Revisited: The GR experience

Even though I initially said that this is not a medical blog, I eventually found myself blogging about - guess what, medical stuff. I guess I initially said that because I didn't want this to be all about medicine. There is no way that I wanted to become some kind of medical resource of information. There are a lot of other blogs out there with the reputation and quality information for that sort of thing.

I forget who first mentioned Grand Rounds to me, but I was very much flattered that people thought I could submit a post over there. As I was reading GR every week, I learned that there were a lot of great writers out there in the medical blogosphere. And, you guess it, I didn't think I could be in the same league as them.

My first Grand Rounds was July 11, 2006 over on the donorcycle blog. I was even excited that I made the "editors top picks." "Yay me," I said at the time. I was definitely on my way at that point.

For the next few months, I tried to write something for every GR. Sometimes I was able to, and other times I could not (or didn't like anything I wrote that week). It was really weird (in a good way) because my blogroll started to grow and people started to recognize/remember my blog.

Then, November 9th is a day that changed this blog forever. That was the day that I got the e-mail from Nick Genes asking me if I was interested in hosting Grand Rounds. Like, duh! This was a no-brainer. The catch was that I would be hosting in like two weeks.

So, what did I do? I held a press conference, asked for some reader feedback, described what GR was, tried to hype things up to generate interest, and waited, and waited, and waited for the posts to roll in. And, did they! That weekend was nuts for me. If I recall correctly, I was on call that weekend as well. So, trying to balance everything was challenging (and fun!).

The big day quickly arrived. Grand Rounds 3.09 premiered on Tuesday, November 21, 2006 to big fanfare (or at least what I thought was big fanfare). In the weeks prior to this, there was debate about the use of themes for GR (there is still occasional discussion on this). I didn't use a theme, but chose to break things up in three sections. Looking back on things now, I may have been a little bit harsh on those in the bottom section. I don't know, but maybe that treatment will prevent me from hosting in the future - well see.

Other than that, I was very happy about how things turned out. That time was probably at the height of my obsession with stats and how many visitors I was going to receive. As I remarked on my hosting experience in part 1 and part 2, this will probably be the only time in my blog life that I will receive 1000 visitors in one day. I was ecstatic!

Are grand rounds still a priority for me? I guess it is, but I'm not pushing myself every week to submit something - like I did in the past. In my opinion, anyone who calls him/herself a medical blogger should go through the experience of organizing some kind of blog carnival like grand rounds, pediatric grand rounds, change of shift, etc. It's a great experience.

It's hard to believe that almost seven months have passed since that time. But, I still remember those thoughts like it was yesterday. I'm going to reflect on other posts in the next week during the countdown to my blogiversary. Hope you enjoy this series, because I know I am!