TBTAM 2011 – The Year in Health Blogging (Plus Two Songs)

Asking a blogger to pick her top posts of the year is like asking a mom which of her children she loves best. Because I love them all. Finding out which posts you love most is not possible – my stat counter only reports details on the last few days. So I picked the posts I think reflect what this blog is about (other than the recipes, of course…) and of which I am particularly proud.

Looking back on 2011, I’m frustrated to realize that so much of my energy was spent countering Big Pharma marketing, inaccuracies in health reporting and those who would limit reproductive rights for women. I like to think I’m having an impact, limited though it may be, among my small but treasured cadre of readers. A sincere thanks to each and every one of you for your visits, comments, tweets, likes and most importantly, your friendship and encouragement.

I don’t know what the future holds for the individual medical blogger, as the short-form communique grows in dominance and the online medical community becomes larger and more diffuse. As more and more docs enter social media, I hope we continue to be individual voices and not just an echo chamber for the mainstream media and medical marketing machines.

• Goodbye Dr Oprah, and Good Riddance. Oprah’s departure came none too soon for this doc.

• Prenatal Tay Sachs Testing – Not a Perfect Test – When a writer has a child with Tay Sachs, we learn that real mothering takes place in the here and now. But did we get the real story on Tay Sachs screening?

• The Mississippi Personhood Amendment – An Open Letter to Dr Freda Bush – I like to think this post contributed to the failure of the amendment to pass in the popular election.

• How To’s – A Twofer.

• How to Save Money on Birth Control – Whatever your method, I’ve got a money-saving tip for you.
• How to Get a Sooner Doctor’s Appointment – Don’t wait too long to get seen for an urgent medical problem.

• Mammograms – The controversy led to 4 posts this year (and an exciting research project that I’ll be telling you about soon)

• Mammograms Screening – ACOG’s Recommendations : Not what you think
• Mammograms – What Women Want, but not for the right reasons
• CNN Does a Nice Job Covering the Mammogram Controversy
• Mammograms- Reality Check

• Emergency Contraception – Important enough for two posts as the battle for OTC availability for teens wages on.

• Emergency Contraception is NOT an Abortifacent
• Politics & the Morning After Pill

• Egg Freezing – Women Need the Full Picture – Separating the hype from the hope. I refer patients to this post a lot.

• Why We Must Keep Planned Parenthood and Title X Funding. This post continues to get a lot of traffic, meaning that the truth is getting out.

• Docs and Social Media
• Social Media & Patient Privacy – why we need standards to Prrotect patients without limiting the free sharing of medical knowledge. With links to sample policies.
• Why I wrote a disclaimer – and why you should too.
• Twitter, Doctors & professionalism – My take on Mommy_doctor and twittergate

• Big Pharma – My favorite whipping boy.

• Essure- Bad Marketing. A bad ad campaign frightens men away from sterilization.
• Makena – Big Pharma vs Insurer Smackdown and  FDA Does the Right Thing with Makena – What happens when Big Pharma gets its hands on an inexpensive compounded drug to prevent preterm labor.
• Teen Mom Kalyn Gets Mirena – Was it Product Placement or Contraceptive Counseling?

• Birth Control and Blood Clots – The Patch & Yaz dominated the contraceptive conversation this year.
• FDA Patch Ruling – The FDA allowed the Patch to stay, but with modified labeling. I put in my two sense and describe the population of women for whom the Patch remains an important contraceptive option.
• Birth Control & Blood Clots : Visualizing the Risks – Driven by me need to put the risks into perspective for my patients, I pull out my time-honored dot charts and some common sense.

• Another Death from Cancer – My post about my sister’s death from cancer, while intensely personal, is one that untold millions of us who have had a loved one die of this devastating disease could have written.

And for your musical pleasure –