Over a year ago, I discovered the medical blogging community, and the amount I've learned from it has been incredible. I linked to my first blog through an online medical forum, found a series I enjoyed (the Don't Become a Doctor series on Incidental Finding's blog), and started reading every post in that series. I was captivated. I loved the humour, the point-blank honesty, and the impact the blog made on me.
I wanted more. But I didn't really have a clue about where to begin reading more medical blogs. I somewhat stumbled through blogs for a while, here and there learning neat things about being a blog reader that I wish I'd known sooner. It would have been nice to know them right from the start - to read them in some sort of concise, brief overview guide. So, after a year of being involved in the medblog community and somewhat 'knowing the ropes' by now, I've decided to put a guide together myself. Here it is.
WHAT IS THE MEDICAL BLOGGING COMMUNITY?
If you're reading this, you've obviously had some experience with the medical blogging community - this is, after all, a medical blog.
You may not be aware, however, how broad the scope of the medical blog community really is - it took me a while to figure it out. Medical bloggers include, to name a few:
There is so much content in the medical blog community that it might seem overwhelming at the start. So, where should you begin?
FINDING INTERESTING POSTS
There are many genres of medical blog posts - humour, drama, law / politics / policy, research - and any one of these genres can contain any type of content - stories, instructions, commentary, helpful advice, or interesting links.
Just Browsing?
If you're just browsing, and you are interested in a recent digest of the best posts of the medical blogosphere regardless of the topic, you should definitely check out a blog carnival. The authoritative medical blog carnival is Grand Rounds (hosted here in July 2007) - here's a list of past and upcoming Grand Rounds hosts. Other medical blog carnivals include Change of Shift, which has a focus on nursing blogs, and Medicine 2.0 which focuses on the combination of Web 2.0 and medicine.
Looking for Specific Topics?
You may already have an idea of the genres you enjoy, or, more specifically, individual topics within those genres. If that's the case, here's how I recommend finding great posts: Good ol' Google.
Two Ways to use Google
Google is a great way to find individual posts on specific topics that are of interest to you, but you might not have known there are two ways to find great posts on Google.
The first way is using the regular old Google.com, but including the keyword "blog" (for example, searching 'medical student blog') - this will sort blog posts by relevance, listing the most linked-to and relevant posts. However, this will show websites that aren't necessarily blogs - news stories, forums, etc.
The second way is to use Google BlogSearch. It works just like Google - the difference is, it only searches blogs, and the results you get tend to be very recent (usually posted that day or week), rather than sorted by the number of links to each post.
FINDING INTERESTING BLOGS
You'll find that as you read interesting posts, you'll really like the author's sense of humour or perspective, and you'll look up more posts on that blog. Like me, you might find that you'll read all the archives of a few blogs you really enjoy - every post that blogger has written.
Blogrolls
So how can you find new blogs by blogger, rather than each individual post? Again, blog carnivals are a great way to do this, but another great way to discover new blogs is to check out the blogroll on the blogs you enjoy. Most bloggers have a blogroll - a list of links to other blogs. You'll notice my blogroll in the right-hand column, under "Vitum bloggicus" - it's a list of bloggers that I have been influenced by, and enjoy reading on a regular basis, to the extent that I thought my readers would enjoy them as well - so I figured I would post the links.
Blog Ranking Directories
There are directories that rank blogs by topic - the Healthcare 100 from eDrugSearch and the Medgadget.nl ranking are lists of blogs ranked according to a number of different criteria, which will let you find popular medblogs. These will also help you get an idea of the who's who of medical bloggers, the more famous ones such as Kevin MD and Over My Med Body.
KEEPING UP ON ALL THE BLOGGY GOODNESS
The Amateur Blog Reader
An amateur blog reader finds a blog or two they enjoy, and then they'll bookmark them or try to remember the title. Every so often, they'll use their bookmarks or Google to find those blogs again, head to the sites, and catch up on the latest reading.
