Margaret Polaneczky, MD, FACOG

I’m a board certified obstetrician-gynecologist and Associate Professor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City, where I live with my husband, who I call Mr TBTAM, and our kids.

A Gyno-Food Blog?

I know, I know. What was I thinking? It’s not like I planned it this way.

It was supposed to be just a food blog, which you can probably tell by the name. But once I got started, I couldn’t shut up, and pretty soon I was writing about other things, including my day job. Eventually, the blog evolved into what you see today – food, medicine, my life and my opinions.  And the occasional silly song.

But seriously, the more I write, the more I realize what this blog is really about. It’s about creating what I hope is an unbiased, non-commercial space that helps women make sense of the conflicting, confusing and voluminous health information they are receiving in this digital era, much of it from sources with huge commercial bias and a product to sell. Let me help you separate the pitch from the pearls.

Who reads this blog?

This blog is written for both health professionals and laypersons, women and men, New Yorkers and those who love New York, those who love to cook and those who love to eat. It’s for my patients who ask me what I think about HRT. And my friends and family who asked about my trip or for a recipe, and for the couple I met on the bike trail who asked about our last ride. I’m not targeting any particular audience, and I don’t have anything to sell.

When it comes to medicine, I try to straddle the gap between the lay public and medical professionals by posting from a doctor’s perspective in language that hopefully anyone can understand. My lay audience is the health consumer who wants to learn more.  I won’t talk down to you here. I assume you are here because you are interested in learning more, and are prepared to think a bit and even to be challenged (and to challenge me).  I hope my blog posts will also engage other health professionals in a dialogue around topics that are often controversial, and usually complicated.  Because if it were simple, what would there be for us to talk about?

Who is TBTAM?

That’s me. It’s the acronym for The Blog That Ate Manhattan, and was my moniker during my first few years of blogging, when I was anonymous. I took a bit of heat from some for my anonymity, but I had a day job to protect, and having read about other bloggers being fired from their jobs for blogging, I wasn’t taking any chances.  After a while, though, pretty much everyone who knew me knew I blogged, including folks at work, so I came out of hiding in 2009 and haven’t looked back.

Does this blog have any policies?

Actually, it does. I subscribe to the Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics, which basically says I make clear my perspective (ie, bias), reveal any commercial interests, write reliably and cite references where appropriate, practice courtesy in the blogosphere, and protect the privacy of my patients. To that end, I won’t blog about a patient without her permission. When I do, personally identifying information is removed or disguised so that HIPAA Privacy Laws are followed.

Can I email you?

Sure. My email is tbtam@rcn.com.

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