The evolution of my blogs

Over the years, I've expanded by blogs and what began as a simple hobby has now turned into a part-time job for me. I began with a simple and free Google Blogspot URL and blogged about medicine, technology, gadgets, smartphones, PDAs, and non-clinical jobs and opportunities. As time went on and I realized that I should focus on specific areas, so I separated my blogs into 4 different sites:

www.NonClinicalJobs.com
www.MedicalSmartphones.com 
www.MedicineandTechnology.com 
www.MobileHealthComputing.com

Now, my time is split among these 4 blogs. I'm still passionate about medicine and technology, so I will continue to blog on these 4 sites in the New Year. I'm eager to see how my blogs will evolve in 2010.

Medgadget has joined the HCP Live Network!

I love the blog Medgadget. I think it's great that Medgadget has now joined the HCP Live network. I joined this network earlier this year and I feel honored to be on the same network as KevinMD and now Medgadget.

If you go to HCPLive.com, you'll see a list of sites and blogs at the very top section of the home page. That's where you'll see my 4 sites, along with KevinMD and Medgadget. 

What's cooking at Sermo these days?

In case you haven't noticed, Sermo has a blog. There, you'll find somewhat de-identified physician comments regarding certain medical topics. I say "somewhat" because sometimes within the comments, you'll see certain physicians named by their username. Some have arbitrary usernames like "radiologist" or "mcdreamy," while others have usernames that reflect their identity (like "billyjones" or "samsmith" - well, I made up these usernames, but they could be real)

One of the interesting discussions that's rated a "top post" on Sermo is a discussion regarding concierge medicine (also called boutique medicine and several other terms). Does concierge medicine have a role in the U.S. society? President Obama receives concierge medical care. Celebrities do too. Look at Michael Jackson. He had his own anesthesiologist who administered propofol (Diprivan) for him. Does concierge medicine meet an unmet need? It's so fascinating to read all the comments about this topic. What's an ethical amount to charge your patients when there's no clearly defined "market standard value"?

How can social media improve public health?

If I were back in school getting my MPH, I think I'd do my thesis on the topic of how social media can improve public health. I admit that I'm an early adopter and I love technology. As I see how consumers are embracing various social media outlets, I see a tremendous potential to improve public health through these different channels. The combination of health IT plus social media may revolutionize the world of healthcare if we recognize the potential and map out an appropriate strategy that utilizes all the major resources.

For instance, we know that consumers love to read blogs. Certain healthcare professionals also like to follow blogs. Blogs can be used to deliver key public health messages to the public.

In addition to blogs, we have tools like Twitter. Many bloggers use Twitter as a broadcast medium and I often wonder if Twitter will evolve and eventually replace traditional RSS feeds. Tweets that get retweeted can spread like a virus and circle around the planet faster than a viral email campaign. Did you know that the FDA, CDC, NIH, HHS, and WHO all have Twitter accounts?

Finally, we have social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and others. These social networking sites can be powerfully leveraged to communicate important public health messages.

So, whether you're talking about a swine flu pandemic alert, an FDA drug recall, a food alert, a drug safety alert, or any other type of public health alert, the use of social media combined with health IT resources will be an effective way to improve public health if the right people jump onboard and plan things appropriately.

Grand Rounds July 14, 2009: Technology and Healthcare

Welcome to Grand Rounds Vol. 5 No. 43 @ Medicine & Technology. The theme is this week is to look at different ways technology is changing the world of healthcare. I am your host this week and I hope you'll enjoy some of these interesting stories.

To start things off, we see Marya (Healthcare, etc.) talking about patient rights and the potential effects of false positive results. This may lead to unnecessary tests and/or medications and possibly even some invasive procedures. Do we really need to biopsy every small incidentaloma that appears on imaging studies? Perhaps as diagnostic testing improves over time, we will have fewer false positives.

Ramona (Suture for a Living) reminds us that we must not Forget HIPAA Privacy Rules as we continue to expand the use of electronic health records (EHRs). We know that EHR adoption will increase rapidly over the next several years as billions of dollars get channeled from the government.

Jolie (I am Dr. Jolie Bookspan, The Fitness Fixer) describes some of the high-tech things she got to do as a military research scientist. I wonder what those pilots experience as they go through acceleration testing and undergo serious g-force effects.

Bongi (other things amanzi) writes about a funny story that happened during his Saturday rounds when his boss focused on clothes and not on anyone's morning breath (improved breathalyzers in the future should pick up faint signals of ETOH during morning rounds).

Alison (Shoot Up or Put Up) talks how the internet has provided her with some useful tips to help her live with diabetes. The web is full of both reliable and unreliable health information for patients. Even healthcare professional sometimes get misguided by the information that can be found online.

Ryan (ACP Internist) shares an awesome acronym of the week: SHUTi, a new Internet program that shows promise for helping people get to sleep. Can stories, quizzes and games really teach people to have better sleep habits? Let's see.

