Why are we all anonymous??

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I realize that this might be a controversial topic, but...I've thought that this was a bit strange ever since I started regularly reading SDN a few months ago.

Why don't we have our real names as our username? Why do we block others from viewing our account? Why doesn't anyone use the "about you" section? Why don't we have pictures of ourselves as profile pics? Okay, I can understand if a few people are uncomfortable with this; I know I am haha.

I remember a few months ago a new SDN member posted a thread from an account containing her real name/a profile pic of herself. She was told immediately, by the community, to remove it. Why?? It's not like SDN is some sort of site where shady/illegal activity happens? Do we really care if people know we have an SDN account? If so, why??

This is especially true for anyone claiming to be an attending or ADCOM member. I understand there's a verification process, but nevertheless, the weird names/profile pics/lack of transparency decreases your credibility. Letting us know who you are will help us better judge what advice you're qualified to give, and might prevent someone from making a major life decision based on uninformed advice.

This is one of the largest communities of medical professionals on the internet, and considering how important transparency and building community are in all healthcare fields, it's inexplicable that all of us are hiding behind a wall of anonymity.

~ Eric Lu
 
Anonymity allows people to ask/give honest advice. Think of all the people who post questions about whether or not something counts as an IA, or whether they should take their DO acceptance, or debate which acceptance to take. If their name were available, it's not inconceivable for that information to be used against them.

In the med student/resident forums it's nice to be able to vent about your school or a doctor you've worked with without fear of retribution. People also ask for advice about difficult things in their lives (depression, failed classes, poor evaluations) that they might not want everyone at their school to know about.

For the Adcoms, I imagine their institutions might not allow them to give advice to applicants if their wasn't mutual anonymity. Otherwise those applicants could be viewed as having unfair access. Plus they would be inundated with messages from people asking for updates on their application to that school.

Probably 100 other reasons too. Anonymity is better.

*Edit - Plenty of people form real friendships on here and privately disclose their identities. I know who a few posters are IRL, but that was due to mutually wanting to meet each other.
 
Anonymity allows people to ask/give honest advice. Think of all the people who post questions about whether or not something counts as an IA, or whether they should take their DO acceptance, or debate which acceptance to take. If their name were available, it's not inconceivable for that information to be used against them.

In the med student/resident forums it's nice to be able to vent about your school or a doctor you've worked with without fear of retribution. People also ask for advice about difficult things in their lives (depression, failed classes, poor evaluations) that they might not want everyone at their school to know about.

For the Adcoms, I imagine their institutions might not allow them to give advice to applicants if their wasn't mutual anonymity. Otherwise those applicants could be viewed as having unfair access. Plus they would be inundated with messages from people asking for updates on their application to that school.

Probably 100 other reasons too. Anonymity is better.

*Edit - Plenty of people form real friendships on here and privately disclose their identities. I know who a few posters are IRL, but that was due to mutually wanting to meet each other.


I see! That makes sense! I don't know anyone IRL on SDN, and whenever I mention SDN to people, they tell me I'm crazy for using it. I thought that the anonymity was decreasing the website's credibility to the point where people were shying way from it, which is unfortunate because it's a great resource. I agree that anonymity is good in some cases, but the fact that almost everyone is anonymous is still a bit strange to me. Thank You!
 
I'm pretty open in real life, but I assume it's due to the high stakes nature of the medical field. We are required to know and do more, even at the pre-med level, than in most other fields or compared to the general population. That extends into our personal lives as well, as our own beliefs and thoughts can color us differently to patients and other healthcare workers. Sometimes this may be unfair, but it is largely due to how medicine is seen as (& in many ways is) more personal. We deal with people, and those people care about how we are as people. The anonymity helps all of us to share more with each other without it coloring our professions wrong; I think it allows for more openness and camaraderie.

Also, all advice is to be taken with a grain of salt anyway so I'm not sure there is much to be gained by revealing who everyone is all the time. You want to be able to ask questions without it affecting your app/professional chances, and people want to give advice without it hurting theirs. I think that's a fair trade-off.
 
