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!
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 andTwitter 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!
Once in a while, in our busy and chaotic medical life, a few patients would come by and jerk you off your comfort zone for empathy and go bonkers on the absurdities of life. They come into your clinic like the usual patients complaining of this or that disease. The moment you ask these patients about their history however, you pause at one point in awe and be moved for a while. Something hit you and had hit you hard. You are, in medical numbspeak, “infected” with their moving story.
One of my few personal favorites is the story of Mang Pedring. Mang Pedring, is a fifty something bread winner of his family. The father of four and a laborer, he frequents and works part time inside these gambling site to earn his living. He barks (as kristo) in a cockfight, a tayador in a tumbo (I wont bother expounding on this because I really have a vague idea what this coin gambling is) and a meron in a card game called Pusoy or tsikitsa. He broke his left arm after falling off a motorcycle. He was on his way to the cockpit- the gallery for cockfighting.
A cockfighting match barker or kristo doing his stunt in the game to earn his living (Photo credits to the original owner)
It was almost a month after his injury when he sought consult at my clinic. Prior to this, Mang Pedring went to a number of bonesetters, a doctor, and was actually admitted in one hospital for 5 days. His last closed reduction and casting didn’t went well for some unknown reason (I learned later, that he took off his mold because it felt so tight for him, without consulting his previous doc). What’s worse is, he drained his funds going through all these unsuccessful attempts at “fixing” his broken arm.
Funds, which he revealed, was a pool of money earned from gambling- from the throw in of his fellow gamblers when they learned of his predicament, and (the most disheartening was) what he earned as a cockpit kristo or barker while his right arm is strapped in a sling and a cast. That helpless ironic sight, as I imagined from his story, made me twitch in empathy. I cannot imagine raising my broke arm in an attempt to earn my living, much more do it in a gambling site. He came begging me to fix his arm so he can go back to his ‘work” and earn for his family.
What I was trained of course, is not to give weight on his conflicting circumstances but focus more on his ailment, which is his broken arm. Orthopods were trained well to aim at a holistic treatment of a “broken” patient- to return the patient to his functioning, pre injury status. In Mang Pedring case, to his gambling “work”.
I owe it to Hippocrates and to mankind to do just that and leave the morality of his gambling work to the society’s judgment. In fact, I never pass on judgment unto Mang Pedring. I simply wanted to bring him back to his pre injury level. Whether his work qualifies (or not) as a job for many of us, that is not my concern and is not what struck me in his story. It is his struggle to earn a living while still on the mercy of a cast over his left arm. The ghastly scene is further brutalized by having to work as a barker in a cockfight. What suddenly flashed in my mind? A wounded gladiator.
Funds depleted, and totally frustrated at his broken arm, I reapplied his cast ( as a temporary “fixation”) while we where looking for funds for his operative treatment. I said I could help finding a sponsor for his metal implant and negotiate for a “free surgeon”. He only has to look for his medicines needed during the operation. Right there, I saw Mang Pedring’s eyes beaming with happiness. He cried in front of me. Cries, which really whacked me out of my objective senses for a minute. I saw his desperation. I saw his hope. Now his desperation is mine too. His hope, lies in what I could do to ease out his predicament. I have to fix his broken arm. Soon. Fast.
Then what he said (in hiligaynon) before leaving struck me the most:
“I gotta get back to the cockpit and the tumbuan doc and ask again for a “throw- in” for my surgery. I know people there would help me”
I scratched my head in disbelief. Mang Pedring was and even in dire needs, look up to his gambling and fellow gamblers for help. Whatever our society has passed judgment as morally wrong wouldn’t matter to this guy for as long as it saves his limb and and put food in the table for his family. For once, I thought Jesus, the kristo, was disguised as a gambler. Mang Pedring is and will probably be a gambler. But his aspirations and dreams were similar (or parallel) to the non gambling patients I’ve treated. He wanted to return to his job and feed his family. Whether his method or job is morally wrong to some of us that is not my hemisphere of expertise. I simply wanted to return him to his pre injury functioning level. Period.
After 2 more casting sessions, Mang Pedring didn’t come back to my clinic anymore. While in the process of “pooling” funds for his surgery, he felt his armed healed already and removed his cast. Of course I wanted to confirm that with an x-ray. I also wanted to see if the money he pooled is really safe in his piggy bank and not to the gambling aficionados. I didn’t get that chance. One gambling insider later told me Mang Pedring is back in the cockpit again, without his cast and seem to have a functioning arm. I just smiled. Perhaps my work has ended successfully there.
Perhaps, I made a gamble on Mang Pedring.
(Photo credits goes to Islander in the City, here)
After so many rounds of theme changing and theme hacking, I ended with this really “simple” and “neat” layout thanks to 3Roads Media. I’m immensely happy with it. Don’t be fooled however. This theme is “superb” with the right enhancements. It’s clarity and simplicity is second to none.
Even with this simple layout, there’s a bit of how to just so you won’t get lost while navigating within my blog. It also eases out your way on getting what you need with a few clicks.
I’m pretty sure it’s just my juicy posts that you’re interested. And nothing else. (I offer no freebies for now..) So I made it simple for you.
First, subscribe to my blog and get every post I have here right in your inbox. Enter your email in the subscription box in the sidebar. Or if you use an RSS reader, click the upper right hand most menu that says “RSS” and you’ll be subscribed after a few more clicks. If your particularly interested in a topic, do a search in my top sidebar. Or scan through my archives, my categories or the tags all easily accessible in the sidebar.
If you find the post title you wanted, all you need to do is click on the large title font and presto you’ll on the article you wanted. If your fonts look weird, that is probably because you don’t have a flash player installed in your pc or browser. This theme implemented an SIFR font enhancer to highlight words and readability. SIFR needs a flash player . Go get it here and install it now, or you’re actually missing (99%) what’s the best of online contents.
Of course I would appreciate it if you leave a comment in my articles. You don’t need to be logged in to do that but I prefer you do to avoid spamming and know you better. If you don’t have a gravatar, grab one. That will put a face to that mystery icon in the comments. Please be patient if your comment isn’t approved instantly, cause I may not be online to do that ASAP. But yes, I will attend to it a soon as I am online.
Again, I’m urging you, tosubscribe to my blog, via emails, or through an RSSto get my post faster. You can also follow this blog on Facebook, on twitter and on so many other social networks you like. Just click the button and the rest is given to you.
My sincere apologies, to you, dear readers and followers.
For not having posted anything new in this blog for quite sometime.
For transferring my site url without the necessary ‘temporary redirect page” and thus confusing you all.
For messing up this blog and its layout several times, that even me the author, got lost in the site navigation .
Leaving the blog rounds temporarily in mess and its publications schedules unmet…
I have transferred this blog, from a free subdomain platform Blogger, to a self hosted WordPress blog The Orthopedic Logbook (https://remomd.com/blog).
The clamor for transferring this blog to a better platform is getting louder. The so many features I need to suit my readers is just not available on free versions. Or I’d consume more time hacking just to do a run around for this features. Transferring entails time, funds and a lot of layout tweaking. Time, that often interfered with my regular job. And funds? It all came from my shallow pocket. The tweaking though ate most of my time, as I am new to wordpress.
I realized though that even as blogging is as important to me, readers and subscribers need to know the whys and what the heck of my sudden but “temporary” disappearance in the medical blogosphere. And I hope, I have not lost your trust and confidence in me and my blog.
I hope with my new home and eye friendly layout, it will be easier for you to get hold of my articles, navigate through my blog . I will tackle how to navigate through my blog in my next post.
Again, my sincere apologies and thank you for your continued patronage of my blog,The Orthopedic Logbook!