Hank (InsureBlog) talks about how some patients are cleaning up their own hospital rooms. Perhaps once we have some fully-automated cleaning robots, we should be free of that problem. We just need iRobot to make make some hospital-grade Roomba and Scooba cleaning robots.

Nancy (Teen Health 411) writes about an exciting electronic Wellness Assessment for Youth - called WAY2GO! that's coming to We're Talking Teen Health at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF). Thanks to a partnership between the Health Trust, Vive, and PAMF, teens will be able to get a personalized health report back with links to a new service providing free personal health coaching via the web and their cell phones.

Sam (Canadian Medicine) writes about Dr. Bob Thirsk, a Canadian physician who is living on the International Space Station. What's he doing up there? Providing medical care for his fellow astronauts and operating the Canadarm2. I'd love to head out to space some day.

Jay (Colorado Health Insurance Insider) suggests that change in protocol for breech births may actually benefit mothers, babies, and health insurance companies. Is it possible that surgical technology has made it too convenient to opt for a C-section? What if we performed fewer C-sections?

Dr. Charles (The Examining Room of Dr. Charles) writes about the low-tech importance of empathy in taking a family history, and the precarious control of emotions that is needed in being a good listener. What does that look like? A level-headed, composed and somewhat thoughtful response.

OTW (On The Wards) writes how the increasing prevalence of drug-resistant bacteria is generating a need for newer weapons against infectious diseases. Why do we have all these superbugs? Are healthcare professionals too eager to prescribe antibiotics? Let's hope some advances in drug development will lead to more effective therapies against these multi-drug-resistant organisms.

Clinical Cases (Clinical Cases and Images - Blog) writes about ways to improve medical RSS aggregators. Do you even know what RSS stands for? What about Web 2.0? Speaking of RSS and Web 2.0, do you Twitter? Make sure to follow interesting medical bloggers on Twitter. You can start by following me @DrJosephKim

Allergy Notes (Allergy Notes) talks about one of my favorite topics: chocolate. Or, actually, chocolate allergies. I think if I ever developed that, I'd be taking Benadryl all the time. It's hard for me to imagine a life without chocolate. I could live without many things, but I'd really miss chocolate. If I developed a chocolate allergy that resulted in anaphylaxis, I'd probably go through several epi-pens each day.

Murali (SharpBrains) discusses the Pros and Cons of the most common assessments to identify cognitive problems, introducing the opportunity presented by innovative computerized neuropsychological tests. I think I'd prefer going through a battery of assessment tests over a brain biopsy. How about you?

Barb (Florencedotcom) writes about the well-known IT caveat "garbage in-garbage out," and what it means since the medication use system we rely on is rife with failure points. I haven't thought about GIGO in a very long time. We definitely need more drug safety specialists to help prevent medication errors. Computerized Prescriber Order Entry (CPOE) may reduce some errors, but it won't eliminate all of them.

In a guest post, Michael (Health Business Blog) talks about how Dr. Francis Collins (nominated as the head of the NIH) is getting a bum rap. What do you think about the Human Genome Project? I think it's rather amazing to see how far we've come in human genomic science.

The Samurai Radiologist (The Samurai Radiologist) asks: Which background music/sound is optimal for cognitive activities such as film interpretation? A quick and dirty study while on call suggests classical music. Bach, to be precise. In my former life, I used to play the oboe (but I wasn't one of those crazy, fanatical oboe players).

Randel (Disruptive Women in Health Care) blogs about the medical device industry, particularly the “use (or underuse)” of technology as it relates to what she describes as an “arcane” payment system. Although comparative effectiveness research must be used to test new medical technology, reform in the payment system is equally necessary.

Jan (Doc Gurley, Posts From An Insane Healthcare System) covers new information about the placebo effect, including a hierarchy of results (did you know big pills work better than small ones?). In her article, she also points out that positively reinforcing a result makes it more likely to happen. So does this mean all those TV and internet drug adds are boosting a drug's efficacy?

David (HealthBlawg :: David Harlow’s Health Care Law Blog) spoke with Prof. Rodwin about his proposal that all de-identified health data be subject to public ownership, so that private companies cannot restrict access to it and/or monetize it. Public ownership would ensure availability of data for comprehensive public health and evidence-based medicine uses.

Chris (Life in the Fast Lane) offers some pointers to help ‘Web 2.0 laggards’ pull their heads out of the ground and off-load the stress of information overload. Fear of information overload is a barrier preventing doctors from using web resources. But, given that humanity has been experiencing information overload since the invention of the Gutenberg press, ignoring web resources to avoid confronting this daunting problem is a maladaptive, self-defeating strategy.

Well, that wraps it up for this week. Thanks for attending Grand Rounds here at Medicine and Technology. And next week, head over to our surprise, last-minute guest host's site: www.docgurley.com (Doc Gurley, Posts From An Insane Healthcare System), for details on how you can submit. In addition to hosting Grand Rounds, Doc Gurley also will be, that same weekend, speaking at the Mystery Writer's conference in Marin about death, mayhem and the urban underside of life. If you're looking for inspiration, or a theme for Grand Rounds' July 21 submissions, the code word for next week's Grand Rounds is...mystery! Get your submission in early and win big Big BIG karma points! [AND, if you're a San Francisco Bay Area health blogger, send an email to Doc Gurley at docgurley (at) gmail (dot) com for details about the first ever health bloggers' meet-and-greet - ALSO on July 21!]