Forums are old-school Internet, pre-social media where the norm was to be anonymous. SDN started up in the late 90s. So part of the reason is historical.

The second reason is that this is a professional forum. Unlike social media groups where you post memes or talk about really niche subjects, one of the main goals of SDN is to serve as a helpful platform for people planning to go into medicine or in medical training. If anonymity were removed, SDN would either become a lot more like LinkedIn (and therefore horrible) or cease to be a place where you can get honest advice because behind every post would be the anxiety of being watched by potential peers, admissions committees, or employers. This is why in spite of most major forums dying by the end of the first decade of the millennium, SDN is still around.

Thirdly, most people don’t want their (totally understandable and commonplace) neuroticism to be permanently associated with them. There’s a lot of nerve wracking and stress that goes on medicine because of tests, applications, grants, beefs with employers, or just having a difficult moment in a demanding profession. A lot of people use SDN to vent. Hell, the MD forum is 50% people complaining about medical school. IRL most (hopefully) understand that constantly complaining or worrying about some exam is essentially insufferable but SDN also acts as a place for people to get that out of their system.

That said, I know many SDNers IrL and they know me.
 
Forums are old-school Internet, pre-social media where the norm was to be anonymous. SDN started up in the late 90s. So part of the reason is historical.

The second reason is that this is a professional forum. Unlike social media groups where you post memes or talk about really niche subjects, one of the main goals of SDN is to serve as a helpful platform for people planning to go into medicine or in medical training. If anonymity were removed, SDN would either become a lot more like LinkedIn (and therefore horrible) or cease to be a place where you can get honest advice because behind every post would be the anxiety of being watched by potential peers, admissions committees, or employers. This is why in spite of most major forums dying by the end of the first decade of the millennium, SDN is still around.

Thirdly, most people don’t want their (totally understandable and commonplace) neuroticism to be permanently associated with them. There’s a lot of nerve wracking and stress that goes on medicine because of tests, applications, grants, beefs with employers, or just having a difficult moment in a demanding profession. A lot of people use SDN to vent. Hell, the MD forum is 50% people complaining about medical school. IRL most (hopefully) understand that constantly complaining or worrying about some exam is essentially insufferable but SDN also acts as a place for people to get that out of their system.

That said, I know many SDNers IrL and they know me.

Thank you for the insightful response! I rarely read the MD forums and wasn't aware that so many people used SDN to vent/that there was such a huge need for it. I can see how anonymity would be beneficial here!
 
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I realize that this might be a controversial topic, but...I've thought that this was a bit strange ever since I started regularly reading SDN a few months ago.

Why don't we have our real names as our username? Why do we block others from viewing our account? Why doesn't anyone use the "about you" section? Why don't we have pictures of ourselves as profile pics? Okay, I can understand if a few people are uncomfortable with this; I know I am haha.

I remember a few months ago a new SDN member posted a thread from an account containing her real name/a profile pic of herself. She was told immediately, by the community, to remove it. Why?? It's not like SDN is some sort of site where shady/illegal activity happens? Do we really care if people know we have an SDN account? If so, why??

This is especially true for anyone claiming to be an attending or ADCOM member. I understand there's a verification process, but nevertheless, the weird names/profile pics/lack of transparency decreases your credibility. Letting us know who you are will help us better judge what advice you're qualified to give, and might prevent someone from making a major life decision based on uninformed advice.

This is one of the largest communities of medical professionals on the internet, and considering how important transparency and building community are in all healthcare fields, it's inexplicable that all of us are hiding behind a wall of anonymity.

~ Eric Lu

with a name like eric lu, you might as well be anonymous lol
 
Do you really think honest advice would be given if things weren’t anonymous? Everyone DO student on here that talks about how dumb OMM is would be put on probation

Yes, I believe people would still give honest advice even if they were not anonymous, why wouldn’t they?

When I posted this, I was oblivious to the number of people who used SDN to vent, and for that, I clearly see the benefit of anonymity!
 
Ok that's just silly. I can't imagine there being more than a handful of Eric Lu's in the world.