If they're lucky, the blog user has posted something interesting since the reader last checked. Otherwise, there might not be anything new. But the downside is, if you go to a blog that hasn't been updated the last few times you checked, you'll get frustrated and could even throw a tantrum, and you might not be inclined to visit it as often.
The Intermediate Blog Reader
That's how I read blogs for almost a year. Then something amazing happened. After countless tantrums, I realized that more advanced - or perhaps just smarter - blog readers make the blogs do the work: instead of you going to a blog to find out if it's been updated, let the blog come to you.
One way to do this is to sign up for an e-mail subscription to a blog that you like. Some bloggers are considerate enough to offer the ability to have new posts e-mailed to you (clearly if I put it like that, I offer this option to my readers). This is good for people who only want to keep track of a couple of blogs.
The Advanced Blog Reader
If you're interested in more blogs than just a few, you might want to consider signing up for an RSS Feed Reader such as Google Reader - almost every blog offers their posts in regular updates through a feed you can subscribe to. I took a long time before I started using a feed reader... and every time I look back I wonder why I waited so long. This way, I can keep track of a few dozen blogs without having to check them so often - I just go to my feed reader and new posts show up whenever they've been written.
SUPERCHARGE YOUR MEDBLOG EXPERIENCE
Perhaps the best thing about medical blogs is you can play a huge role in the content you're reading. Almost every blog contains the capacity to accept and display reader comments, and most bloggers have contact information available so you can contact the bloggers directly - use these! Contribute to the discussion and increase the quality of the blogs, and you'll improve medical blogs for yourself - and everyone else.
THE LATEST MEDBLOG GOSSIP - CONFIDENTIALITY AND ETHICS
If you're going to hang out in the medblog community, you might as well know about the latest gossip. A major event that had repercussions throughout the medblog community recently has been the disappearance of a couple of bloggers due to patient confidentiality issues. Both The Flea (former Best Medical Weblog winner) and Barbados Butterfly ended up getting attention in the mainstream media (such as ABC News) after they found that medical blogging is hard to mix with getting sued or working in certain hospitals - both of them suffered consequences such as being forced to settle their lawsuit or being suspended from work.
The events sparked lively discussion, and some medical bloggers posted reactions lamenting the loss of the bloggers, and were reminded to be more cautious to keep patient confidentiality an extremely high priority.
Rob from medbloggercode.com was kind enough to comment on this post and point out the Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics, a development in the healthcare blogging community that deserve mention in any med blogging guide. The Code is designed to hold medical blogs to a high standard when it comes to the nature of medical blogging, and its goal is to provide benefit for readers and bloggers alike.
THE NEXT STEP - START YOUR OWN MEDICAL BLOG?
Soon you might find that you've got so many things to say in the comment sections of other blogs, that you realize you should start your own blog. Blogger and Wordpress are two awesome, free sites that will get you started on your blog.
THE END
That's all I've got for now. Maybe over the next year I'll find just as many tips about medical blogs. Feel free to ask questions about medblogs, or post your own tips for new medical bloggers in the comments below.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
New to medical blogs? Vitum's Beginner's Guide to Reading Medical Blogs
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
You found this blog how?! or, Fun with search engine analysis tools: Volume I
Thanks to the good folks at 103bees.com (leaving out the "www" is the latest thing now, you heard? It's supposedly redundant), I have been quite entertained over the past several weeks taking note of the ways people find Vitum Medicinus using search keywords.
Every so often, I'll see that someone came here through a search term and I wish I could find out who it was so that I could say something to them. So, in hopes that any of these individuals who stumbled upon my blog (and obviously did so quite unintentionally) have subscribed to VM via e-mail or through a feed reader or check back regularly, and will therefore read this, here is what I have to say in response to your search engine phrases. (If this was actually you, I and everyone else here would be quite interested if you'd leave a comment explaining what was going through your mind when you searched that).
