowing who we are. Anyone who bothers with figuring out who I am can do so within probably fifteen minutes if they are amateurs and three if they are serious about it. Do any of us really think anything we do is even quasi-anonymous anymore? If you want to remain relatively anonymous, you should be like my parents who don't use the Internet at all (yes, they still send checks in the mail and go to the bank for transactions kind of primitive).

Take the Icelandic approach, everyone is related, so just be yourself. If you take yourself out of a job with your attitudes, consider it a good thing as you'd be outed sooner or later anyway to everyone's expense. Then again, I have no privacy working for the civil service anyway. Maybe people do have things to hide...

 

[ldiot]

Many of my classmates have changed their name 0n FB. Seems kind of dumb to be, then again I wouldn't be posting inflammatory things. Even if an employer doesn't see it you never know what nutcase classmate is going to report it to the school.

 

[lord999]

Many of my classmates have changed their name 0n FB. Seems kind of dumb to be, then again I wouldn't be posting inflammatory things. Even if an employer doesn't see it you never know what nutcase classmate is going to report it to the school.

This is sexist advice, but I actually say the following in class to everyone, especially women, that they need to get:
1. A nickname that goes off your middle name or some characteristic that you don't use outside of work.
2. Your nametag NOT having your real name or incomplete name but your actual profession (is legal even under Joint Commission rules and not illegal in AZ, MN, TX, or IL).
3. If married (and a woman), having your nametag read the name NOT used socially is preferable.

So someone like Maryann E.(lizabeth) Singleton (legal name) becomes Betsy Johnson (nickname plus maiden name). Many of our female psychiatrists in the VA are quietly given that advice as an antistalking measure with the patients.

Not the most PC advice ever, but I've had to deal (not just hear) with one too many close calls, unauthorized home visits by patients (I've had two in my career), and actual assaults that I now agree with that advice. My own license uses my work nickname and not my legal name nowadays (except CA, which doesn't permit that, bastards).

 

[ldiot]

This is sexist advice, but I actually say the following in class to everyone, especially women, that they need to get:
1. A nickname that goes off your middle name or some characteristic that you don't use outside of work.
2. Your nametag NOT having your real name or incomplete name but your actual profession (is legal even under Joint Commission rules and not illegal in AZ, MN, TX, or IL).
3. If married (and a woman), having your nametag read the name NOT used socially is preferable.

So someone like Maryann E.(lizabeth) Singleton (legal name) becomes Betsy Johnson (nickname plus maiden name). Many of our female psychiatrists in the VA are quietly given that advice as an antistalking measure with the patients.

Not the most PC advice ever, but I've had to deal (not just hear) with one too many close calls, unauthorized home visits by patients (I've had two in my career), and actual assaults that I now agree with that advice. My own license uses my work nickname and not my legal name nowadays (except CA, which doesn't permit that, bastards).

Yeah I was talking more along the lines of professionalism/how you look to an employer as opposed to threatening situations/patients stalking. In that case just them knowing your name is probably enough for them to get your address without even needing Facebook. Second amendment!

 

[BenJammin]

This is sexist advice, but I actually say the following in class to everyone, especially women, that they need to get:
1. A nickname that goes off your middle name or some characteristic that you don't use outside of work.
2. Your nametag NOT having your real name or incomplete name but your actual profession (is legal even under Joint Commission rules and not illegal in AZ, MN, TX, or IL).
3. If married (and a woman), having your nametag read the name NOT used socially is preferable.

So someone like Maryann E.(lizabeth) Singleton (legal name) becomes Betsy Johnson (nickname plus maiden name). Many of our female psychiatrists in the VA are quietly given that advice as an antistalking measure with the patients.

Not the most PC advice ever, but I've had to deal (not just hear) with one too many close calls, unauthorized home visits by patients (I've had two in my career), and actual assaults that I now agree with that advice. My own license uses my work nickname and not my legal name nowadays (except CA, which doesn't permit that, bastards).

I don't think your second point is correct. We've had to make changes to our techs name tags because the name on their license doesn't match the tag.

 

[lord999]

I don't think your second point is correct. We've had to make changes to our techs name tags because the name on their license doesn't match the tag.

It's both state and workplace dependent. JC, VA, and DoD do not require that the hospital badge match the legal name (civil service requires this on the official PIV card with some exceptions, but you are supposed to wear your cards in such a way that your hospital ID card shows first). There are actual policies regarding patient alias and staff alias for precisely those reasons. That's why I wrote the states down because I am aware of some areas (CA) that don't allow this, but have to tolerate it in the VA.

https://www.va.gov/vhapublications/ViewPublication.asp?pub_ID=2880

Yeah I was talking more along the lines of professionalism/how you look to an employer as opposed to threatening situations/patients stalking. In that case just them knowing your name is probably enough for them to get your address without even needing Facebook. Second amendment!

If it only were so simple. Even in No Retreat Castle Defense Arizona, the circumstances where you are in a practical position to exercise that clause are usually impractical as most patients get the drop on you (speaking from personal experience). Not saying the 2nd amendment doesn't help (I fully support anyone and everyone's personal armament including concealed carry), but there are other steps I take and recommend others take for their personal safety when dealing with a public that isn't what it used to be that are conducive to less actively vigilant mentalities. But, yeah, I treat "potential employers" just like the public in that sense.

 

[BenJammin]

Too many people have messaged me about this so I'll just reveal the secret. This only works if the person you're trying to find has ever been tagged in anything public. Public photos, status updates, page posts, etc. You'll find their name, click on it, and it will forward you to their profile with the new name. Google cache also reveals public posts that they may have deleted or moved to private.

 

[y0ssarian87]

Too many people have messaged me about this so I'll just reveal the secret.

You're too kind!

I think I took the opposite approach from most students. I created a personal website that I shared with my fellowship programs, and I keep my Facebook fairly curated. It's easier to maintain than to scramble to hide stuff later. I never bothered changing my name on FB.


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[y0ssarian87]

You're too kind!

I think I took the opposite approach from most students. I created a personal website that I shared with my fellowship programs, and I keep my Facebook fairly curated. It's easier to maintain than to scramble to hide stuff later. I never bothered changing my name on FB.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile app

I'm going to add to this. One of the things I liked about having a personal website is that I could track IP addresses of visitors. I could essentially see which programs were looking at my materials.


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