-Eric Lu
I feel like there are a decent number. Lu is a pretty common last name in China, and Asian Americans tend to have generic first names, and Eric is as generic as it gets. Where I grew up, there was actually a man who was a prominent State Farm agent named Eric Lu. He had billboards and other ads with his face all over it, and everyone thought we were related 🙂
 
Yes, I believe people would still give honest advice even if they were not anonymous, why wouldn’t they?

Because the medical field as a whole can be very petty. There would be serious backlash to some of the people giving advice. We also wouldn’t be able to get advice from individuals like Goro, GynGyn, or LizzyM because if their identities and schools were well known then it could be seen as a conflict of interest as they are all adcom members. The anonymity allows undiluted advice to be given without fear of backlash.
 
I feel like there are a decent number. Lu is a pretty common last name in China, and Asian Americans tend to have generic first names, and Eric is as generic as it gets. Where I grew up, there was actually a man who was a prominent State Farm agent named Eric Lu. He had billboards and other ads with his face all over it, and everyone thought we were related 🙂
Lol its definitely a common name, that was the joke. Hence me signing off as Eric Lu
 
I'm not super anonymous like some people, I think if anyone tried for 15 min they could figure out where I went to undergrad, etc. I am however in favor of not using real names. Do you see how neurotic people are now, imagine if adcoms looked up everyone on SDN by name and looked through their posts. It would be absolute madness.
 
On the contrary, I believe that it's crucial to be anonymous on a site like SDN where a lot of people are aspiring to have a career in medicine. The internet isn't exactly the most professional place around.
I work at a preschool/ daycare that's dedicated to serving low income families and one of the main things in the company handbook that I got was that we weren't supposed to mention that we worked there on social media. I remember thinking how weird that was, but now I get it, some people could give the company a bad rep. Who's really ever their best on social media, or the internet for that matter?

I don't think that people would be as honest as they'd like to be on here if it wasn't anonymous. Some of the things posted on here would do serious damage to a medical career, whether it's a med student complaining that they hate med school or a soon-to-be resident complaining that the program they match to sucked and that they didn't want to go there (even though they ranked it in the first place). People would be less willing to share their truthful opinions and experiences if this site wasn't anonymous. Plus, I imagine that it would be suuuuuper awkward for people like LizzyM and Goro if people they worked with found out that they were using this site, or even worse if they found their actual profiles and read some of their posts. I imagine their schools wouldn't deem some of the things they post as all that professional. There are some controversial posts on here that I'm pretty sure some of the original posters wouldn't own outside of this cozy little site.

There's also the whole topic of privacy. I mean, once I saw your name @Taylor Swift I immediately started stalking :ninja:. You don't play a piano by any chance do you :laugh:? A lot of people visit this site and if it wasn't anonymous then a lot of people (especially the well known ones) would have their privacy violated in one way or another. I mean, wouldn't we all be stalking moderators and adcoms? Plus I like the mystery that animosity brings. What if there was someone on here who was giving you really awesome advice and then you find out that the person behind the screen is some drunk whose wife left him for his brother and he's barely holding his life together? He goes from a glowing god to some guy you pity and nobody wants that! For now Goro is an all knowing, smart-mouth black cat, that's it! I don't need to know anything else!
 
Pretty sure ive shared enough about myself for people to figure me out if they truly wanted to. But just with everything else online, don’t post anything that you would be ashamed of someone seeing.

Granted, I have no support system through my school and I come here to vent during my Step 1 prep and whatnot.

And just for fun, Dr. Brooks from Jefferson did in fact figure me out. Sooo, it happens.
 
I realize that this might be a controversial topic, but...I've thought that this was a bit strange ever since I started regularly reading SDN a few months ago.

Why don't we have our real names as our username? Why do we block others from viewing our account? Why doesn't anyone use the "about you" section? Why don't we have pictures of ourselves as profile pics? Okay, I can understand if a few people are uncomfortable with this; I know I am haha.

I remember a few months ago a new SDN member posted a thread from an account containing her real name/a profile pic of herself. She was told immediately, by the community, to remove it. Why?? It's not like SDN is some sort of site where shady/illegal activity happens? Do we really care if people know we have an SDN account? If so, why??