And before you approach me asking "Did someone actually..." I will swear on my hamster's grave, I made none of these up.
- "Best way to separate frozen burgers"
I can understand how you'd get to this website if you search that, but until Vitum Recipicus® is born, you won't find the answer here. You'd only find how not to separate frozen burgers, something I learned from a surgeon...who did it the wrong way.
- "Jehovah Witness are corrupt"
Really... Chaque a son gôut (to each his own), I suppose... but I never made that claim on this website.
- "Chronic Masturbation"
(Variations: Effects of masturbation, effects of excessive masturbation, medicine masturbation, what is chronic masturbation, fall asleep masturbating... I'll leave it there)
Who would have thought that perhaps my most racy blog post (posted in the name of science, of course) would be one of my top search phrases? Okay, I suppose I should've guessed. Here is the blog post you are looking for. I won't ask...'nuff said.
- "Grey's Anatomy Scrubs"
(Variations: Gray's Anatomy Scrubs)
Please don't tell me you actually want to buy these. People are such corporate marketing patsys. Then again, people are influenced by marketing to a frightening degree even in preschool (Children believe carrots in McDonalds packaging taste better), so I won't blame you as much. One thing I do love about this search term - as of right now, when you search that term in Google, my blog turns up higher than the actual website that you can buy them from. Perhaps I should start selling them.
- "Empathetic Statements"
Finding and memorizing empathetic statements is probably not going to make you more genuinely empathetic. Oh wait, that's my med school's entire strategy to make us more empathetic. Has it worked? It might make us seem more empathetic, but are we really? The jury's still out.
- "It's my summer"
Indeed, it is your summer.
- "How to give medicine to the patient"
What is this, an assignment for Caribbean medical students? "Okay, class, now we will learn administration of pharmaceuticals. Open your browser to Google..." (Sorry topher, low blow! I'm only jokin'!)
- "Take my MCAT for me"
This one kindof frightens me. I know I don't want a doctor who made it to medical school because he paid someone to take his MCAT for him.
- "Why do we need our lungs"
Either someone was 1. extremely, extremely, extremely bored or 2. so clueless they might actually do an autopneumonectomy (I made that up) if they can't find the answer on Google just to see what would happen. I'll ignore the obvious joke potential and not use this opportunity to make another joke about one of my naturopath or Caribbean medical student friends (whom I insult often and only ever in good fun because I actually do respect them).
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Why Rural Docs have to leave town if they want a vacation
I've written a few posts already about how medicine has started to take over my life. Apparently, it doesn't necessarily end once you've become a doctor.
A doc at a rural conference I went to told me that in order for them to take a day off, they need to literally leave town.
Why? They explained as follows.
One day, early in their career in the town, the doctor was enjoying a vacation day with his family. The phone rang, and the doctor picked it up. "Doctor, I need your help please."
The doctor explained, "Sorry, today is my day off," and made a mental note to not pick up the phone during his next day off.
The next time he had a day off and the phone rang, he decided he'd let the machine get it, just in case it might have something to do with work. Sure enough, the message started out, "Doctor, I need your help..."
Shortly after, the phone rang again. It was the same number. Another message was left:
"Doctor, please pick up the phone, I know you're home, we can see your car in the driveway."
And that's why doctors in a small town need to leave if they want a break from work. Yep, medicine can take over your life.
If you want to know more about what it's like being a rural doctor, check out this brief article, recently published in the Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine: You Know You're a Rural Resident When... Selected highlights:
Monday, July 30, 2007
Top 10 List: Pieces of advice for pre-med students
Overheard during the interviewer lunch break at my med school's interview weekend: one old doctor to another - "The very first student we interviewed blew us away. She'd summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, competed in the Olympics, and was an honours student with incredible research experience and publications. You know, if applying to medical school was like this back when I applied, I don't think I'd be admitted."
