Time for a New Direction?
This blog was started several years ago while I was well in to my time at medical school. At first I used to post journal entries more akin to life-blogging but I quickly learned the negatives of giving people around me such an intimate lens into my life. The early realization that the same rules of prudence applied in what we convey to others both in the online and offline worlds lead to the technical direction this blog has been under now for many years. I never intended this place to be publicized because it was only meant as an online repository to computer issues I had to deal with in my continuing experience with technology. I learned a lot and that alone is enough to make this place a personal success. I lucked out though. My daily hit count has grown quite a bit through the communities at Digg, Slashdot, and LifeHacker recognizing the content here as something they wanted to read. It’s very flattering.
I enjoy listening to feedback from my visitors, friends, and family members who have also used the information I’ve hunted down and posted to solve their problems. I never forget the look on people’s faces when learn that I haven’t had an intention of pursuing a career in technology until after I completed my goals to become a successful doctor with both inpatient and outpatient practices as well as an established clinical research base. For better or worse this primary goal has taken me away from many half-written post drafts that were supposed to go online years ago. Even now I only write on this blog once in a while every few months.
As the stresses have ramped up with my career my free time has become very scarce. I’ve constantly tried to find something I can do to unwind in my time away from the hospital. In the past couple of months I’ve spent my free time working tirelessly with a group of fellow doctors and medical students to help prevent the closure of a public hospital serving minorities in a California community. Through our collective efforts our group built a website, prepared presentations, gave interviews to reporters, sat down with politicians directly responsible for budgets, reached out to the local community and business leaders, and doctors at other institutions in the vicinity. These are the sorts of projects I enjoy even though they can take away the very few remaining precious hours of sleep I have left. I’ve never minded–this service began long before I was elected as Senate President in high school, continued through college, and even continues now past medical school.
On my drive home today, I had just two thoughts in my head. First, I have never been more happy or content in my life. Everything is working out exactly the way it should and I have a great bunch of friends and family only a stones throw away to celebrate yet another accomplishment wherever I happen to be in the world at the moment. I don’t want to tempt fate by saying this but nothing could be more right at this point. I have an amazing future ahead to continue the upward trend that started further back than my memory goes. Second, I felt like I need another hobby outside of traveling, saving hospitals, political activism, sports, cars, and (occasionally) tinkering with computers to fill my time. With the release of Windows Vista most things have worked flawlessly and there is a very seldom need to fix anything anymore for all of the computers I have a hand in managing. This has really reduced my post count on this blog. Yet I’m getting more views than ever of my archived posts—this brings in a steady ad revenue to pay for hosting costs.
I’m wondering if the time is now to take this blog in yet another direction. Many of my colleagues blog anonymously online about several issues in medicine affecting patient care while others recant funny stories from their days at work. Although I’m sure I could write several posts a day about strange diseases and interesting clinical presentations it doesn’t really give me a break away from my work because I have to come home and write about it. Another one of the niches I haven’t seen filled is someone actively covering the changing future direction of our careers in medicine. A lot of things have taken place in both the United States and the United Kingdom but it’s quite clear that many doctors aren’t using the power of the internet to their benefit yet.
Is this the next area for me to focus on? I’m not really sure. Maybe I should go back to writing about my the interesting happenings in my life or the unique cultural experiences this stage of my life is bringing me to as a first generation American growing up with a strong South Asian background. Or maybe its time to shut this all down and let it live in the annals of the Wayback machine. What I do know is I’ll be asking people close to me for their advice in the coming weeks and months. Hopefully I’ll make the best decision for myself. As always I’m open to suggestions…
Upgrading to WordPress 2.5… Slowly!
I’m slowly upgrading the site to WordPress 2.5. Not everything works but the posts should be viewable. If you catch any fatal errors then drop me a comment with details.
I’m in no rush to get this done because this blog has always been a sandbox for a hobby that has absolutely nothing to do with my professional pursuits, training, or education. However, I’m still flattered by the occasional blogger who wrongly suggests this blog is “aimed at the IT professional, corporate surfer.” Thank you–though it may be a few more months until my next update. Ha!
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