Hi everyone,
I was recently invited to Steemit by one of my friends, @gameoverr. I was shocked at first when he told me the detail about this platform. I have never known some kind of social media and blogger website combination (apart from Steemit) which reward you for a great created content. After 12 hours of extensive tutorial on the basic mechanism of this platform along with some explanation and hands-on tutorial of Markdown Editing, it's time to get serious and immerse myself in the world of blogging. It would be a new experience for me; I have some experience in writing an article but never in blogging. Weird isn't it? Well, if you are a medical student, you would know it is actually not.
As a future health worker, I would like to emphasize more on healthy lifestyle and diseases caused by an unhealthy one. It is saddening to see the majority of patients who came to the clinic for monthly follow up for certain chronic illnesses are preventable. Education is of utmost importance when we are talking about awareness; people wouldn't know something is bad if they didn't have any knowledge regarding specific matters. However, knowing without practising will not bring any benefit either. Smoking, for example, has been a culprit to various kind of cancers. Even though there are a lot of awareness programs being held by the government or non-governmental organisation, the incidence of cancers caused by smoking hasn't been much better. Even though smokers knew puffing a cigarette is not a healthy lifestyle choice, some of them just doesn't really convinced with the facts or they knew about the fact but chose to remain ignorant.
It is important for us, someone who studied and eventually understand the pathophysiology of diseases to step up and try to educate as many people as we can. I think you know by now what kind of blog would I shape mine to be. Here are some reasons why us, someone who is related to the medical field, should blog:
It is beneficial for the community. People need to know in details regarding anything that concerns them to make an informed decision. However, it should be noted that in some diseases, the outcome and principle of treatment might vary depending on each individual. That's why we need a real doctor apart from an online search engine.
To fulfil our obligation as an academics. People should know by now the importance of academicians in the community. Each people is a potential specialist in their own respective field. An engineer wouldn't know as much as a doctor would in the context of medicine and vice versa. We need each other to fill in gaps between the known and the unknown. Every people plays an important role in a society.
To educate ourselves. We have potentially thousands if not millions of people who specialised in a specific field in this platform. That's relatively a rich knowledge pool which should be nurtured to create a productive environment. People should know blogging is not a space for expressing emotion and creating a personal diary only. It is a virtual space where people would be able to exchange and promote their own idea and knowledge with one another while learning something new.
At least, these three reasons are the things that brought me to this platform plus one more; a study published in the open access medical journal (Cureus) in January 2018 has proved that Free Open Access Medical (FOAM) education materials such as podcast and blog post improve medical student's grade significantly. Even though the focus of the study was medical students but I'm sure it will work with the other students as well. To produce a good quality content, we need to some research and read a lot. Indirectly, it cultivates and moulds your personality as an academic which could lead to a better exam's score (if that concerns you).
There are a few advantages of using blog posts compared to the traditional method of teaching:
- Portable1
- Ease of use1
- Accessible1
- Any important points in the blog could be easily incorporated into the student's note1
There are some factors that should be considered by the content creators to make their blog post much more acceptable by people. Kelly Lien et al have found that a blog post which contains, at most, a thousand words tend to be much more acceptable to readers depending on the type of the blog post; if the topic of the post is novel (relatively new to the reader), then exceeding the words count could be amenable. In the past, making a blog would be difficult if you want it to look presentable to the public. People spend so much money on the template design, web hosting, maybe server (optional) and sometimes a search engine optimisation service. It would generate a huge traffic but that was pretty ka-ching.
A study conducted in 2010 by Edward Alan Miller has identified similar characteristics among the most popular of 951 bloggers related to health genre in the blogosphere. The similarities include:
Most of the health blogs written were personally narrated based on medical workers experiences, dealing with a certain aspect of diseases and journalism rather than informational. This can alleviate depressive symptoms, building a virtual support system and increase awareness among the public. Working as medical workers can be quite stressful and it is vital for us to know how to channel that into something beneficial (which can be achieved by blogging). Mental health awareness, stigma and empathy can be nurtured through medical education in virtual spaces provided by the online platform and I'm honestly seeing Steemit as the potential space to do just that.
