As a former editor for a publication with an online presence, things living on the Internet forever has always haunted me. People let themselves be quoted saying dumb things all the time. For some reason, my go to example of this is the girl who cited Urban Outfitters opening in Ithaca as the reason she was glad she went to Cornell instead of Yale. On the other hand, as editors, we knew our mistakes could live on forever, and each night, we strived to get things right before our articles made their way to publication.
Now, on the other side of things, I’m always fairly terrified of the things I put out as an “expert” physical therapist giving quotes to writers for their articles. What if in a few years, experience or research renders the advise I previously gave a publication wrong? What if I get misquoted? It’s especially scary because writers and editors don’t always inform me they’re using my quotes. I often don’t find out I’ve even been quoted until I get a Google Alert with my name in it.
This past week, my fear was finally realized. I answered a question about having pain with sleeping on your side. One of my recommendations was for people with pain that is aggravated by side sleeping to try sleeping on their backs. The writer turned this into an indirect quote attributed to me saying that sleeping on your back is the best sleep position for everyone. (This is untrue and there is no one best way to sleep, as there is no one best way to do almost anything, but that is a post for another time).
Of course, I immediately flashed forward to telling a future, hypothetical patient that there is no one best sleeping position for everyone, only to have her tell me she’d read otherwise.
Luckily, a few days after I emailed the website, a very gracious editor wrote back to say they’d corrected my quotes. Now that my fear has been realized, maybe I’ll be less scared of it happening again.
And I’ll keep on hating sleeping on my side.