This morning my boss at work brought to my attention an article in a recent issue of an Australian medical magazine called ‘Focus.’ This is a magazine which comes out every once in a while alongside the regular medical periodicals I get, mainly based on lifestyle and non-medical topics, which has a potential audience of thousands of doctors across Australia. I usually have a flick through it and find some of the articles interesting but this month I didn’t as I’m so busy with work and life and preparing for my looming exam. Well it turns out one of the articles makes reference to me, specifically to this blog, and although much of it is just a cut and paste job, the overall tone of it (at least what was said about me) is rather negative (unless I, as a non-journalist have completely missed the point.)
The journalist, Graem Sims, basically quotes almost the entirety of my entry from July 17, in which I discuss my lack of motivation with regards to exam study and the fact that I broke a tooth that night and needed to see the dentist (several visits and a couple of thousand dollars later I’m still seeing the dentist) What I didn’t explicitly mention (because I was trying to be sensitive) was that earlier that day I’d spent half an hour trying to resuscitate a person who’d collapsed at church. After doing CPR for quite some time I had to make the difficult decision that she had died and tell the family etc. Anyway I’ll cut and paste Mr Sims’ comments which followed :
“Whoah. Dental appointment. Move over, Dan Brown.
Of course we journos sound a little bitter and twisted here – and yes, we are being quite unkind to Dr Baggaley. This is because we journos are actually supposed to RESENT bloggers and all the attention heaped on them. Writing after all, used to be EDITED. Besides we are the responsible keepers of the Fourth Estate, aren’t we? We spent years at university learning how to attribute and balance articles and avoid defamation writs. Now we are being directly threatened by any Joe Average prepared to spend the 15 minutes of so it takes to set up a blog and then whatever time they dedicate to updating it…
Okay time for a bit of balance: blogging is a terrific way to network anywhere in the world. It is a phenomenon that may or may not last – but as much as it pains us to admit, some of these blogs are beaut. Some others, it must be said, are drivel.”
Sims then goes on to cut and paste from a few of the top medical blogs on the blogosphere, which he says are “quite useful for following hot issues in medicine” Presumbly these blogs are the “beaut” ones in contrast to the “drivel” that is mine. But I think that Sims has misunderstood both blogging in general, and my blog specifically, on several levels.
Firstly unlike some of those other blogs I never intended my blog to be a purely “medical” one, indeed that is only one focus amongst many (which I’ve often felt is one of the problems with it – there is no clear theme or focus) – when I talk about medical things it is generally assuming that most if not all the people who read it are not doctors. I don’t try to follow the “hot issues in medicine” but rather give a bit of a glimpse into the medical side of my life for outsiders who may be interested. In fact most of the discussion that takes place here is on other matters, religion, politics etc. If people find what I write interesting then that’s great – I’d love for them to keep reading and join a dialogue with me and others. If you disagree with something I’ve written then comment, argue it out respectfully, or just ignore it and move on. And if you find what I write to be boring or “drivel” then please feel free to ignore this blog, delete it from your history and never return here again. I’d just prefer not to be negatively judged in the national media if that’s okay.
Secondly Sims has very little understanding of the concept of blogging. Although some of the big “A-list” bloggers do see themselves as being in competition with mainstream journalism, the majority of us do not. For most of us this is a hobby, something we do on the side, because we enjoy it and because of the interaction it stimulates with other bloggers and readers. Blogging resembles more a disemminated community or bulletin board system than it does the mainstream media, although such comparisons are of little use since blogging is more a totally new entity of itself. Although it’s a hobby, Sims has no idea of the amount of work it can take – certainly a lot more than “15 minutes to set up” I’ve spent many hours setting up my blog and blogs for other people, and I’m sure many others would say the same about their blogs.
For fear of wasting too much time and getting behind with my patients, I’ll only say a couple of more things in response to this. Firstly I find it very impolite and perhaps unprofessional (though I’ll admit to being ignorant about the journalistic code of ethics) to be written about and quoted in such a way without having even been asked or informed about the story. I was not given a chance to comment or respond to what Mr Sims had to say. Having said that, although he did not contact me on this occaision, I did receive a blog comment from Graem way back in October 2004, from which I will quote here :
“Hi Baggas. Beaut site – I like your writing … I think others would enjoy it.”
So he’s not even consistent in what he thinks or says. Back in 2004 it seems I was among the ranks of the “beaut” sites but since then I have deteriorated into “drivel” I don’t appreciate being complimented to my face (virtually speaking) and then badmouthed to the whole Australian medical community.
The only other thing about all this is it looks like I’ll have to make sure I only ever say anything nice about my boss from now on, since he’s now aware of this blog courtesy of focus magazine. He’s a good guy so that won’t be a problem. And to anyone else who has stumbled upon my site as a result of Mr Sim’s article, let me say welcome. Feel free to hang around, comment, discuss if you like, but on the other hand feel free to move on if you don’t find it all that interesting. It’s not intended to be taken all that seriously, really.
Finally yesterday after a week of crashes by account went offline and that was the last straw. I have now migrated succesfully to a new provider Dreamhost, who for about the same cost provide a much better level of service, or so it seems thus far. [thanks to ob1 for the recommendation]
One of the only negative aspects of my current 
N. T. Wright’s “