Blogging in Nephrology

Medical blogging has become commonplace. In nephrology, several blogs are in place. Three blogs stand-out: Renal Fellows Network, Nephron Power, and Precious Body Fluids. What makes them attractive?  Obviously, the content. But also the commitment to evidence-based practice of the folks behind them. Renal Fellows Network (RFN) was founded by the late Nate Hellman, a senior renal fellow at the Joint Brigham-Massachusetts General Hospital Nephrology Training program. His efforts have been joined and expanded by editor Dr. Conall O'Seaghdha, and Deputy Editors' Dr. Graham Abra and Dr. Gearoid McMahon. Likewise, Nephron Power is popular because it provides practical information relevant to both nephrologists in training and those in practice.  Its success is underpinned by the energy and commitment of Dr. Kenar Jhaveri at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine. Precious Bodily Fluids is Dr. Joel Topf's blog. Joel is a nephrologist at St Clair Specialty Physicians and St. Johns in Detroit. Reading Joel's blog one gets a real sense of his passion for nephrology and his commitment to sharing his tremendous knowledge.
What's the data on medical blogging?
Kovic and colleagues performed an interesting study published in IJMR. They approached 197 medical bloggers of English-language medical blogs. 80 (42%) of 197 eligible participants responded. The majority of responding bloggers were white (75%), highly educated (71% with a Masters degree or doctorate), male (59%), residents of the United States (72%), between the ages of 30 and 49 (58%), and working in the healthcare industry (67%). Most of them were experienced bloggers, with 23% (18/80) blogging for 4 or more years, 38% (30/80) for 2 or 3 years, 32% (26/80) for about a year, and only 7% (6/80) for 6 months or less. Those who received attention from the news media numbered 66% (53/80). When it comes to best practices associated with journalism, the participants most frequently reported including links to original source of material and spending extra time verifying facts, while rarely seeking permission to post copyrighted material. Bloggers who have published a scientific paper were more likely to quote other people or media than those who have never published such a paper (U= 506.5, n₁= 41, n₂= 35, P= .016). Those blogging under their real name more often included links to original sources than those writing under a pseudonym (U= 446.5, n₁= 58, n₂= 19, P= .01). Major motivations for blogging were sharing practical knowledge or skills with others, influencing the way others think, and expressing oneself creatively.
 We invited Kenar Jhaveri to comment on blogging in nephrology.

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BRIEF COMMENT

Kenar D Jhaveri, MD, FASN, FNKF, FACP


Assistant Professor of Medicine


Division of Nephrology & Hypertension


Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine


Great Neck, NY, USA

Nephrology has become a field of medicine that is vastly expanding in knowledge and complexity. However, the number of medical students and residents considering the field of nephrology are declining each year. Lot of times, students consider nephrology as a difficult subject to grasp, and hence develop a "renal fear". To make nephrology more exciting and fun, and to add adjunctive tools of teaching, there have been attempts to develop interesting tools of teaching in nephrology. Websites like "UKidney", "Nephrology on Demand", and other physician driven blog sites are examples. E-learning can be used to enhance interest in nephrology. Other innovative tools have been tried as well; for example, crosswords, anagrams, role playing, concept maps. Hopefully, such tools will aid nephrology education, and also enhance the field. Here are some links to publications that are reviewing some of these tools. Comments appreciated.

References: Link1, Link2, Link3, Link4, Link5, Link6, Link7