Dr. Cranquis' Mumbled Gripes

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Hey Cranquis!
I’m a second year medical student looking to write a Tumblelog of my experiences, but don’t know where to start! Do you have any advice (or better: do you have any QUESTIONS for me?)
Cheers mate,
Sundered 

Hey hey! Thanks for writing — and good question! I’m glad you’re considering starting a med-student blog; if blogging had been this popular back when I was in med school, I certainly would have read (and possibly written?) a med student blog! 

But, I think that anyone who is in the medical world (from pre-med and “up”) needs to carefully consider the ramifications (I just LOVE that word) of what you do on the internet, both in the blogosphere and elsewhere. As I’ve discussed before, the private actions and interests of physicians/healthcare providers are held to higher standards than many other professionals, and therefore we need to be extra careful about protecting our public AND private reputations when we start writing things online.

One of the easiest ways to protect your reputation is to develop a fulminant case of Online Split Personality Disorder (like I did — you DO know Dr. Cranquis doesn’t really exist, right?) You should read this old post of mine re: anonymity and medicine. By hiding behind an anonymous/pseudonymous online persona, you avoid a lot of the “issues” that some people (read: old/out-of-touch/behind-the-times people, associations, educational institutions, and employers) have with Doctors Using the Interwebs.

As for the specifics of being a blogging med student — well, I’ve never been a blogging med student, only a blogging physician. But I highly recommend taking a look at what some med students on Tumblr are doing. Each person in this list has a different blogging style, and each appears to come from a different “med-school cultural background” re: how strict his/her school is about blogging while being a med student.

• MedicalState: In my opinion, the best-designed and most-carefully-run med student blog on Tumblr. Tom (2nd year med student in Canada) is blazing a trail for non-anonymous med student bloggers. He is careful to balance personal privacy, patient privacy, legal issues regarding requests for medical advice, and respect for his school’s guidelines on Social Media among Med Students — all while writing a quality blog that gives a terrific insight into the Real Life of being a med student. His blog is a mix of personal experiences and essays, fantastic art related to anatomy and other sciences, and links to science articles with commentary. Lately he’s started including some video-replies to reader questions, a fantastic feature that I envy terribly.
• WayfaringMD: A terrific example of two things — (1) How to combine a steamingly-funny writing style + animated gifs (you were wondering why I’m suddenly including gifs in this post? THIS IS WHY) to keep people interested in even the most blase of health-related topics, and (2) How to use all the free time you have in 4th year of med school. :) This student keeps things anonymous, and is therefore much more “open” about her likes and dislikes of the med school experience, her personal beliefs and her thought processes about choosing a residency. She has a collection of Advice to Pre-Meds posts which are GOLDEN (in humor, and in actual usefulness too), and many other fantastic finds in her well-linked archives. I sincerely hope she will continue to blog all through her Family Medicine residency — a feat which few bloggers can maintain, especially under the time-crunch of residency!
• MD-Admissions: A some-what anonymous med student writes quick conversational snapshots of her med school experiences. She makes up for a bare-bones website layout with quality funny content, and her blog is a mix of med-school and “anything else” material. This is a very practical way of running a low-stress low-maintenance med student blog. After all, just because you’re a med student doesn’t mean that the only thing you enjoy is med student stuff!
• MyLifeAsAMedStudent: While this anonymous blog hasn’t been updated in a few months, the blog’s archives contain a large proportion of self-searching insightful posts, thoughts on the stress and fear and joy of med school. Pictures of hand-drawn study aids, doodles, and mnemonics serve as a terrific insight into the study habits of a busy student. I particularly enjoyed the tightly-written short character sketches about the Many Faces of Med Students that you typically meet in your med school journey.

I hope all that gives you some fresh ideas and viewpoints to help plan your approach to Mt. Blogging. As for a Question for Your Blog — ok, here’s one: If you were given the power to go back and change one thing from your 1st Year of med school, what would it be? Good luck, and good blogging!

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