Blogterview with Dr. Flea January 26, 2007
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Blogging, Health, Humor, Medicine.trackback
Dr. Flea won the best new medical blog category in Medgadget’s Weblog Awards competition. According to the judges:
Flea, a weblog by an anonymous pediatrician “in solo practice in the Northeast U.S.” On his website, Flea tackles many issues facing pediatricians today: from childhood obesity to anti-vaccination moonbats and their websites that scare parents with pseudo-scientific proclamations. Congratulations, Dr. Flea! Job well done.
I was thinking about how I could improve my blog and realized: what is the best way to learn? To learn from the better, so I asked Dr. Flea to answer some of my questions and he kindly did this:
- Actually, I know only one sentence about you: “Flea is a pediatrician in solo practice in the Northeast U.S.” Tell us a bit more! (What fields are you specialized in? Why did you choose pediatrics?)
General Pediatrics and Pediatric Pulmonology. I chose pediatrics because I knew I was best suited to medicine (as opposed to surgery). Kids get better and they almost never die. This is a weakness of mine. I couldn’t handle all the death, and the grief that goes with it. I also found I was able to relate to children as patients better than I did with adults.
- Why is Flea your name?
When I was a third year (clinical rotations) I was paired with an anesthesiology resident who was one of the most reprehensible human beings I have ever known. He was screwing every woman who’d let him, though he was married. He referred to any doctor who wasn’t a surgeon or an anesthesiologist as a “flea”. It’s meant as a term of denigration. When I started my blog, I decided to don the name as sort of reverse-chic badge of honor. The truth is no pediatrician is called a flea by any doc I know. I’ve generated a fair bit of confusion in the blogosphere in calling myself this.
- You’ve been blogging for over a year now. Why did you start to maintain a blog? It takes a lot of time, doesn’t it?
It takes a lot of time indeed. I blog because there are things that I want to say that I cannot say because I am a doctor. I cannot talk about malpractice in public. I cannot talk about the sorry state of my subspecialty without pissing off my colleagues.
- You won Medgadget’s Weblog Awards in the best new medical blog category. From Medgadget’s offical result: Judges scores, almost unanimously in favor of Flea, have determined the outcome in this very competitive category. Why do you think you got all of those scores?
I haven’t the foggiest fucking idea. Really!
- I like that Flea’s Illness Counter. What are your expectations regarding the year 2007?
I expect never to get sick again. Never never NEVER!!!!
Thank you Dr. Flea, and keep up this great work!
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