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| Where have they gone? |
Others, I'm afraid, are serial offenders. I am shortly to post my 2,000th blogpost, and during that time I will have offended many, cheered a few, and droned on a bit.
When I started, the Daddy of them all was John Crippen and his Blog NHS Blog Doctor. He retired to North Wales to mess about in boats. Militant Nurse Ann was a fabulous blog that had inspired and sustained rants which were eye-poppingly tragic. She went away to work in a private hospital. Mousethinks was also an excellent blog, but she was 'outed' and shut down after pressure from her employing trust. Many run out of steam, and things to say? I miss Dr Rant.
Where are their successors?
Where are the new blogs, the ones charting the daily life in the NHS, the ones moaning about politicians and their stooges high up in the professions?
What will happen when I close my blog down?
Can anyone point me in the direction of new and exciting blogs?
15 comments:
Please don't go, we need some sanity around.
American but still good http://anondoc.blogspot.com/
http://doctorwillow.blogspot.com
http://bloodystudents.blogspot.com/
http://tofumilk.blogspot.com/
http://ilovehotchoc.blogspot.com
http://halfadoctor.blogspot.com
There's a whole Trust's worth of profiles on Facebook that act as mini-blogs. From The Medical Registrar and The Out of Hours GP, to The Locum "Doctor" and a Disenchanted Medical Student. Even his esteemed sweariness Dr Rant is on there.
I think a lot of people are concerned about stuff like this and this, and this and this and this.
I certainly don't believe all those holier than thou educationalists and serial committee sitters will have my best interests at heart if I stick my head above the parapet. Nor do I have any confidence that the senior members of the profession will look out for me if there's nothing in it for them. So I just don't think it is worth the risk for a junior doctor.
Not so long ago, Dr No had an interesting conversation with an exceptionally bright GP trainee (Heaven only knows what they are called these days), who was doing a stint in old age psychiatry. She had - correctly - sussed out her consultants were duffers. Indeed they were, and she wanted them held to account. Then the consultants messed up badly, and there was a chance to hold them to account. But the trainee said - it's more than my jobs worth. The irony is, she had already decided medicine was not for her. Yet she dould have run rings round those consultants.
Dr No outed himself late last year. To date, no bricks have come through the window, nor GMC fripperies arrived on the mat. Perhaps we have become far too timid a profession.
I think medical bloggers are in a frozen state waiting for the outcome of the HSCB JD ... and there isn't much to talk about at the moment, since topics from Euthenasia to breast implants have been discussed to death. I am sure if a new worthy topic appears you'll find everybody back writing with vigour. And I miss Grumble grumbling! So please, keep bloggin'
As for me, given where and what ... if I stop writing, well ... :-)
Dr No has got rather (shamefully) bored about going on about the HSCB. How many times do you have to tell people that it is a policy from Hell, designed by right-wing zealots, intended to destroy a central plank of the welfare state? This was the real reason why Dr No quoted Dylan not so long ago:
Gentlemen, he said
I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes
I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards
Peace will come
With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords
But - as Dr No's strapline has it: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil... and there is ample evidence - look to the right - that while a number of bloggers may have bitten various bullets, plenty others are still very far from frozen into silence.
Don't go!
I am going to restart militant medical nurse. I kept many hand written journals of things that happened in the UK that I never had the balls to post online while I was there.
American hospital does not equal bupa type hospital. It is very different from what you understand.
So I am not really in a private hospital. I am in the USA in a non profit hospital where over 70% of our reimbursement comes from Medicare (medicare is US government healthcare). That means that the US government has a lot of control over things at my place of work. It also means that the people who are capable of purchasing health care but don't really fuck things up for the rest of us.
I have been in the USA for nearly 8 months and have still not bought a proper PC out of sheer laziness. Plus I am having way to much fun driving around this area in my new SUV to think about blogging. I am just using a little notebook thing. It allows me to look around on the internet but blogging from it would be a pain in the arse.
I'll be back. Maybe I'll head to circuit city or something and buy a PC later.
Militant Medical Nurse
Get a Mac
A mac? you think?
Militant medical nurse
"Dr No outed himself late last year. To date, no bricks have come through the window, nor GMC fripperies arrived on the mat. Perhaps we have become far too timid a profession."
Would I be correct in thinking that you are not a junior doctor (a group rather more vulnerable to career assassination (not having permanent jobs and susceptible to ARCP victimisation) and more likely to be made an example of ('pour encourager les autres') by the likes of the GMC and less likely to be defended by those at the top?
Am I also correct in thinking that you are not currently employed, and thus don't have a mass of vested interests and management bullies looking to use a convenient route, curiously outside of employment law, to harass you?
"But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards"
Watch out for those chariots ... can you hear them?
It's getting hot in here, too hot!
PJ - you are right on all counts. Dr No had his Rhett Butler moment (it had been a long time coming) on 31st July last year, when he relinquished his licence to practice. So he is now less vulnerable to employer/GMC attacks. But let us not forget: there are plenty of other ways for people to nail bloggers, and, if Leveson goes the wrong way, there will be still more.
As it happens the GMC (it's another story for another day) have known who Dr No is for some time. So, in the GMC sense, he has been out for some time.
There is, Dr No suspects, a strong Spartacus effect in blogging, and that is yet another reason why those of us who are so inclined should continue to blog.
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