Doogie Howser and Blogging

I’ve been “blogging” awhile. Not in any regularity as you can see in my archive. While waiting at the airport for our morning flight from Cebu back to Manila with Gia after the heady #hcsmph summit, I told her I wanted to try a blogging challenge. I will blog EVERYDAY … starting Monday. So, I got sick that Monday and had to postpone. The universe was trying to tell me something.

I did see Neil Patrick Harris host the Oscars on TV. I’ll always remember him as Doogie Howser, MD! I was in medical school when that aired (so now you know how old I am). And I remember how every episode ends with Doogie making a diary entry on his computer. THAT is what I intend to do on this blog. I am declaring it right NOW.

But when I sat down to start writing, I also decided that my blog needed a new look. So I procrastinated a few days tweaking this and that. Finally, I could delay no longer and so I wrote two consecutive posts on the #HealthXPh manifesto and the #hcsmph summit this morning.

On the way to the #hcsmph summit in Cebu last week, I was reading “The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging.” It said that the enemy of DONE was PERFECT. So here I am typing this out, going for “done” against my usual “perfect.”

Before this, I had contemplated opening a new blog and calling it dokbru.net. Dok Bru as short for Doctor Witch (bruha). I still might. I wanted to do a blog in the Tagalog language for patients, to answer medical questions. Might be too risky though as medical advice CANNOT actually be given.

My year-end 2014 report showed that my podcasts in Filipino about diabetes were the top performing posts in this blog. So certainly, there is a need for medical information in the vernacular. But let me get into the Doogie Howser rhythm first.

I cast about for a blogging “challenge” and found this wonderful guide from my Twitter friend Marie Ennis-O’Connor: 25 Content Ideas for your Healthcare Blog. I wonder if I could go through this list. Sort of like how Julie Powell did Julia Child’s recipes and blogged about it. Well, I’m going to try.

#Day1.

P.S.

I just saw on my Facebook feed that the #hcsmPH summit has inspired Ray Anne Labra, (she actively helped us in the summit preparations) to blog! Hopefully we can inspire more and have a #HealthXPh blog rounds. You can check out Ray’s blog here.