Medical blogs educating a curious public

Blogs such as Corazon Hispano provide information about prevention issues.

Those of you who frequently use the internet are probably familiar with the term “blogging.”

A weblog, or blog, is an interactive internet page, an informal cybernetic discussion about a specific topic of interest. Just to give you an idea of how popular blogging is: In July 2006, the Pew Internet & American Life Project estimated that the U.S. blog population was composed of approximately 12 million adults; that’s 8% of the total number of internet users. The number of U.S. blog readers was estimated at 57 million.

During the past several years, a number of physicians have decided to blog about medicine. These so-called “medical bloggers” blog about health policy issues, the health care system, personal and professional experiences and general medicine, among many other topics.

Juan Rivera

One medical blog that I find particularly interesting is Vegan Heart Doc. Heather Shenkman, MD, an interventional cardiology fellow, vegetarian and cyclist aficionado, incorporates personal anecdotes in her blogs to educate people about healthier cardiovascular lifestyles. She even gives readers suggestions on how to cook quick, healthy vegetarian meals.

Dr. Flea exposed

Most of the posts on these sites are impersonal and educational, but there are a significant number of them that delve into sensitive medical issues. Take for example the blog that was written by a doctor who called himself Dr. Flea. A pediatrician from the Northeast and blog award winner, Dr. Flea wrote about his experience and feelings regarding an ongoing malpractice lawsuit that involved the death of a child until he was one day forced to leave the blogosphere.

In May, Dr. Flea was revealed, according to a Boston Globe report. A lawyer involved in the malpractice case against Robert P. Lindeman, MD, asked Lindeman if he was Dr. Flea and Lindeman said yes, according to the report.

Dr. Flea was so popular that a large number of medical bloggers and readers have expressed profound sadness in their posts and comments following “Dr. Flea’s tragic online disappearance.”

The Boston Globe reported that the case was settled for a substantial, undisclosed amount of money the day after the plaintiff’s lawyers unveiled Dr. Flea as Lindeman.

To blog or not to blog

Dr. Flea’s online popularity, as well as the recent boom in medical television shows and medical books, represents a generalized, intellectual awakening curiosity of the public with regards to the whole culture of medicine. People are interested to know how doctors think about patients, how they talk to other doctors about them, how they deal with life and death situations, and how they cope with the daily stressful moments that come with the profession.

I am sure that we all have a number of interesting stories to tell, but should we?

Most medical bloggers have an online fictitious name so they blog anonymously. In fact, there is one that calls himself or herself Dr. A (Dr. Anonymous). These people choose to conceal their identity, perhaps to protect the doctor–patient relationship or maybe because they fear they may lose their jobs. This may sound a bit paranoid, but I have read stories about doctors who have gotten in trouble at work because of their medical blogging activities.

A lot depends on what you blog about. If you break the doctor–patient confidentiality agreement or directly (or even indirectly) talk about a co-worker in your blog, chances are that you will create some problems for yourself. Otherwise, if you are providing general medical information to the public without mentioning patients, colleagues, bosses or clearly giving specific medical advice to people, this relatively new way to communicate globally can be quite useful.

Corazon Hispano

I started my own blog, Corazon Hispano, approximately two months ago. I don’t try to conceal my true identity for several reasons. I truly believe that anyone that would want to figure out who I am can easily do so. My objective is to educate Hispanics on many practical cardiovascular prevention issues. I am not interested in philosophizing about medicine, the health care system or the emotional and personal aspects of our profession. Potential readers won’t take the information that I provide them seriously if they don’t even know who I am.

Finally, I hope to collaborate with individuals and organizations that are interested in improving the cardiovascular health of Hispanics. Hiding my identity seemed counterproductive to my overall goals.

Maintaining a blog is time-consuming. It takes me approximately six to eight hours per week to keep Corazon Hispano updated. This amount of time is not trivial for physicians who also have clinical duties, talks to prepare, manuscripts to write and review, meetings to attend and a family to spend time with. I do it because I strongly believe in the message that I am trying to deliver to an audience who I think is medically underserved.

I don’t know if medical blogging is right or wrong, effective or completely ineffective in regards to delivering a prohealth, cardiovascular prevention message. Ultimately, I do it because I enjoy doing it and because I convince myself that there are many people out there that could potentially benefit from this information source.

Juan Rivera, MD, is a Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for Prevention of Heart Disease and a member of the Today in Cardiology Fellows Advisory Board. He also writes a cardiovascular prevention blog for Hispanics called Corazon Hispano. The blog can be viewed at: www.corazonhispano.blogspot.com.