Well, the first Night Shift show is now behind me - definitely a different show than what I do on Thursday nights. My co-host is Kat from the BTR show called The Llanview Lowdown. On this evening's show, we talked about Kat feeling a little bit under the weather. And, this kind of affected her energy level on her most recent show. We also talked about her being a fan of the old TV show The Twilight Zone - and why she kind of has a fear of dolls. We also talked college football. Thanks to MarQ for calling into the show to talk a little TV trivia. So, all in all, I think things went ok. I still think I may need to make some format changes before the next show. I mean, how perfect can you be after show number one? Yeesh!
I'm very happy to announce that with the new year of 2009, I'm going to be starting a new project. It's actually a new show on BlogTalkRadio that I'm calling "The Night Shift with Dr. A."
At least that's the working title for right now. When I ran the title by some people, they thought of the popular song by the Commodores, or this American soap opera of the same name, or the 1982 movie above with Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton. (I loved that movie, BTW. Hilarious)
So, the title may not be original. But, what am I going to talk about? Well, first of all this will be the first show where there is a permanent co-host who is Kat. She is also the co-host of the Llanview Lowdown on BlogTalkRadio. (Monday nights at 6:30pmET) You may remember Kat from The Doctor Anonymous Show 55 when I interviewed her when I was in Dallas.
Again, I know what you're asking. What the heck are we going to talk about? Well, we're going to talk about basically anything. As you all know, she's a nurse. But, we won't exclusively talk about medical stuff. We'll probably touch on a lot of subjects like entertainment, TV shows, sports, or whatever else comes up. So, join us for the very first show on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 at 9pm Eastern Time for The Night Shift with Dr. A!
People out there were probably a little confused (and possibly a little worried) after seeing this twitter just after New Year's struck midnight. It all stemmed from the interview I gave during the 24 hour podcast marathon on GSPN.TV. (BTW, I've been told that the podcast interview itself won't be available at least for a little while on the GSPN site.)
This was an interesting interview, mainly because Cliff and I were operating under little sleep. Cliff broadcasted almost all of the 24 hours, and I was in the midst of a long on-call stretch. So, the both of us were pretty entertaining. But, it was what seemed like a harmless question which seemed to set shockwaves through some people. A question that the Dr. A community has been wondering ever since I started this blog - Is Dr. A single or not?
Now, I know that this is going to sound really egotistical, but I've only learned the impact of this in the last 24-36 hours. I've received a lot of e-mail, and some of it not so good. It reminds me back of a time back in February 2007 when I first chose to do a video post. The haters were out then. I talked about it in a post called "The Myth Of Anonymous Blogging." Following my interview New Year's Eve night, the hater e-mail began again. So that got to me a little bit.
Something more important that got to me was learning how this new fact was impacting people in the Dr. A Community. I guess I didn't realize something like that would shock people. And, I'm only now figuring out that there are some hurt feeling out there - mainly that I didn't share this earlier along.
This brings up the question of how much of your real self should you share online and when and how should you share this information. And, how much of your "real" life should you keep to yourself. For me, the journey from truly anonymous to less-so anonymous, has been an interesting one.
There have been certain points of time where I chose to share a little bit about myself. Early on in my blogging career, I remember when I first showed a picture of myself on vacation on my blog. And, then, I started sharing a little bit more of where I'm exactly located.
At the beginning of 2008, I made a commitment to do video posting (at first only in black & white and now almost exclusively in color.) In the summer of 2008, I was interviewed my an online medical journal and shared my real name. And now this.
So, to my loyal readers and listeners I apologize for not sharing this sooner, but I wanted to wait for the right time and place to talk about it - and now seemed like the right time and place. Thanks to those of you out there who sent me e-mails seeing how I've been doing. I've only been "unplugged" from the internet for about 48 hours. But, for me, that feels like an eternity. I got some things sorted out and I'm ready to make a comeback. Look out world!
Our pal Dr. Rob has been at it again. It begins by leaving a comment on my blog which ends like this - "I just posted a poem about you, by the way." As I write this post, it is about 12 hours ago since I first saw that comment. Finally, I'm able to get over to his blog, and I see the following limerick about me:
There once was a Doctor Anonymous With talk shows his name was synonymous He’d chat with his guest And charm all the rest Until the whole evening was gone on us
Our buddy Dr. Rob is trying to get his readers to write a limerick to obtain the prestigious Golden Llama Award. As you can see above, I have bestowed this distinction on myself - just for being subjected to this "embarrassment" (hehe - I was expecting at least a mention of Nantucket or something like that - HA!).
Anyway, definitely check out his comment section on this post. There are a few pretty creative rhymes over there. But, I'm like Dr. Val when she said, "Just can't do it." Word up, Dr. Val!
In the midst of all the holiday stuff going on, I forgot to mention this last week. I've been a fan of the Medgadget Medblog Awards ever since I first started blogging over 2 years ago. In those early days, two things which really made me feel like a "real" medblogger were being listed on blogrolls (which I already talked about here - great discussion over there BTW) and being nominated for Best New Medical Weblog in 2006. I didn't win, but I did my best to try to campaign for the win.
