Why Do I Blog?

My fellow Scibling (cute, huh?) Bora is an incredibly friendly, warm, and funny blogger. He's also incredibly proficient: in addition to blogging at A Blog around the Clock, he's put together an anthology of science blogging, and a freaking conference of science bloggers. The man has the energy of a toddler on crank.

Bora just tagged me with the "Why Do I Blog?" meme, wherein I am meant to tell my volumes of readers why I blog.

That's easy:

1) I love to write.

2) I love to be read.

As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer. I never pursued writing seriously because my folks convinced me it was impractical and lacked prestige. I never found anything I loved to do as much or as well, although I found things that filled the time, that were satisfying in their own way, and that consistently paid the bills. But ask any of my friends--I always felt torn about committing to anything professionally. When I started med school, I felt like I was cheating on myself. That's probably why I was not the most rock-star of medical students; I wasn't even sure I wanted to do a residency until around the end of my third year.

I started blogging on the first day of residency. I wanted to have a reliable outlet (and a reliable audience) for the stories I knew I'd want to tell. I still loved to write, and I loved to be read--family and friends would call me to talk about posts that had sparked something inside them, and strangers would somehow read what I wrote and come back for more. There was--and remains--something powerful in being known, in having the bright and dark parts of my professional development be a part (even a tiny part) of someone else's intellectual chow.

The pleasure of writing and of being read, and finding that I can do both at a level worth (apparently) paying for while still training in medicine, has helped me find a committment and a joy in medicine that I never found before. I guess now, it feels as though rather than keeping me from writing, medicine gives me more interesting things to write about, and gives more dimension to both my thinking and my writing. I don't feel trapped any more.

Being a resident has made me a better writer. And writing regularly has made me a better, and happier, resident. That's why I blog.

I'll tag some other folks later--right now, I've got to run to clinic.