Medical Bloggers Frolick at Blog World Expo
I am sitting now in the medical blogger track at the Blogworld Expo.
As is generally the case, I got here too late to bum around with the med bloggers last night. It happened when I went the the “Putting Patients First” summit in DC as well. I just seem to have that kind of luck.
Anyway, the medical bloggers are forgiving and did not think I was being snooty. They also didn’t mind it when I missed breakfast with them. Why did I miss breakfast? I was being interviewed by Ira Glass from NPR. For some reason, this little ol’ blog got the attention of the producer from This American Life, the show that Ira hosts. They are doing a series on health care costs being out of control, and read the post I did in January about the insanity of medical codes. She felt that I would be a good person to discuss the reality of medical codes in the daily life of a doctor.
This is clearly a wild and madcap gang.
I spoke for almost an hour, and really enjoyed the conversation. In fact, I can say with confidence that was the only time I have had any pleasurable experience associated with medical coding. The piece should air this weekend, and I think it will be on the American Life podcast as well.
So then I went on to the Blogworld Expo (brought there by the sound engineer from the local NPR station – a very nice guy from Brooklyn). This is the first year that we have a specific track, and so this is a terrific opportunity to get together with people I know well but have never met. I can say categorically that I like medical bloggers. I haven’t met all of them – I am sure there are some I wouldn’t like, but every one I’ve met so far is great.
Yes, I did talk on a panel about the ethics of blogging (book your ticket to the apocalypse, kids), and it went fine – especially because I am hard to shut up. I’ll post more on that subject later – medical ethics, not me shutting up.
Perhaps the highlight of this (with other lights being of nearly as high altitude) is that Bongi, the South African surgical blogger, is here with his significant other. I thought my flight was long.
The take-home of this post is to say that medical bloggers have arrived. We have been working for an identity for a long time, but now we are not only being recognized by the general blogging community, but also by the mainstream media. That’s either great or really scary.
You make the call.
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
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