The Doctor is Logged In

A well written Los Angeles Times article about physicians who blog, excerpted below:

The family pictures on the desk. The diplomas on the wall. A few magazine subscriptions, perhaps, or some sailing, tennis or golf memorabilia scattered around the office. In the past, a curious patient could only turn to these bits of evidence to try to know more about the individual behind the medical degrees, the white coat and the carefully scripted bedside manner.

The temptation is understandable. After all, when someone holds your life in his or her hands, it would be nice to know a bit more about what makes them tick. But today, anyone with an Internet connection can have access to the fevered, funny, angry and very human thoughts of these men and women who help us navigate the perilous shoals between illness and health. The vehicle? The doctor's blog. A blog is the name used to describe a weblog, the constantly updated platform for the idiosyncratic and highly personal musings (or rantings) of anyone who wants to set one up in cyberspace.

"It's a direct line to see what doctors think that you won't pick up in the office or from television shows," says Michael Ostrovsky, a cardiac anesthesiologist in Daly City, Calif., who blogs as medgadget.

He says doctors often want an outlet for discussing patient issues and the social and political problems they face on the job, or to gripe about HMOs or Medicare reimbursement rates. "They can vent their frustrations through their websites and learn from other doctors."

In one entry, Dr. Craig Hildreth, who writes "The Cheerful Oncologist," offers some tongue-in-cheek prescriptions on how to get your doctor to listen to you. Another blogger, Medpundit, dissects the hype around medical announcements. And still another, Gruntdoc, written by an emergency room physician, posts and analyzes news articles on subjects as varied as undocumented workers and stroke treatment in the ER.