blogging | Patient Talk

Blogging

Erm……….. well actually you. Have you ever thought about being a patient blogger?

Sorry let me explain. I’ve been involved in blogs and social media for about six years. In fact I was introduced to the concept of blogging by a cheerful idiosyncratic Irishman. He was (and is) a great proponent of the idea that blogging offers us all an opportunity to become what he called “citizen journalists”. All of us could be a press baron from the comfort our own homes!

At that time there were a huge number of patient and healthcare blogs active on the web. While there are still plenty around the amount of activity seems to have decreased. Which in my view is a shame because they can really give a voice to the needs of the patient community.

Indeed one of the reasons I run this blog is that I am the father of an autistic child and use this blog to raise autism awareness. Between you and me I was a bit disappointed by the lack of response to a recent post on autism blogging which requested links to autism blogs. As you can see pretty much nothing came in. You can see the evidence here https://patienttalk.org/?p=933.

So, I hear you cry, what on earth is the point on another moaning post on the state of the blogosphere.

Easy. I’d like to see more patient blogs. So I’ve decided to do something about it.

I’m asking my readers if they want to submit a guest blog to the site. We’ve run this sort of thing before. You can read one on National Arthritis week from Catherine Manning here https://patienttalk.org/?p=1015.

What sort of topics are we interested in?

Well pretty much anything that looks at the world from a patient/healthcare point of view. If you have a blog we would be delighted to publicise it. Or you can just tell your medical story. An opinion piece about a medical condition would be great. Maybe you have found yoga helps your RA and want to share with others. As we say the options are pretty much endless.

So please consider this an invitation to provide a guest post for this blog. If you are interested in more information why not drop us an email at patienttalkblog@gmail.com. We can chat a bit more about your interests and ideas.

Many thanks in advance.

Autism Awareness

Yes I know it does sound a bit odd that a blog run by the father of an autistic 6 year old should want to write about autism blogging. In fact it comes over as pretty self-indulgent. So please bear with me.

A couple of days ago I asked on the Facebook page which we run on Autism and ASD (https://www.facebook.com/AutismTalk) a question regarding our readers favourite autism blogs. Do you know what? Only one person had a blog to recommend. Someone pointed to the brilliant Facebook page “Autism with a glass of wine“ (https://www.facebook.com/AutismWithAGlassOfWine). If you had not already liked and shared the page we strongly recommend you do so.

Now this really did surprise me. Because back in 2009 when our son was being diagnosed I read autism related blogs daily. I discovered from these blogs that progress could be made and that other people were in the same boat as me. This helped me cope with a very stressful process.

As life moved on I started using Facebook more and then started my own blog so I took my eye off other autism blogs. So today I’d like to change that and promote a few of the blogs I’ve found useful over the years.

Suburp Comix run a blog with brilliant graphics about autism. This is some of the best material for educating others (and ourselves) about autism I’ve ever seen. Point your browser to http://suburpcomix.wordpress.com/category/autism/.
Danielle runs a great blog called Loorducation (http://loorducation.wordpress.com/). She tells the story of her son’s autism journey. Well worth a read. This was the blog that was recommended on our page.
Dude, I’m An Aspie (http://www.dudeimanaspie.com/) is Matt’s blog about having Asperger’s. A story told using his great cartoons. So good he’s turned it into a book.
Shannon’s autism advocacy blog Squidalicious (http://www.squidalicious.com/) has some really great stuff about autism and iPads.
World on the Spectrum (http://lkscalesautismblog.wordpress.com/). An autism mother tells it like it is.

Please do visit all of these blogs. They’re all different and all terrific.

Of course this does not cover all the blogs out there. If you have a blog (or would like to recommend somebody else’s blog) please use the comments box below to add a link and a brief description.

Thanks in advance

PS We are hoping to make this sort of post a regular feature of the site so keep those autism blogs coming!