Double Down

Like Emergency Medicine personnel before them, MD / PhD students are now glaringly overrepresented in the medical blogosphere. I count six: Janel of Synthesis and Output was first, then myself, then Morning Retort, and now mudfud.blogspot.com ... Through her I've found two others. Also, doctorsquared.blogspot.com seems to be a mudphud student whose site is defunct.

When you consider how few medical student bloggers are online, the amount of MD/PhD students is substantial.

It was easy to explain the preponderance of EM blogging: patient encounters are easily translated to blog posts, the practioners tend to be extroverted, and the lifestyle of insomnia and downtime helps, too.

But why all these new MD/PhD students? I'd like to say that the same qualities that lead one to seek a physician-scientist training program also drive one to blog -- a good mix of analysis and articulation, and a familiarity with explaining things to disparate groups.

I wonder, though, if there's also a component of isolation -- that MD/PhDs never really fitting into their MD or PhD classes. Anyway, the blogs below are as diverse a group as you can find. Check 'em out and see what you think:

  • Synthesis and Output
  • Morning Retort
  • Mudfud
  • Two Terms Later
  • Mudphud Chickness