Getting in to medical school is tough. In Canada, less than 30% of students who apply each year are admitted to a school, and on an individual basis Canadian schools accept as little as 3% of the people who apply (that's more competitive than some Ivy League schools in the USA!) (source). That's not counting the thousands of students who wanted to be doctors when they started their undergrad degree, and had to face the realization that thanks to things like the MCAT and the competitiveness of the pre-med world, and perhaps the odd slack semester or difficult year, they would never even make it to the point of applying for medical school.
Here's some advice I would give to any pre-med student applying to medical school, though non-pre-meds might find it interesting as well as it might give you a unique perspective into the mind of a pre-med student. I wrote this list assuming you know all the basic info - what the MCAT stands for, what an application involves, and the like, though keeners at any level of their training - high school, college, or university - might find this useful as well. Given that, what I've written below something I hope every pre-med could have the chance to read before they apply to med school.
10. Have a backup plan...
This is one of the hardest thing for pre-meds to do: plan what you'll do with your life should you not 'get in' this year (or ever). Why's it so hard? It just sucks to think about the fact that you might not be accepted. But, you can't put your eggs all in one basket... you need to be realistic and know that even some applicants with the highest marks aren't accepted anywhere. Nothing is for certain. So, have a backup plan if you don't get in this year... and also consider what you could do with your life should you not get in at all. This might even mean considering taking a 'pre-med' degreee other than biology, since you don't need a biology degree to apply; if the only job you'd be interested in doing that you can get with a biology degree is medicine, you might want to do something else.
9. ...but don't give up if you don't get in your first time.
It's turning out more and more now that getting into medical school is more about learning how to "play the game;" because it's such a crap shoot, anybody who doesn't get in their first time applying would be stupid to throw in the towel right away. Even if you didn't get an interview, go to an advising session if any of the schools you applied to offer one, and give it another go.
8. If you do get in, don't do anything the summer before you start classes.
Seriously - don't work. Travel, but only for part of your summer, since travelling around can be stressful and you want to have time to veg. Give yourself at least a few weeks to sit around like a bum and do nothing, maybe see some friends that you won't be able to hang out with when things get busy. Let me put it this way: you now only have a couple of summers left (unless you chose to apply to a 3-year program!).
7. Know what doctors do before you decide you want to be one.
It would be devestating sacrifice so much energy, effort and free time just to keep up in the pre-med rat race and realize later on that medicine isn't for you, so learn what a doctor does - not just daily, but learn what the lifestyle is like, the stress level, the impact on family life. How? A few ways: you can read books and biographies about physicians, you can shadow physicians where you live, or you can go to a developing nation and volunteer your services at a medical clinic or hospital. The third one shows commitment and could have much better opportunity for clinical exposure, thanks to different policies on liability; though if you do that, please make sure you're going to a place where you can actually contribute and not just be watching or being a pain, and remember that some med schools actually use the length of time you spend away as a 'filter' for resume padding; a former dean of admissions in Canada, as quoted in a newspaper article: "only the affluent can spend six months in Africa volunteering at an AIDS clinic. ... it's become sexy to put stuff like that on an application.... but they're not necessarily going to get extra points for it."
6. Know what other health care professionals do before you decide on medicine.
What does a perfusionist do? What's within a Respiratory Therapist's scope of patient care? Did you know that there are nurse anesthetists? How do you know that you want to be a doctor, not a nurse? As well, getting to know other health professions will help you respect other health care professionals once you start working with them. Finally, it will add depth to your understanding of your own motivations if you can be positive that you want to be a doctor, and not some other type of health care provider. Following #4 (below) can play a huge role in satisfying this, but make sure you still get the chance to see what these people do in real life as well. From my experience, anyone in these professions is more than happy to tell a future doctor what their job involves, if they're approached with interest and respect.
