Tag: blogosphere

  • 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.

  • Why am I stuck with writing?Or blogging?: The Blog Rounds Season 2 starts!

    I'm stuck writing!(Photo from this site http://www.webunlimited.com/blog/search-engine-optimization/25-sure-fire-blog-headline-templates-you-can-use-now/)

    Why are you pounding those keyboards on your computer to journal your thoughts , experiences and maybe, your wisdom? Are you stuck?

    With the explosion of other more convenient and uber popular social medium like facebook or twitter, it’s common nowadays that I get annoying questions like “You still blog? Why not just shout it out in facebook or twitter?”

    Yeah, I’m beginning to ask myself this: Am I stuck with writing?or blogging? Are we a dying breed? Or more importantly, why are we (still) writing or blogging instead of hanging out with facebook or twitter?

    Those questions I will throw to you all my fellow doc bloggers for the first ever blog rounds second edition! I’m hosting it too here at The Orthopedic Logbook. This is my call for articles. I’m sure many of you have one reason or many, personal or commercial, emotional or political to stay on writing this thing we do. I’m sure would be very interested.

    Again read the rules of engagement for the blog rounds here.

    Invited docs are listed here in my links. I’m adding a few others and I’ll tag you by FB (Blog Rounds closed group) or twitter with hastag #blogrounds2

    Deadline: Maybe Sunday May 15, 2011 at around 12 noon? Just give me a link to your post, by commenting below, as soon as you can. I’ll do the rest as the HOST.

    Well, lets just say I miss the blog rounds. Are you all game???

  • Why you should not be your parent’s (or any other relative of yours) physician

    Ugh! (photo from here)

    It’s hilariously difficult to even get an IV line inserted. “Jesus, are you going to pin prick me to death?

    Or get a good symptomatic history. ” I had my stomach pains and vomiting since 10:30 but I could handle it till 1:00am so you can bring me to ER” She was dehydrated by then.

    They have their own diagnosis. ” I only ate small amounts of pancit…maybe its my UTI!” Maybe. But her blood sugar is also 290. With some signs of dehydration..

    And their treatment : “ I’ll just lessen what I eat so as not to perk up my sugar

    And discharge plans: “I’ll go home tomorrow, where are you?

    They also can be your chief of clinics :”When are you going to see me? Who is my doctor, what time will he be here??“..

    Ugh, well. I just resigned my job and endorsed my patient! I’d rather just be, “the Son”. Good luck doctor!

  • 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!

  • 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!