The validity of the information provided by the internet might be questionable but generally, people considered the internet as a reliable source of information without giving much thought of the author's credibility; one of the many reasons why people who are involved in the medical field should consider blogging. "Doctors might be wrong and internet is a trustworthy sources," say most of the people out there.
Let us build a community which thrives on knowledge. I believe someday, Steemit might be one of the most popular platforms on the internet so making it into an intellectual hub which comprises of knowledge from various fields would be ideal. Thank you for reading my introduction post. I will try to post at least once a day starting tomorrow. Good luck to us all!
References
- Lien, K., Chin, A., Helman, A., & Chan, T. M. (2018). A Randomized Comparative Trial of the Knowledge Retention and Usage Conditions in Undergraduate Medical Students Using Podcasts and Blog Posts. Cureus, 10(1), e2065.
- Miller, E. A., & Pole, A. (2010). Diagnosis Blog: Checking Up on Health Blogs in the Blogosphere. American Journal of Public Health, 100(8), 1514–1519.
Hi @theredzone, welcome to Steemit!
Hi @anaviteko. Thank you.
Welcome to Steemit @theredzone!
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Oh yea, I have upvoted you and followed you. Many blessings from @introbot & @bycoleman
Welcome , it is nice to see you here...
We are growing and we are growing Strong.
Steemit might look like a whole new world initially with new things like payout, curation and all but it will be lot simpler with time. I would suggest you to have a quick look at short guides about various aspects of Steemit. I will suggest @steemitguide @inquiringtimes. They provide answers to various questions you might have in the mind about Steemit.
Learn The Steemit One Step, One Time.
Moreover Join Various Steemit Communities on Discord App to make friends who will support you here which is one of the ways to survive here on Steemit.
You can send me @drqamranbashir direct message on discord for any assistance u need. Glad to help u.
Remember the more efforts you put in, The more reward you will acquire.
Also Your Steemit will boom if the content here is original.
I hope you have an amazing time on Steemit.
Stop Plagiarism
May the Steem be with us All!!!
Steem On!!!
unfortunately I have exhausted my voting power by voting newbies.On regaining my power u will be getting daily upvotes with 100%power.
TOGETHER WE WIN.
Thank you @drqamranbashir. I appreciate your tips. It's nice to know that some of the veterans were willing to help a newbie.
Welcome to Steemit theredzone. Let me know if you got any questions about Steem or anything related to it! The official FAQ can be found here and has A LOT of information https://steemit.com/faq.html - Also remember, Steemit is just ONE of the sites built that uses Steem the blockchain. We also have DTube - our very own Youtube, DSound for Soundcloud and Steepshot if you prefer Instagram like experience. I'd also like to mention ChainBB - forums, Busy - Steemit with more modern look basically, DMania for memes and Dlive for streaming just like in Twitch! You can also earn Steem by gaming now! Search for Steemgar if that's more your thing. Welcome to the blockchain! :)
Hi @janne. Thank you for the tips.
hello @theredzone, welcome to steemit. you would definately love it here!
its amazing to know you are a medical student. you should join the steemstem community on discord
CHEERS!
Hi @rharphelle. Thank you for the invitation. I would definitely join the Discord channel.
Hy @theredzone,
Welcome to steemit, am wishing u a lovely stay here on steemit. I have some tips to help u on steemit follow the link below to read more https://steemit.com/steemit/@jayboi/tips-on-how-to-become-successful-on-steemit
Hi @jayboi. Thank you for the tips. Really appreciate it.
U are welcome, resteem to help others to make success on steemit.
And don't forget to upvote
Welcome @theredzone, as a health psychology with a similar aim to you here on steemit I highly support the sentiment of your post. I look forward to your future posts, happy blogging!
Hi @nonzerosum. Nice to meet you. Thank you. I will try my best.
You are cool.
I'm not sure how to respond to that but thank you.