Thursday, July 31, 2008

Dr. A Show 42: Rural Doctoring





BlogTalkRadio Listen Live

Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 9pm Eastern Time

Join us tonight for the long awaited return of The Doctor Anonymous Show number 42. Our guest will be Dr. Theresa Chan from the blog called Rural Doctoring. She is a Family Physician by training who is practicing as a hospitalist in California. See the video post above.

If you do listen live, you can even take part in the chat room. It is truly "The show within the show." You can even call in and say hello. A great opportunity to interact with medbloggers you've only read about. And, you will be able to see me on the live webcam during the show! See you tonight!

For first time Blog Talk Radio listeners:
*Although it is not required to listen to the show, I encourage you to register on the BlogTalkRadio site prior to the show. I think it will make the process easier.

*To get to my show site, click here. As show time gets closer, keep hitting "refresh" on your browser until you see the "Click to Listen" button. Then, of course, press the "Click to Listen" button.

*You can also participate in the live chat room before, during, and after the show. Look for the "Chat Available" button in the upper right hand corner of the page. If you are registered with the BTR site, your registered name and picture will appear in the chat room.

*You can also call into the show. The number is on my show site. I'll be taking calls beginning at around the bottom of the hour. There is also a "Click To Talk" feature where you do not need a phone to call into the show - only a microphone headset. Hope these tips are helpful!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Vijay's Medical Microblog


In case it went under your radar, Vijay who is the rocking radiologist from India and from the Scan Man's Notes blog - he started something that he calls "Medical Microblog." It's through a Wordpress template and it's basically what it says. It's not really Twitter blogging but not really full blogging either.

It was kind of curious to me in that I wanted to try out the Wordpress blogging app for the iPhone. The app works pretty good. And, for a long time, I have been thinking of changing the entire Doctor Anonymous blog over to Wordpress. When Vijay started the microblog, I said, "Yay, the next incarnation of the I'm A Blogaholic blog. If anyone remembers that."

So, great idea Vijay. Will I use the Medical Microblog? Not all the time, but it's an interesting new way to express yourself out here. But, for me, still the primary ways of written blogging will still be Twitter and this main blogger blog - at least for now...

Thanks Nick for Grand Rounds!


Dr. Nick Genes announced on his mighty Blogborgymi blog that he is passing on the Grand Rounds tradition to Colin Son and Dr. Val Jones. Nick and I have talked about this before. He is getting through his Chief Resident year in Emergency Medicine which is a huge time commitment and very busy job. And, at some point, it kind of made sense to pass on GR to the next generation of medical students and residents. It's only fitting that GR does that.

This post is just to thank Nick for all the work that he has done to bring medical blogging - something I call now new media medicine - to more prominence. He continues to be my inspiration that one person can make a difference. One person can try to gather people of a common interest together to share stories and important medical information with one another.

Even though my participation in GR has significantly decreased in the last few months, I still enjoy glancing through the posts week after week and finding new blogs to read. I have "met" so many people in this process and consider some of the people I have met as close friends even though I may not even have "met" these people in person.

So, if you haven't yet, leave a comment on Nick's blog post saying "Thanks!" Or, even better, write your own post tribute to Nick and to the origins of Grand Rounds, or even how you came to find Grand Rounds. I'm not a big fan of memes but a "Thanks Nick" meme would be great to resonate around the circles of new media medicine. GR is in great hands with Colin and Val as they take Grand Rounds to the next level. I hope to be writing GR posts again soon, and maybe even taking a crack at hosting again.

Nick made three appearances on The Doctor Anonymous Show. The first was on November 8, 2007 right before I hosted GR and had a live premiere of GR on a special Monday night show. The second was on January 10, 2008 to talk about the Medgadget Medblog Awards. And, the third time was on January 20, 2008 as the polls were closing for the awards. I encourage you to check those shows out. Thanks so much Nick and Good Luck!

The Rural Doctoring Interview

First assist rural doc on TwitPic

The Doctor Anonymous Show is proud to welcome Dr. Theresa Chan from the Rural Doctoring blog to show 42 on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 9pm Eastern Time. She is a family physician (YAY!) working in Northern California who primarily does hospital work now - Called a hospitalist. Did you know that family docs deliver babies? Well she does and she even blogs about it. You can also follow her twitter feed right here.

She is a relatively new blogger and in my humble opinion, she is one of the fastest rising stars in "New Media Medicine" (I'm trying to get away from the term "medical blogosphere"). I think she's a great writer. If you don't take my word for it, how about being at the top of the Kevin MD Power 8 for not just one week for a number of weeks in a row.

I encourage you to check out some of her most popular posts in the right side bar of her blog including, "Why I Blog," "Open Letter to Woman at Supermarket," and my personal favorite simply called, "The Hospital Yadda-Yadda." We'll also talk about her new iPhone, how she's dealing with her new media medicine fame, and the interesting topic of transparency.

Finally, if there is time, I'll talk about what the heck I've been doing since I've been off - including my Board Exam Experience, Podcamp Ohio, and other assorted stuff. I'm also going to Kansas City this weekend where I will be on a panel presenting to family medicine residents and medical students. And, there may be a major change to my "new media medicine" life that may occur this weekend. We'll see.

Monday, July 28, 2008

My Board Exam Experience




Hi, I'm Doctor Anonymous. Remember me? Probably not. I'm the guy who took a month away from his blog and from his show to focus on something silly like the American Board of Family Medicine recertification exam. I can't believe that it's been seven years since I completed my residency training. I've been in the same job for the past seven years, which I think is the exception to the rule. I've talked with a lot of my peers who have been at more than a handful of different jobs since finishing residency.