This is especially true for anyone claiming to be an attending or ADCOM member. I understand there's a verification process, but nevertheless, the weird names/profile pics/lack of transparency decreases your credibility. Letting us know who you are will help us better judge what advice you're qualified to give, and might prevent someone from making a major life decision based on uninformed advice.

This is one of the largest communities of medical professionals on the internet, and considering how important transparency and building community are in all healthcare fields, it's inexplicable that all of us are hiding behind a wall of anonymity.

~ Eric Lu


Holy ****




You’re not Taylor Swift??!?
 
@Taylor Swift
Some of us talk about private things. Political stances, struggles with mental illness, unfiltered opinions on things. Things that somebody may never feel comfortable telling you in person because of fear of reprisal. People are very petty, and nobody wants their career in danger. SDN is accessible to anyone. I do not want everyone in the OR treating me differently because I’ve struggled with depression in the past. I don’t want people knowing that. An evil or brainwashed enough (“woke”) person could try and spin something I said on the forums to make me sound like I am biased and don’t deserve to be a surgeon or something like that. My ability to give honest advice would be sterilized, limited, and filtered. Nobody wants that.

Additionally, the SDN vetting process for administrators and physicians is good, and we are verified by our work emails. So I do not think anyone needs to worry that we are not who we say we are.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

Especially politcally. Admit you voted for Trump and people start to judge you hardcore. (I didn’t. Im guilty of this. )
 
This is especially true for anyone claiming to be an attending or ADCOM member. I understand there's a verification process, but nevertheless, the weird names/profile pics/lack of transparency decreases your credibility. Letting us know who you are will help us better judge what advice you're qualified to give, and might prevent someone from making a major life decision based on uninformed advice.

Strange argument. The verification process is secured and reliable. The SDN help desk staff verifies certain personal information required from users (such as work emails) before upgrading their accounts. I don’t understand how having usernames and profile pictures undermine credibility.

SDN requires anonymity because anonymity is what allows people to be honest and express their views freely without consequences. Yes, anonymity also allows trolls, jerks and malignant users to spread chaos but that’s the nature of the internet, which is why there are mods and the report function to combat the malignancy.

If you take away anonymity by requiring people to register and post with their real names, people will stop coming to SDN and have no desire to post honestly. The value of the forums will be lost and the forums will collapse.
 
I realize that this might be a controversial topic, but...I've thought that this was a bit strange ever since I started regularly reading SDN a few months ago.

Why don't we have our real names as our username? Why do we block others from viewing our account? Why doesn't anyone use the "about you" section? Why don't we have pictures of ourselves as profile pics? Okay, I can understand if a few people are uncomfortable with this; I know I am haha.

I remember a few months ago a new SDN member posted a thread from an account containing her real name/a profile pic of herself. She was told immediately, by the community, to remove it. Why?? It's not like SDN is some sort of site where shady/illegal activity happens? Do we really care if people know we have an SDN account? If so, why??

This is especially true for anyone claiming to be an attending or ADCOM member. I understand there's a verification process, but nevertheless, the weird names/profile pics/lack of transparency decreases your credibility. Letting us know who you are will help us better judge what advice you're qualified to give, and might prevent someone from making a major life decision based on uninformed advice.

This is one of the largest communities of medical professionals on the internet, and considering how important transparency and building community are in all healthcare fields, it's inexplicable that all of us are hiding behind a wall of anonymity.

~ Eric Lu

Also what you need to realize is anonymity protects people from consequences and danger. If you require adcoms and faculty to be anonymous, you are basically endangering them since disgruntled applicants can sue them for their bad application outcomes. Employers and schools may not feel comfortable having their faculty represent them openly online and may demand them to stop posting under threats of sanctions or dismissals. Applicants posting under their real names will lie about themselves under fears of backlash from universities and peers. There are also sociopathic criminals in real life who will freely use this information to hunt down members.

Your proposals only endanger the security and privacy of members and accelerate the downfall of the forums. Anonymity is an essential foundation for internet forums like SDN and it is the reason why everyone of all backgrounds can freely post without consequences and still be safe and secured.