The evolution of my blogs

When I started blogging several years ago, I had a single Blogspot URL. I was writing about medicine, technology, gadgets, computers, and non-clinical opportunities for healthcare professionals. I also threw in some blog posts about completely random topics like the ubiquitous nature of a name like Joe Kim or Joseph Kim.

Earlier this year, I decided that my blog was getting too convoluted. In March/April 2009, I made a decision to secure a few novel URLs. I also decided to get serious about using Twitter.

Now I have four separate and distinct blogs. Perhaps someday if I become a professional blogger, I'll set up a few other URLs. In the meanwhile, I'll do my best to maintain these four sites:

Read: Twitter Tips for Medical Bloggers

If you're a medical blogger and you're not using Twitter, then take a look at this post on NonClinicalJobs.com : Twitter Tips for Medical Bloggers

I wrote that post on NonClinicalJobs.com because I see blogging as a type of non-clinical opportunity (especially if you're looking for a low-stress way to earn some supplemental income when you have some spare time). I'm trying to keep all my posts related to blogging tips and Twitter on that site. Have you visited NonClinicalJobs.com yet?

Simple Blogging Tips for Physicians

I'd like to offer some very simple blogging tips for physicians and other healthcare professionals who wish to start a blog (but who are also not super computer-savvy). You don't have to be a problogger to start a simple blog. If you decide that you really enjoy blogging, then you may wish to invest some time, energy, and resources into it.

One of the most popular frequently asked questions is: How do you increase traffic? Here's something that may be helpful: Medical Blogging Tips to Increase Traffic

Blogging Tips for Entrepreneurial Medical Students

I remember the days of being an over-worked, sleep-deprived, poor, stressed-out, medical student. I would not have considered myself an entrepreneurial medical student. Well, then again, maybe I was somewhat entrepreneurial. After all, I looked for opportunities to get involved in private tutoring so that I could make a bit of extra cash to help with some of my bills.

It's important to be realistic if you plan to venture on a new project that doesn't deter you from your main focus (which in this case should be studying). What if you could easily make $1/day for a few minutes of blogging? That might cover your cell phone bill. Within six months, what if you could increase that to $2/day? I'm not a fan of "get rich quick" types of schemes, but I've had the opportunity to personally help, coach, and guide medical students who were able to make up to $10/day by blogging (it takes a considerable amount of time to earn more than that, and most medical students don't really have the luxury to blog too much). You have to come up with content that will attract readers. Are you a good writer? Would that be worth your time? If so, then I encourage you to follow my blogs as I provide practical tips for medical students, residents, and practicing physicians who may be interested in starting a blog.

Now Part of the HCP Live Network

You may have noticed that this blog is now a part of the HCP Live Healthcare Professionals Network. You'll be hearing more about this over the next several weeks as things unfold. I'm very excited to be a part of this network (which includes bloggers like KevinMD). In the meanwhile, I invite you to explore my other blogs that are now a part of this network:

• Medicine and Technology
• Non-Clinical Medical Jobs, Careers, and Opportunities
• Medical Smartphones
• Mobile Health Computing

Using Web 2.0 to Combat Swine Flu

Swine flu is hitting a country that has tremendous technology resources. As healthcare professionals, how can we leverage existing Web 2.0 resources such as wikis, RSS feeds, blogs, forums, and other social networks to battle this threatening epidemic? On Twitter, you can find many discussions related to swine flu. The same is going on at Sermo. Since more doctors are equipped with mobile communication devices such as iPhones, BlackBerrys, Treos, and other smartphones, there may be an opportunity to send mass messages to healthcare professionals who are constantly connected. The old days of simple alphanumeric pagers are starting to fade.

Blogging for Supplemental Income

You've probably heard that you can make money by blogging. It's a great non-clinical opportunity if you enjoy writing. But how do you get started? What type of blog should you create? Can you make more if you write a medical blog? These are some of the questions that I often get asked.

Blogging can be a hobby (that may result in some supplemental income) or it can be a full-time career. There are people who have left six-figure salaries to go into full-time blogging. Remember the story about the nephrologist Arnold Kim who left his clinical practice to be a full-time blogger? I'm sure that KevinMD also makes a significant amount of money through his blog. I often wonder if he will leave clinical medicine to devote his time fully to his writing.

Blogging is a great option for retired physicians and other healthcare professionals who enjoy writing about different things. Keep in mind that the largest revenue generator are advertisements. However, there are other unique opportunities if you capture the right audience with your blogs.

To get started, I suggest that you use Blogger on Google. It's free and easy to create a Google account. Plus, after you create your blog, you can use Google Analytics to see what type of traffic you're getting on your blog. Many people also use WordPress for their blogs.