Now, I didn't win (don't know why - hehe), but that was a fun process to be a part of. Last year, I asked not to be nominated. I really didn't feel I did that good of a job with my writing. Instead, I interviewed Nick Genes on the show about the awards. And, even had the creators of the Medgadget blog themselves on the show to talk about the awards. That was fun.
This year, nomination close this Wednesday, January 31st, 2008. My blogging this year has been very minimal, so I definitely should not be nominated (and don't want to be nominated) this year. But, if you haven't already, I encourage you to check out the list and make your nominations.
The categories include the following: Best Medical Weblog, Best New Medical Weblog (est 2008), Best Literary Medical Weblog, Best Clinical Sciences Weblog, Best Health Policies/Ethics Weblog, Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog, and Best Patient's Blog.
Finalists will be announced on Monday, January 5th. Voting will be from January 6th until 12 midnight ET on Sunday, January 18th. The winners of this year's awards will be announced on Friday, January 23rd, 2009. The nominations lists are getting pretty crowded. So, get those additional nominations in today. Good luck to all those nominated!
This weekend has been ok while on call (I know I'm probably jinxing myself now). I've been meaning to edit my blogroll for a long time now. I've been putting it off for a while, because to go through this list just takes a long time. When I was going through my list today, I deleted about 20 links because they are no longer blogging. Everyone in New Media Medicine (ie- medical blogosphere) knows that GruntDoc has his occasional "DeadBlog" post where he deletes links every so often.
I remember back when I first started blogging. I was trying to figure out who were the most popular med bloggers. One of the ways was seeing the blog linked on everywhere. And, my goal as a new blogger would be to get on these famous blogger's link list. I was so happy when I started seeing my link on other's blogs.
Now, with it being two years later, I wonder whether people use the blogroll or the link list to determine popularity. In my opinion, the blogroll has become a little old fashioned. What I see out there are things like being followed on Twitter and other social networking sites rather than the blogroll. What do you think? Is the blogroll as prestigious as it used to be?
In the video above, just wanted to share what I'm doing today for Christmas Eve and wanted to wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Now, I know that some of you will not be able to put down any kind of technology for a second. So, I encourage you to twitter what's going on at your holiday celebrations and/or even share on your blog. I know I'll be continuing to constantly check twitter as usual to see what's going on out there. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
I admit that I didn't know too much about these Shorty Awards until I received this tweet from the shorty awards site. According to the site, these awards "honor the best content producers on Twitter. Nominations close on December 31st. Apparently I received two nominations in the health category. Thanks to those who nominated me. I really appreciate it.
On this Monday before Christmas, I would like to spread some Christmas cheer to everyone out there this morning - especially, since it feels like -20F with the winds this morning. Usually, this is a good day to stay home. But, since Dr. Santa has to save lives (HA), I took the reindeer and sleigh to the hospital (tough to find a parking spot) and to the office.
What would you say if I walked into your hospital room or office exam room looking like this on this cold morning? Leave your comments (all comments welcome) below. Oh, by the way, there's only three days left until Christmas. Happy Monday!
What a fun Christmas show that we had tonight! Right at the beginning of my show I did a "dramatic" reading of The Night Before Christmas - that was fun to do! (You can listen to the show above, or, download the show by clicking here.)
I wanted to thank my "secret" guests who were Kat and Kim. At the end of my show, my computer froze up and Kat had to close up the show for me - and she did a fabulous job! Also, our buddy Kim cut her foot right before coming on the show. Kim came on and recited a poem to me and did a great job on the show. Then, as you could see from her twitters, she did go to the emergency room and receive six stitches.
Thanks also to those who called into the show. Marq called in and gave a sang a little parody song for me - that was nice of him to do. Also, Sunny, RevRockDog, Annie & Burl also called into say hello and make the show even more entertaining. I am still flattered that people would write a poem or write a song for me - very much appreciated.
So, this is the last Doctor Anonymous Show of 2008. I can't believe this year went so fast. Just wanted to thank everyone out there who support my show, support my blog, and support me. It is all of you out there who keep bringing me back to try to do more to entertain and inform you. I'm really looking forward to 2009. I have some grand plans on how to make the show bette and how to make the blog better - all while having fun in the process!
Update: It's been a very frustrating last six hours. I've been trying to upload a video post to the viddler site, but for some reason, it's not going through. That's why the video post is initially not here. I'm going to try to continue to try to post it through the day today. Yeesh!
Update 2: Was able to upload to YouTube. Let me know what you think of the video quality. I'm still trying to upload to Viddler. But, always wanted to try YouTube. Not sure if I like it as much.
Update 3: I know all these updates are really geeky, but, it's been interesting experimenting with other video sharing sites. Viddler is still not working for me. Thanks to T-rave, tried out Blip.Tv. And, I'll let you be the judge verses YouTube (both videos above).
Update 4: Ok, last update on this issue. It is now 18 hours since the initial post, and the Viddler post finally came up. I compared Viddler, Blip, and Youtube videos and I'm deleting the latter above.