Just go to Facebook and have fun if you want people to post under their real names (even then people on Facebook care about their privacy). Leave the anonymity on internet forums alone.
 
Also what you need to realize is anonymity protects people from consequences and danger. If you require adcoms and faculty to be anonymous, you are basically endangering them since disgruntled applicants can sue them for their bad application outcomes. Employers and schools may not feel comfortable having their faculty represent them openly online and may demand them to stop posting under threats of sanctions or dismissals. Applicants posting under their real names will lie about themselves under fears of backlash from universities and peers. There are also sociopathic criminals in real life who will freely use this information to hunt down members.

Your proposals only endanger the security and privacy of members and further accelerate the downfall of the forums. Anonymity is an essential foundation for internet forums like SDN and it is the reason why everyone of all backgrounds can freely post without consequences and still be safe and secured.

I was careful in my original post not to propose anything; I only wanted to understand why everybody was anonymous. Thank you for helping me understand!
 
I realize that this might be a controversial topic, but...I've thought that this was a bit strange ever since I started regularly reading SDN a few months ago.

Why don't we have our real names as our username? Why do we block others from viewing our account? Why doesn't anyone use the "about you" section? Why don't we have pictures of ourselves as profile pics? Okay, I can understand if a few people are uncomfortable with this; I know I am haha.

I remember a few months ago a new SDN member posted a thread from an account containing her real name/a profile pic of herself. She was told immediately, by the community, to remove it. Why?? It's not like SDN is some sort of site where shady/illegal activity happens? Do we really care if people know we have an SDN account? If so, why??

This is especially true for anyone claiming to be an attending or ADCOM member. I understand there's a verification process, but nevertheless, the weird names/profile pics/lack of transparency decreases your credibility. Letting us know who you are will help us better judge what advice you're qualified to give, and might prevent someone from making a major life decision based on uninformed advice.

This is one of the largest communities of medical professionals on the internet, and considering how important transparency and building community are in all healthcare fields, it's inexplicable that all of us are hiding behind a wall of anonymity.

~ Eric Lu
Because we are given a sense of security.
 
I realize that this might be a controversial topic, but...I've thought that this was a bit strange ever since I started regularly reading SDN a few months ago.

Why don't we have our real names as our username? Why do we block others from viewing our account? Why doesn't anyone use the "about you" section? Why don't we have pictures of ourselves as profile pics? Okay, I can understand if a few people are uncomfortable with this; I know I am haha.

I remember a few months ago a new SDN member posted a thread from an account containing her real name/a profile pic of herself. She was told immediately, by the community, to remove it. Why?? It's not like SDN is some sort of site where shady/illegal activity happens? Do we really care if people know we have an SDN account? If so, why??

This is especially true for anyone claiming to be an attending or ADCOM member. I understand there's a verification process, but nevertheless, the weird names/profile pics/lack of transparency decreases your credibility. Letting us know who you are will help us better judge what advice you're qualified to give, and might prevent someone from making a major life decision based on uninformed advice.

This is one of the largest communities of medical professionals on the internet, and considering how important transparency and building community are in all healthcare fields, it's inexplicable that all of us are hiding behind a wall of anonymity.

~ Eric Lu
Because I don't want to get spammed or have my life screwed up by the loose cannons that come to SDN seeking only what they want to hear, and lash out (sometimes rather pathologically) when we give them what they need to hear, and not hugs and kisses.

Then there are the legal issues. People who got rejected at my school would then blame Dr Goro for their troubles.

And not all SDNers post complementary things about themselves. If I see that Eric Lu is a loose cannon, and I come across him as an interviewee, rest assured I would flay him alive.
 
Do you really think honest advice would be given if things weren’t anonymous? Everyone DO student on here that talks about how dumb OMM is would be put on probation
The True Believers at my school would want them burnt at the stake for heresy.
 
Because I don't want to get spammed or have my life screwed up by the loose cannons that come to SDN seeking only what they want to hear, and lash out (sometimes rather pathologically) when we give them what they need to hear, and not hugs and kisses.