I know it's silly, but I still get a little anxious about the entire testing process. I've been reading, reviewing, and doing practice questions for the past few months or so. Overall, I think I was as ready as I was ever going to be going into the exam. People told me and I believe that getting adequate rest on the night before the exam is key. However, as always happens, I didn't sleep very well the night before the exam.

As you'll see from the video posted above, this is me on test day. It's kind of a three act play. The first part is me barely awake kind of being a little reflective on the process and sounding a little scared and anxious going into the thing. The second act is me right around lunch time after my morning session and before my afternoon session of testing. And, the final act is thoughts following the exam and the "screw-up" that happened that hopefully will not affect my score.

Thanks again to everyone who left supportive comments and wrote supportive e-mails during the past month. You have no idea how much that helped me and kept me going with the positive attitude - and kept me focused. I'm slowly getting back into the blog and will be bringing back the show this week.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Going to camp




I'm actually taking a few days off from work, if you can believe that. As the title of this post goes, I'm going to camp. I think I may have mentioned it on this blog before, but I'm the team doc for our local boys high school soccer team. And, I think this is the second or third year that I'm going to camp with them. (See video post above)

It's really a great time! I get to hang out with the coach and the kids. I admit that I don't know that much about soccer, so it gives me a chance to learn a little about the fundamentals of the game in addition to some strategy. I'm definitely not a coach and I'm not much with X's and O's. My job is health and medicine, and I think I play that role pretty well.

We're going to watch one of the professional teams play tomorrow night, and the kids love that. They get inspired and it's a great spring board to their work at camp over the weekend. I'm taking the new flip cam. So, I hope to get some video to share with all of you.

In other news, studying for boards is going well (I think). I'm taking a study book with me to camp. And, there is no internet down there to distract me. However, I hope to share some stuff of what's going on through my Twitter posts via the trusty iPhone. So, if you haven't yet, subscribe to my Twitter feed to get the latest updates. I know it's early, but have a great weekend, everybody. I know I will!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

12 days until boards





Here's the update:

1. Had an unscheduled Doctor Anonymous Show 41 last week. It was a wrap-up of Podcamp Ohio. I told myself that I was actually going to have show notes done, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Had a great time (as usual) and afterward tried out ustream and even oovoo. Fun!

2. Board study update: My strategy is to do a lot of questions, and I think that it's working. At least for me, a lot of this "thing" I have with exams is a confidence level. And, I think that my confidence level is improving. About 10 days left.

3. On call this weekend: One of the good things about summer around here is that the hospital is not that busy (Oh great, I just jinxed myself now). But, as of Sunday night, things have been going ok.

4. Home internet down Saturday: This was really frustrating, let me tell ya. You probably know what I'm talking about. But, I actually had to find something else to do other than check my Twitter. Actually, it was good for me, because I had a good day studying and focusing Saturday.

5. New Gadget: As you can see from the video above, I got a new gadget. It's a really small video camera called The Flip Mino. It's really fun, and the video quality is not bad. I've been shooting some stuff this weekend, and may even put it on my viddler site soon.

6. Soccer Camp: As some of you may know, I'm the team doc for our boys high school soccer team. On Thursday of this week, I'm going to camp with these guys. Can you believe that? I've been doing this for the past couple of summers or so, and it's a blast! We're staying on campus, and hopefully the dorm where I'm at will have Wi-Fi so I can continue to post stuff. At least, I'll try to record with the new cam and share the experience with you.

7. New MedBlogger: Finally, I wanted to point out a blog that I just started reading. How I stumbled onto it was that this guy subscribed to my Twitter feed (the power of twitter - hehe). The blog is called The Scut Report by JSE Booth who is a fourth year medical student. Great stories over there. So, check it out and tell 'em that Dr. A sent ya! That's it for now!

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

17 days until boards




Just wanted to give everyone an update on what's been happening:

1. Thank you!: Just wanted to thank everyone for your supportive comments and e-mails during this time when I've had to step back from the blog and the show. I hated to do it, but felt I needed to re-focus for this month. I'll be up and running again soon.

2. Board Exam Preparation: I admit that I did freak out a little bit last weekend when I realized that I had less than three weeks until the exam. My prep is basically doing a lot of practice questions and practice tests. This has served me well in the past.

3. Podcamp Ohio: This was a fabulous experience. I'm going to have to talk about this on a future show. I shot a lot of video out there and posted some videos on my Viddler site. Check it out. Some funny stuff over there (at least I think).

4. Podcamp Ohio Wrap-up Show: I was asked to have a feedback session to kind of do a post mortem (bad joke) on the meeting. So, if anyone is going to be around, there's going to be a special episode of The Doctor Anonymous Show on Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 9pm. But, be warned, that we're going to be talking Podcamp and not medicine.

5. Twitter: I'm using this a lot these days. If you want to know what I'm doing, subscribe to my twitter feed. This "micro-blog" thing is interesting and I'll be using blogger for longer thoughts and discussion.

6. iPhone 3G: People have been asking me if I'm going to take the plunge and by this thing on Friday. I'm going to go on the record right now and say that I'm going to wait for a little bit. First of all, my area is not 3G, so I won't be able to take advantage of the higher web speeds anyway. And, also, I don't care much for the GPS. I'm going to use the software upgrade in my current iPhone and have fun with the new apps that come out for it.

7. When is the show coming back officially? I'm thinking of Thursday, July 31st. That way, my boards will be done and I think I'll be ready to get back in the saddle again to start blogging and getting the show back to a normal schedule. But, we'll see. For now, enjoy the video above from Podcamp. I think it's funny. I hope you do, too!