iowa!

(Apologies in advance for any obvious signs that this entry was written under duress--my browser crashed after some thoughtful noodling of this entry, and now I have to leave for work in twenty minutes because I'm on call tonight.)

So it's official, I'll be presenting on a panel about blogging in medicine along with these two very talented gentlemen (John from "Glass Hospital" and Rob from "Musings of a Distractible Mind") on a panel about blogging in medicine at the Iowa Writer's Workshop conference in April. We're all pretty excited, they more likely about the conference, me about the prospect of traveling somewhere--anywhere--without two kids and six carry-ons and a easy-one-hand-folding stroller that seems like anything but once you get up to the security checkpoint and everyone is yelling at you to take off your shoes. This will be the first time since Cal was born that I will be going anywhere without kids in tow. Even my Oral Boards, which usually involves some degree of travel for almost everyone, was fortuitously offered in Atlanta my year--which was awesome, because we all know there's no Oral Board prep that can quite equal the night before spent in your own bed.

Anyway, if I may ingratiate myself upon you, a few things:

1.) We need a good title for the panel. Our original panel was something like, "WebMD: a Panel of Doctors from the Blogosphere" which was serviceable. It was catchy at least, and even though I hate the word blogosphere (sounds like someone throwing up a beach ball) there really is no good equivalent that I'm aware of. In any event, we may have to change the title, at least the first part, as it has been pointed out to us by conference administrators that for one, "WebMD" is a copyrighted name, and for deuce, we don't really want to seem like we're affiliated with or endorsing "WebMD."

So what do you think? Since this is a conference that's going to be teeming with doctor/writer types, I think the panel name should make it clear somehow that we're talking specifically about writing on the internet (or "blogging" as it were--I am crusty and ancient and very Web 1.0, but I am aware that this is the vernacular now and will try to say that with a minimum of eye-rolling air-quotes). Ideally it would be something witty though not goofy--our panel will probably be more light-hearted than most, but as many of the other talks tend towards the more serious aspects of writing in medicine (the monitors beeped and I held her wrinkled hand at the moment of her death kind of thing), I don't want us to seem like three yuck-a-lucks piling out of a tiny clown car or anything.

Anyway, any thoughts on a good panel title? Thanks in advance!

2.) Are you in Iowa, or even if you're not, would you perhaps be interested in attending a conference about writing in medicine? You should! At the very least there are some CME credits to eke out of the experience, and you can be sure that I'm going to load myself up with what I can. If enough people are going and interested and very, very bored, maybe we can even have some kind of a meet-up one evening. That's not weird, right? Could be fun? We could meet each other and chat and drink ethanol (because, you know, IOWA). Just don't murder me. Maybe more on this as we get closer to April. Registration for the conference isn't open yet, but I think you can get on their mailing list and they will let you know when it is.

OK, I have to collect my frozen dinner and get ready to go to work now. Later I will tell you about how I got pulled over by the police for reckless driving, a story that sounds much more exciting than it actually was. Be cool, stay in school.