Cast & Curious

Category: Uncategorized

  • Stuck with writing in the age of blogging.

    Blogging is expensive. The time, money and effort you invest on it, is capricious. On many occasions, I and a hundred or so human being would ask this writer, what good will blogging bring? Money?Fame?Better English?Save the world? If you’re following my blogs, you would know by now, that I have totally none , zero, nil, of those.

    Yet, I still blog.

    Last Blogger’s Day, a fervent writer doc,  wrote an interesting post entitled “I’m not a blogger“. Of course  the title caught my attention but what hit me most is this:

    “…Someday I’d like to be a writer who happens to have a blog…”

    Then I realized, with all honesty,  I too, I’m a writer. A bad writer maybe, but yes, I’m still a writer.

    “But what do you write, doc?”

    I’ve been writing blogs since its inception years ago. Blogging is an emotional and experience outlet for me back then. I was so happy ranting out things that many bloggers nowadays would consider “too mushy”. In fact, many bloggers have taught me to be more “focused” on purposeful blogging, and blogging with finesse. The harder I tried those, the less I am happy with my write up, strangely. So I’m re learning emo-blogging, by heart.

    After years of soul searching and writing for each of those niches (medicine, hiking, photography, sports, personal) I came to one basic realization common to them all. I write to reminisce an experience. The simplest experience can be so elaborate (or verbose) when you write it and musical when you read it. I relish reading my experience. Or those by others, when written nicely.

    Sometimes, I write to shape a “dull” or fill an “empty” mind. That mind is usually mine or on few occasions, others’. The former is to educate mine, the latter, is usually to fill minds with laughter, of wanton bliss and rarely with altruistic intentions. I have few success with the latter’s  “intentions” usually because, I too cringe when someone else tries “to shape” my mind. So I stick with my own mind filling garbage.

    Still on very few occasions, I write to empty my mind. Yes, empty. Empty frustrations, guilt, desperation and hopelessness. I wish I can just empty it like that and press ALT + Ctrl + Del so it goes away, pronto. I’m successful at times, but often, those hopelessness and frustrations just go to “sleep mode”, like my mac would do when its bored with me.  I’m already happy with that.

    You see, I’m stuck with blogging right now. I happen to be a writer born on an age where blogging is the platform. I’m a writer on evolution, or revolution perhaps. When blogging will become cliche and it goes a way, I’m still stuck with writing, maybe on another platform who knows. But I’ll continue to write.

    It is my passion. The blog(s), happens to be my yellow paper, like the canvas to a painter.

  • Should I get an iphone or an itouch?

    I’ve been a gadgeek (gadget freak) during Nokia and Palm OS heydays and frankly, I ‘m happy getting over such expensive gadgetry addiction years ago. But when I lost two cellphones in one instant just recently, I was tempted to dwell back at gadgetry once again while  thinking what smartphone to buy for personal use. Losing two cellular phones in one instant is like being hit in the head by a baseball bat twice in one swing. But looking at it as a hell yeah! opportunity for diving into gadgetry (again) is courting an idiopathic gadgiosyncrasy. Another bad habit to break. I think.

    Anyhow, the answer to my title-question dawned on me during one meeting with senior colleagues . They were discussing iPhone apps, in their daily life and practice.  While I love getting “cobbs angle” in x-rays of scoliosis patients using the reliable, old goniometer-pencil method,  I feel like crap when someone else comes forward and aims his/her iphone at the x-ray plates to get the cobbs angle in less than a minute.

    “There’s an iPhone app for that sir”. I felt the age (technology) gap was on me. Yes, my old method will do the same thing, but at such speed and efficiency? I have to get one of those iOS frill.

    which one would you get?

    The iPhone and the iTouch both run on the same iOS so the basic difference is just the cellphone capabilities of iPhones. If you need constant net connection then you need an iPhone. Iphones  connect to your cellular network’s paid internet service for as long you have your network signal and even without a wifi conneciton. Itouch needs a wifi signal to connect to the net. The rest of these gadgets’ features (camera,HD etc) is basically the same. Most apps for iPhones works for iTouch too except those that need  a cellular signal to work, like the GPS inherent on iPhones.

    I  don’t want my cellular phone mixed up with my iOS gadget. Iphones is such a hot stuff for kleptomaniacs in my area I might just lose it. Besides, I’m not comfortable using my cellular network’s expensive internet service. Most of the places I’m into have free wifi hotspots. So an itouch would really suffice. For now.

    How about you? Whats your preference?

