Termination from Residency

[Apollyon]

I’m licensed in TX, WY, CO, PA, and VA. I have also been licensed in TN and AL but I’ve allowed those to lapse.

And, yet, I don't know who you are! I let SC and HI lapse, myself.

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[ThoracicGuy]

Well the license clenches it. You've just revealed yourself to the world!

 

[LucidSplash]

Well the AZ license clenches it. You've just revealed yourself to the world!

Oh noooooooos. <Said in the quietest tone>

The beauty of being yourself, and never doing or saying anything you can be ashamed or embarrassed of, even when anonymous, is that you don’t care.

I support posters who want to remain anonymous. And I understand the fear that students and residents have if doxxed, because they are in positions where others have significant amount of power over them and their futures. I’ve been in that position.

Even for those of us past training, the wrong hospital system can cause trouble if you share unfavorable things.

But thinking that someone knowing a given state or set of states where you are licensed is going to give you away, given the millions of licenses issued in this country, is just silly.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

I've been licensed in SC, HI, and PA. Did I just doxx myself?

I have had people message me directly with my name on it, so yes, the more information I give, the easier it would be for others to track me. You can mock me if you'd like, but you're not important to me at all

 

[Apollyon]

I have had people message me directly with my name on it, so yes, the more information I give, the easier it would be for others to track me. You can mock me if you'd like, but you're not important to me at all

You wound me. Oh my. Ouch!

But, seriously, if that is your take, that is wholly and completely on you. Best of luck!

 

[michaelrack]

I'm licensed in TN, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama. My West Virginia license lapsed long ago. I'm easy to track down.

 

[LucidSplash]

I inadvertently violated TOS by posting an unsolicited PM I received, wherein the sender’s identity was visible. I did not realize this was a TOS violation. So the post was removed by a mod after the post was reported.

My apologies to the sender.

However I think this is an important issue so:

To the person who PM’d me that they were “moderately confident” that the 2nd letter of my first name is “R”, I’ve already told them they are incorrect.

To the separate person who PM’d me that they were able to easily find that I attended UHUHS, I’ve already told them that is incorrect.

But thank you to both of you for proving my point.

I have likely posted enough nuggets of info over the years that I’ve doxxed myself on some level or someone could review the thousands of posts, or find some way to dump it into AI, and figure out, with all that data, who I am. I’m not too worried about this, as I have the same online code that I have in real life, so I’m not ashamed or embarrassed of anything I’ve posted.

But posting a state license or a list of state licenses in isolation of other information isn’t going to get anyone doxxed.

 

[Apollyon]

I'm licensed in TN, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama. My West Virginia license lapsed long ago. I'm easy to track down.

Goodness, I wonder how????

 

[Lost in Translation]

Well the license clenches it. You've just revealed yourself to the world!

Also don't forget to not quote the OP so that when they delete their post for anonymity no one can look them up again.

 

[Crayola227]

I have had people message me directly with my name on it, so yes, the more information I give, the easier it would be for others to track me. You can mock me if you'd like, but you're not important to me at all

Yep, especially with sex/gender, and specialty, things start to narrow. Some people even give you an idea of decade of life and that's useful. Or past alma maters.

Not trying to encourage it, bad actors will already have figured the above out.

People forget sometimes that internet people can be insane, and calls to the board even if fraudulent, can still be a hassle, to say nothing of other things people can do to cause trouble. People get canceled even over fake stuff.

There's some girl out there who had a lie told about her that she had sex with her boyfriend's dad, and it ended up on TV and she gets death threats a year later. So you don't have to do something actually wrong.

Obviously being harmed is just a risk of life, but no need to reveal your identity in an online forum that can attract personality disordered folks that take an un-liking to you, if that isn't your intention. Which I assume people posting under a pseudonym don't intend.

 

[Crayola227]

Someone correctly identified me on this board. Not from past licenses, but still. And there are plenty of things I've never revealed on the board.

 

[Crayola227]

Also don't forget to not quote the OP so that when they delete their post for anonymity no one can look them up again.

I don't do that, I quote intentionally. They delete the message and the Advice remains except at that point it ends up being somewhat useless to other people who may benefit from the thread and the advice because of lack of context. In that sense it's just disespectful to our time. What people should do instead, is just write their messages carefully and always assume that a message that you write might be quoted and stay on the internet and you will not be able to control what the other user does.

I agree it would be good form to take out identifiers when quoting out of respect to an OP.

 

[Lost in Translation]

I don't do that, I quote intentionally. They delete the message and the Advice remains except at that point it ends up being somewhat useless to other people who may benefit from the thread and the advice because of lack of context. In that sense it's just disespectful to our time. What people should do instead, is just write their messages carefully and always assume that a message that you write might be quoted and stay on the internet and you will not be able to control what the other user does.

I agree it would be good form to take out identifiers when quoting out of respect to an OP.

I wrote my comment ironically.

I do exactly the same as you for almost the same reason [of posterity for anyone else that may be in a similar situation]. The other reason why I do it is to remind OP that anything you put out there cannot be taken back. Also, I just get this inflated sense of self-importance emanating from anyone who writes "Don't quote for anonymity" in their OP when asking for advice, as if their situation is so unique that no one else should be able to read about it years after it's been resolved forgotten.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Someone correctly identified me on this board. Not from past licenses, but still. And there are plenty of things I've never revealed on the board.

Some people here simply don't understand how scary the internet can get because they've never been at the other end of someone tracking them down. People go back on posts to figure out where people went to schools, what years, what specialty they matched, etc. Eventually, they can narrow it down or even get someone's IP address. If people want to volunteer more and more personal information, that's on them. I hope they don't come back crying if it bites them in the rear

 

[Apollyon]

I wrote my comment ironically.

I do exactly the same as you for almost the same reason [of posterity for anyone else that may be in a similar situation]. The other reason why I do it is to remind OP that anything you put out there cannot be taken back. Also, I just get this inflated sense of self-importance emanating from anyone who writes "Don't quote for anonymity" in their OP when asking for advice, as if their situation is so unique that no one else should be able to read about it years after it's been resolved forgotten.

About 10 or 15 years ago, some dude on the EM Forum posted his rank list, as did many other people. His #10? "My home program". Nothing in his user name have away a location. I told the guy, "no one cares"! So, what he do? Deleted his entire rank list. Didn't know who he was, don't know who he is, and just do not care!

 

[Iamnew2]

As others say, hard to provide much advice with limited detail. I will say, however, that the appropriate initial response to this information should not be "it's a malignant program and this is politics". There needs to be some real self-relfection--often with the help of a trusted mentor--to identify if there are correctable issues. Past history ("never had problems before") doesnt exclude the possibility of their being issues, as the responsibilities and visibility change dramatically once you hit PGY2+.

Also to add, even for this notoriously challenging subspecialty, it's a bit of a red flag if they're talking about going straight to non-renewal. Usually you're going to be put on probation/remediation and get a few chances. So either the program is absurdly malignant or there are significant issues.

However sometimes it is politics - people who don't have the "right" personality - not "friendly" enough, not sociable or likable enough, etc frequently find themselves in the cross hairs of politics. Evaluations are very subjective.
Attendings tend to rate residents they like better higher - that's just a reality whether fair or not.