5. Don't kid yourself: Training to become a doctor is one of the most difficult things you can do.
Even though it may appear easy at first, when finals come around (even in first year) you will realize that you've never done anything more difficult, more demanding mentally, intellectually, and emotionally. It will take over every minute of your free time and you will have to set aside time usually devoted to family, friends, and yourself; literally my entire days the month before finals was wake/study/sleep, even though in undergrad I never had to study very much for most courses. The only people who don't feel this way around finals are the ones who have spent their entire semester studying, literally every day and weekend, or are exceptionally brilliant - and there will only be 1 person of the latter kind in your class so chances are it won't be you. And that's just first year. For third year, add all that stress to being on call, having to deal with patients, nurses and doctors daily, having a pager go off while you're sleeping, and having to study for finals in the midst of all that. In all honesty, I've always said that the only thing I can think of that is more demanding and draining than becoming a doctor is boot camp, and boot camp only lasts 12 weeks. However, that was until I read about a U.S. Marine turned doctor, who discusses "How Residency is Different from the Marines" (scroll down to find it). Even though he says the Marines was harder, training to be a doctor must be pretty hard in order to even deserve the comparison.
4. There is much value in reading the online medical blogosphere.
See my post titled 'why pre-meds should read medical blogs,' then for a place to start, check out my 'guide to medical blogs for beginners' . Here, though, I'll just list a couple of the several reasons. You'll see from jaded residents and medical students just how hard med school can be (try reading the Don't Become a Doctor series on iFindings' blog, as an example). You'll learn what being pimped means and how med students react to it and the subtle, unspoken rules involved. You'll hear about the most exciting moments in the OR, what it's like to be sued and sued again, learn from the mistakes of medical students and read what residents wish they had done differently. As well, you'll learn more about different health care professions if you take the time to read their blogs, fulfilling piece of advice #6. Beyond that, medblogs can give you a perspective on how these different professions work together in the same problem - see, for example, the story Perspectives, written in three parts: part I by a cop, II by a paramedic, and III by a nurse. And, you'll get involved with the profession in a unique way - by engaging in discussion, leaving comments and e-mailing blogging doctors, you can get 'face time' and advice from physicians that you might not get elsewhere.
3. Make sure that going into medicine is your own decision.
Are you doing this because an expectation has been imposed on you by your friends or family? Is this a dream you once had that has now faded, but it's just too hard to tell everyone that you are switching career plans? If you do go into medicine just to satisfy someone else's plan for your life, you are going to hate yourself, and you'll have nothing to keep you going when you have to give up everything for medicine.
2. Marks come first. You can always add volunteer activities after you graduate; you can't go back and increase your undergraduate GPA.
You don't want to look back on a year or a degree and say, "Those marks don't reflect my true potential...I wish I would have worked harder." My dad has told me over and over again of a man he knows who wanted to get into medicine, but when it came down to applying, his GPA was too low because he'd had more fun than study time in his first year of university. More than a few times I've been having conversations with people who say "My brother / cousin / friend tried to get into medical school, but couldn't..." and often it ends up being a GPA issue. Some people end up having to take a master's degree just so that their undergrad marks aren't considered... they have to work extra hard to make up a first semester where they played more billiards and pranks than studied, or a year when they didn't figure out that they understand organic chemistry until the last week.
1. Be 1000% sure that medicine is what you want to do.
...and make sure that you've completed #7 so that you are making an informed decision. Please do not go into this profession if you aren't completely and utterly sure that this is what you want to do. You'll only end up hating yourself for it, and if you stay in the profession, everyone around you will hate you, too.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
New Poll on VM: Sicko (and Grand Rounds Poll results)
For RSS readers of this blog who can't see the updates on Vitum Medicinus -
Check out the newest poll at Vitum Medicinus, and provide your opinion on the question:
Did the movie Sicko change your outlook on American healthcare?
- Yes, made it better
- Yes, made it worse
- No, it didn't
- Haven't seen it yet
- Won't see it
Find the poll in the right-hand column on any page in this blog, under the heading "Vitum Pollicus."
Previous Poll Results:
