I Could Not Stay Away
Mark Crislip
About two months ago Medscape had a change in direction for their blogs. It was not a direction I wanted to go. Nothing personal, but I had pretty much done things my way for 12 years and, being a control freak like most ID docs, did not want to give up control.
There were no hard feelings.
Well.
It would have been nice if, after 12 years, 1400 or so entries, and maybe a million words, they would have said thanks for all the work.
Nope.
If there is one lesson I cannot seem to learn is that organizations will never, ever reward hard work and devotion. Don't let the man fool you into trust and loyalty. It will never be repaid in kind. But then I am just a snowflake.
I thought it would be a good time to retire the blog, and given there were two or three people who actually seemed to notice, it seemed like a reasonable decision.
But. But. But.
I kept seeing cases and would think, "This would be a great case to blo-oh wait, I'm not doing that any more."
And I found I missed writing the blog. ID is easy and fun to write about, different from fiction which is hard and fun. I quit writing at Sceince Based Medicine in part because I grew bored, but I have yet to get bored with ID.
I also realized that blogging was too valuable a way for me to learn. The process of writing helps imprint concepts in my mind. It is why when I have a resident on service, I usually write my own notes rather than attest them. The process of putting pen to paper, or electrons to screen, crystalizes the case for me.
How often I will put up a post remains to be seen as I am now working three-quarters time. Once or twice the weeks I work, probably. And I am half considering blogging on topics unrelated to ID. Or not. I don't know. We will see. As Cartman would say, Whatever, I do what I want.
So, like Michael Corleone, I'm back in, at least for the next 3 years, 10 months, 6 days, 23 hours, 12 minutes, and 31 seconds.