Then there are the legal issues. People who got rejected at my school would then blame Dr Goro for their troubles.

And not all SDNers post complementary things about themselves. If I see that Eric Lu is a loose cannon, and I come across him as an interviewee, rest assured I would flay him alive.
I agree
 
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I say some pretty snarky things, which is my baseline. That would not look good if a patient actually came across what I have written in the past. I'm also very handsome (which is par for the course in surgery) and that would bring about much solicitation that is unnecessary. I'm also very humble...
 
Anonymity allows people to ask/give honest advice. Think of all the people who post questions about whether or not something counts as an IA, or whether they should take their DO acceptance, or debate which acceptance to take. If their name were available, it's not inconceivable for that information to be used against them.

In the med student/resident forums it's nice to be able to vent about your school or a doctor you've worked with without fear of retribution. People also ask for advice about difficult things in their lives (depression, failed classes, poor evaluations) that they might not want everyone at their school to know about.

For the Adcoms, I imagine their institutions might not allow them to give advice to applicants if their wasn't mutual anonymity. Otherwise those applicants could be viewed as having unfair access. Plus they would be inundated with messages from people asking for updates on their application to that school.

Probably 100 other reasons too. Anonymity is better.

*Edit - Plenty of people form real friendships on here and privately disclose their identities. I know who a few posters are IRL, but that was due to mutually wanting to meet each other.

So true! I’ve met like three people IRL who have become mentors or I mentor.
 
Yes, I believe people would still give honest advice even if they were not anonymous, why wouldn’t they?
The advice, though honest, could not be full or frank.
The stalking is also real.
 
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I realize that this might be a controversial topic, but...I've thought that this was a bit strange ever since I started regularly reading SDN a few months ago.

Why don't we have our real names as our username? Why do we block others from viewing our account? Why doesn't anyone use the "about you" section? Why don't we have pictures of ourselves as profile pics? Okay, I can understand if a few people are uncomfortable with this; I know I am haha.

I remember a few months ago a new SDN member posted a thread from an account containing her real name/a profile pic of herself. She was told immediately, by the community, to remove it. Why?? It's not like SDN is some sort of site where shady/illegal activity happens? Do we really care if people know we have an SDN account? If so, why??

This is especially true for anyone claiming to be an attending or ADCOM member. I understand there's a verification process, but nevertheless, the weird names/profile pics/lack of transparency decreases your credibility. Letting us know who you are will help us better judge what advice you're qualified to give, and might prevent someone from making a major life decision based on uninformed advice.

This is one of the largest communities of medical professionals on the internet, and considering how important transparency and building community are in all healthcare fields, it's inexplicable that all of us are hiding behind a wall of anonymity.

~ Eric Lu
This is like asking why do we have doctor patient confidentiality. We want a trusting community that allows open communication without fear of retribution or judgement clinging to our names.
 
The same reason why course evals are anonymous. I see it as a good thing. There are some things I’ve posted on here that are better off left unturned.
 
1. I have dozens of posts on the old orthogate forums and I would very much like to distance myself from that neuroticism. Awful hard to do that if people know who you are IRL.

2. Like TAD said. I am an attractive surgeon with an extensive collection of fancy wine and European luxury automobiles. And I can’t deal with the attention that would bring in these forums. I have a family to think of.
 
1. I have dozens of posts on the old orthogate forums and I would very much like to distance myself from that neuroticism. Awful hard to do that if people know who you are IRL.

2. Like TAD said. I am an attractive surgeon with an extensive collection of fancy wine and European luxury automobiles. And I can’t deal with the attention that would bring in these forums. I have a family to think of.
Stop lying, you either have fancy wines and European luxury automobiles, or you have a family. No one has both!
 
This just further proves the old saying, "every chick on the internet is a dude".

T-Swift, you heartbreaker.

‘Tis true. When I play video games I don’t customize my character to reflect myself, rather my waifu.
 
I was starting to believe that most adcoms were cats... (e.g. @Goro @gyngyn @Catalystik)

I hear @LizzyM is a turtle who's friendly to cats

turtle-and-cat.jpg
 
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