    (Update July, 1, 2011: I now have both, an i touch and an Iphone. Now I’m finding use for both.)

  • Facebook invades Philippines: Will health care capitalize on this social media?

    In my last post, I presented a research that summarizes the current internet usage of physicians, in the US, Europe, Australia and South Korea. It was a ” backgrounder” really, in my attempt to determine how many physicians in the Philippines use the internet and social media in their practice.

    But this data is really difficult to find or is perhaps not available yet.  To give an approximate of how much social media (such as Facebook) has penetrated the Filipino online market, let me show an interesting graphic summary (of facts) about Facebook and its Philippines “market”. This was based on the data compiled by socialbakers.com and graphically summarized by the Yehey digital group. I’ll leave you to draw out your own conclusions.

    Philippines and Facebook facts

    How many percent of this Philippine market are physicians or patients using FB for their practice or in search of medical information? If you have an idea, leave your comment below and let’s start some discussion!

  • State of internet and social media usage among physicians

    State of Internet usage among physicians globally

    The emerging social media is undeniably capturing the attention of physicians. If we are to believe the recent Manhattan Research survey, some 81-89% of physicians in US, Europe and Asia access the internet to  gather medical and pharmaceutical information. A S and R survey recent survey on Sermo TM, an online community of physicians, approximately 77.5% of physicians use social media professionally, especially to communicate with colleagues. In Asia, physicians from South Korea is second only to US physicians in terms of internet usage professionally beating their European counterparts by as much as 7%!

    What about physicians in the Philippines? Are they taking advantage of social media as a tool for their professional practice?

    In my succeeding posts under the category “social media”, I will be attempting to report on the current usage of social media among physicians in the Philippines. But before that, let me post this JESS3 / The State of The Internet video from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo, which sums up beautifully the current global internet and social media use .

    JESS3™ / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

    Overwhelming? Indeed it is. But what’s more interesting is the social media usage of physicians in the Philippines. Since some physicians maintain “profiles” on many online social networking sites, it would be interesting to know if they use social media in their practice. If you are a physician or a para medical personnel, do you use social media in your practice? Leave a comment here and we’ll know in my succeeding posts!

  • Flashback: Blogging as a medium to spread health care issues and advocacies

    While still undecided what article to post first for 2011 , I read my first ever post in this blog. I was nostalgic and a bit in awe. I never really thought I’d come this far with just writing and posting my health care ideas online. More so, raise some eyebrows and grab attention to my online discourses.

    physician blogging

    It was an unfamiliar  niche back then, with awfully fewer local  health care blog icons to emulate while I’m still familiarizing myself with blogging as a social media. I was dipping my toes on an uncharted system, a free for all, but  risky undertaking especially for physicians who are generally viewed as conservatives and slow (or even critical ) at adapting to any form of social media.

    Friendster, Myspace and Multiply are booming back then, but these forms of social media target the personal “online space” market.  Facebook and Twitter is still in its infancy and internet penetration in the Philippines (roughly 3-5%) is almost the same as our health care budget  today. The health care niche is a new frontier with some risky uncertainties. You don’t know what type of readers you get when you write health care ideas online. We also don’t have a specific measure to know who’s reading what you rant about online and if your “message”  reaches your specific target audience.

    Still, the potential remains. There’s not much holding someone full of ideas and a baggage of English grammar rehabilitation program.  There’s lot of free online space to practice. Just don’t press the “publish” button without  having the read your draft 5 times.

    My strategy then was to use personal experiences and then sharing them online as a “jump off” point to get my messages message across a broad spectrum of readers. Knowing that the personal online space market is popular back then (it is up to now I suppose), it’s the best way I can capture or grab the attention of potential readers. It is a very risky strategy in fact, since much of health care issues are” grey zones” and the health care community is strongly comfortable with health care conservatism. Social media back then was the realm of the online geeks.

    Again, I saw it as an opportunity  or rather, an alternative form of spreading some of my health concerns and advocacies. There’s no better alternative for me than the fast,  easy and lower cost of publishing  ideas, online. Blogging and the new social media also opened the gates for building communities of critical minds exchanging ideas and creating an even bigger community of health care online front liners.  Of course regulations regarding its use like HIPAA or a set of online health blogging ethics (HONE Code) has to be in place for this potential to be truly maximized. Nonetheless, blogging as an alternative social media has the potential to erase that obstacle in spreading health care issues and advocacies brought about by the costly  and slower traditional forms of media .

    The question now is “can we sustain this form of social media? Is it here to stay or is it on its way down? Leave your answers in the comment section below!