Internet

Ok, well as you’re reading this I’m guessing you have some understanding of how the social network systems and general blogosphere work - if not on a technical level - then at least on a utility level. And no doubt you’ve seen the good, the bad and the downright scary online mental health support groups that have erupted. Personally I recall when Healthyplace.com first went online c.1995 and, as a curious health care worker, I was mortified when I found it to be the unhealthiest scariest place I had come across. I can’t comment for how it might be now - and I hope it came up to scratch.

Things are settling down now (though growth in online networks is enormous), and I often wonder how t’internet could/will be used to enhance just about everything we do.

There are plenty of participatory self-help groups, there are even online counselling services. But what I’m highly interested in is how social networks might be used to effect change in policy or service provision.

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Our old friend in the check shirt is back on the BBC website: -

Whenever he appears, you know it’s a mental health issue they’re reporting. This time it’s pro-suicide websites. Researchers from Bristol, Oxford and Manchester universities have found that pro-suicide sites are frequently thrown up by a web search for suicide-related information:-

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I saw this website linked from another blog, but I can’t remember what one, so I apologise for no acknowledgement.

I wanted to share it even further and decided to post the link here as well.

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb

Garfield is one of my favourite cartoon strips and I find this idea fascinating. It works so well, it’s often very moving.

Garfield Minus Garfield

A drug company has sent me an invitation to a “webinar”.

A webinar?????? A what????? What the holy flid is a webinar????

Apparently it’s a web-based seminar, in which a psychiatrist will be broadcasting a video lecture, complete with chat box so we can interact and ask questions, and a powerpoint-style slide show. I wonder which medication he thinks we should be using for our clients?

Well, fuck that. If I’m going to shred my professional independence on the altar of Evil Capitalist Big Pharma Satan, I’m not doing it as a webchat. If they want me to hand over my mortal soul, they could at least have the decency to come to the clinic and ply me with a sandwich and a pack of post-it notes. What on earth happened to standards?

As those of you who have been following the news will know, there’s been a spate of suicides in Bridgend, South Wales. 17 young people have committed suicide, all by hanging. Nearly all of them were not known to mental health services prior to killing themselves. The media seems to be blaming the internet. The local politicians are blaming the media.

So who’s to blame, Bebo or the Daily Express? I’ve been exchanging a few e-mails with CAMHS clinicians in South Wales, and I’ve received a couple of interesting stories.

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There has been a disturbing rise of ill informed comment masquerading as serious Journalism on what has become known as the “blogosphere” in recent months. These Blogtitioner lead “walk in centres” for news and current affairs are springing up all over the place and are a symptom of this Governments obsession with dumbing down and saving money. First it was our schools, then it was our health service and now it is our newspapers.

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An online resource that might be of interest to some of you.

I hope you dont mind me messaging but a few people from the Mental Health Nursing group have joined my forum for people with phobias, depression and anxiety and I would like to ask if you would like to help out there also? The site is http://www.ofear.com so you can take a look.

Just a reminder to sign our petition for statutory minimum nurse: patient ratios if you haven’t done so already. The petition requires a minimum of 200 signatures in order to generate a response from the government, and we’re currently on 165, so sign it and tell 34 of your closest friends.

As regards the issue of blogs that are better than Dr Michelle Tempest’s, here’s a couple more to add to the pile.

Militant Medical Nurse
This nurse is bloody angry, but she writes damn well. We like her when she’s angry.

Nursing Student’s Musings
A student fighting his way through nursing studies. Fear not, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Sadly it’s a guy from the NMC holding a flashlight and demanding a bloody huge cheque off you.

Congratulations to those two blogs. You are both better than Dr Michelle Tempest.

A shiny foil gold star to Michelle Tempest, self proclaimed second best medical blog on the whole wide internet! As Mental Nurse has pointed out since, there are far better medical blogs out there. I share a liking for most mentioned, but it begs the question, what things make a good medical blog?

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I’m still slightly miffed about Dr Michelle Tempest’s list of Top Ten Medical Blogs . Not just because she put her own utterly ghastly “Gosh, isn’t trite pop-psychology great! Vote Tory!” blog as second-best medical blog on the Internet. I’m also slightly annoyed that her list is composed entirely of doctors and medical students. No nurses? No ambulance staff? No OTs, physios…or Cthulhu forbid…some actual patients?

So, I’m going to address that by creating a list of Medical Blogs That Are Better Than Dr Michelle Tempest’s.

Yes, ladies, gentlemen and eunuchs, this is called catharsis.

Categories include doctors, nurses, ambulance service, managers and patients/service users.

Anyway, here goes…

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Over on Iain Dales Diary, Iain introduces a list of the best medical blogs on the net.

As you know, the GUIDE TO POLITICAL BLOGGING 2007 is being published on 24 September. Featured among the 288 pages are a myriad of blog lists. Over the next two weeks I will be publishing these on the blog. Today we start with the Top Ten Medical Blogs. Thanks to Dr Michelle Tempest for compiling the list.

So, who’s on Dr Tempest’s list?

NHS Blog Doctor aka Dr Crippen is a fairly obvious first place, and deservedly so. Although I disagree with Dr Crippen on quite a few things, I also agree with him on a lot too, and he’s done more than anyone else (with the possible exception of Random Acts of Reality) to put medical and health blogging on the map.

Also unsurprisingly, Dr Rant are at number 4. I think I’m becoming a bit of a convert to Dr Rant’s rather, er, direct literary style. Initially I didn’t like it and thought it a bit OTT, but now I’m coming round to the view that everybody needs a pressure-release valve.

Other deserving entries into the Top Ten are Hospital Phoenix and The Junior Doctor, both of which I read and enjoy. They both give a very human flavour of life at the sharp end, and I like that in a blog.

So, who else has Dr Michelle Tempest put on her list of the Top Ten medical blogs?

2. The Psychiatrist Blog
Dr Michelle Tempest, a Tory activist, talks about the politics of medicine

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT??????????????????????

Dr Tempest put HERSELF as the SECOND BEST MEDICAL BLOG ON THE ENTIRE FRICKIN’ INTERNET?????

That’s just shameless self-promotion even for a Tory!

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