{"id":818,"date":"2015-03-22T11:56:04","date_gmt":"2015-03-22T10:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=818"},"modified":"2017-08-08T19:58:55","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T18:58:55","slug":"epatients-the-medical-ethical-and-legal-repercussions-of-blogging-and-micro-blogging-experiences-of-illness-and-disease-call-for-papers-and-conference-details","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2015\/03\/22\/epatients-the-medical-ethical-and-legal-repercussions-of-blogging-and-micro-blogging-experiences-of-illness-and-disease-call-for-papers-and-conference-details\/","title":{"rendered":"ePatients: The Medical, Ethical and Legal Repercussions of Blogging and Micro-Blogging Experiences of Illness and Disease – Call for Papers and Conference Details"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Queen\u2019s University Belfast, 11-12 September 2015 Call for Papers<\/p>\n

Referring to the growth of online patient-initiated resources, including medical blogs, the BMJ noted in a 2004 editorial that we were witnessing \u2018the most important technocultural medical revolution of the past century\u2019. Ten years later, the controversy caused by Bill Keller\u2019s opinion piece in the New York Times (\u2018Heroic Measures\u2019, January 2014) and a blogpost on the Guardian US website criticising Lisa Bonchek Adams\u2019s decision to tweet her experience of breast cancer, remind us of the ongoing sensitivities surrounding online patient narratives and the complex relationship between the world of medicine and social media. Emma Keller, the freelance journalist (and wife of Bill Keller) who questioned Adams\u2019s use of twitter to discuss terminal illness, wrote the following: \u2018Should there be boundaries in this kind of experience? Is there such a thing as TMI? Are her tweets a grim equivalent of deathbed selfies? Why am I so obsessed?\u2019 Adams, in emails to the Guardian, said that the column was \u2018callous\u2019 in its treatment of her and noted that the blogpost was riddled with inaccuracies and quoted a private direct message without permission.<\/p>\n

As debates on the ethics, dynamics and even legal repercussions of online patient narratives become more prevalent, an international, interdisciplinary conference at Queen\u2019s University Belfast, hosted by the Health Humanities Project Research Group at the Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities, will focus on how those with life-threatening or incurable illness use social media, as well as the medical, ethical and potential legal consequences of online accounts of pain, suffering and the clinical experience. We welcome paper proposals dealing with ePatient accounts from a variety of countries and cultures which address the following questions:<\/p>\n