Justin reading an ancient book on blogging

The first part of the RACGP GP13 workshop in Darwin looked at tweeting for doctors and other health professionals.

For those with attention spans longer than 140 characters, let’s have a look at blogging.

Or, in twitter lingo:

#blog4docs

The journalistic principals involve Five Ws and an H, so let’s divide up this wwwwwhorkshop thus:

WHO?

Institutions: BMJ blogs

Groups of like-minded people: Social Media GP

GP Practices:  Birkenhead Medical Centre

GP Practices with opinions: Dr Edwin Kruys Doctor’s Bag

Doctors with special interests: Dr Tim Senior AMS Supertwision

WHAT?

INFORMATION about; your practice; your interests; patient education; handy links.

COMMUNICATION about; news; calendar of events; new research; updates.

CONVERSATION about; opinion; humour; medical politics or education; articles

WHERE?

WordPress (I have no financial ties. Yet.) Weebly.

Comparison of ten blogging platforms.

WHEN?

• Ideal frequency? A bit more often than you will actually do it!
• Better to do short blog fortnightly than comprehensive blog 3-monthly.
• Short on time? Become a node for other people’s blogs and articles. RSS & Twitter feeds.

WHY?

• Business model
• Publicise your special medical interests
• Patient trust, patient education
• Start conversations
• Fun
• Become a writer

HOW?

• We read 25% slower on a screen
• Lots of white space
• Short sentences, short paragraphs, (usually) short blogs
• Bullet points, lists, ‘top 5’
• Blogging is a conversation; don’t do all the work yourself
• Comments are crucial; moderate out the nutters but allow contrary opinion
• Make it easy to share, use hyperlinks, share buttons

RESOURCES

Australasian Medical Writers Association AMWA

Renee Barnes Effective Blogging for Medical Writers

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