3 Million Reads

 

I crossed over 3 million reads on this blog sometime around 10 AM this morning.  I check the counter a couple of times per day and the number was 3,000,423 at a current rate of about 150K per month.  Earlier this month I confirmed with the host that this number represented actual pages downloaded and read and it does.  The Google Blogger site that I use seems to underrepresent individual page reads but the aggregate count is still good.  My speculation is that this has to do with a more widespread adoption of VPNs but have no confirmation of that.

In terms of an accomplishment – blogging is a mixed bag.  I always approached my work like I was a researcher in addition to being a physician.  That involved an enormous amount of additional reading and research. At the same time, it conflicted with my primary role as a clinician and it really conflicted with my role as an employee.  When I say conflicted, there were basically two spheres.  First, the time constraint.  Luckily, I had chronic insomnia so I could spend the time not sleeping by doing research and reading.  Second, the lack of time to do formal research and write papers.  The research I did was on a case-by-case basis and to teach courses to medical students, graduate students, and physicians.  I came very close to working with a world class research team prior to retirement – but was with them for only a couple of years.  It did give me a glimpse into what would have been possible.

From a historical perspective, it also speaks to how information is disseminated in the modern age.  Herman Melville lived from 1819-1891.  He wrote Moby Dick a book considered to be one of the greatest novels of all time and yet only 3,000 copies were published during his lifetime.  I know this blog is certainly not Moby Dick – but it speaks to what is currently possible and the range of quality writing and in many cases overt misinformation that is now published for free and open to all of the public.  

It took a while to figure out my approach.  In the Pages section of this blog (upper right corner of the main page) I briefly discuss the how and why I write this.  At this point it is basically a continuation of my work life into retirement. When you have done something almost all of your adult life it is both difficult and unnecessary to stop it.  It also provides a perspective to analyze other problems and areas of life like art and politics. By perspective I am talking about a way of thinking rather than diagnosing. The only people I diagnose are the ones sitting across from me in an office who come in to see me as a psychiatrist.     

I get emails from psychiatrists and other health care professionals from around the world.  Some of these folks are quite renowned.  Some are critical because they disagree with my viewpoints, but most of them are interesting and have similar observations.  Early on I made the mistake of publishing remarks that were not only highly critical but personal attacks.  Since adopting a no trolls policy things have been going a lot more smoothly.  It was interesting that in 30 years of Internet discussions I adopted that policy 20 years ago in discussions but it took me a lot longer on this blog.  I attribute that to an unconscious wish for acceptance.

At this point I have a lot of things in the pipeline including a discussion of Margaret Atwood’s work, discussion of a paper on involuntary treatment that involves pseudorandomization, involuntary treatment for substance use disorders, the ongoing psychiatric hospital bed shortage and a Scandinavian study that looked at correlates of suicide and beds, a book review of Psychiatric Neurology, and much more.  I find that I have to work on several things at once to avoid writer’s block.  I am also working on a chemistry and physics perspective that I think adds to the dimension of spirituality and just received a book about how elements that we are all composed of are formed in stars.

I also recently celebrated the milestone of one year volunteering as a co-instructor in a weekly 2 hours seminar on psychodynamic psychotherapy for psychiatric residents.  That has led me to think about areas of life and psychiatry that I would not have without that participation.  I am grateful to my co-instructors and the residents in that seminar for stimulating discussions and emails.  I am quite willing to volunteer for other academic projects – either teaching or research.

That is where things stand today.  I am grateful for the reads and comments and plan to keep writing this blog into the future whether I get to the 4M mark or not.

 

George Dawson, MD, DLFAPA