Tooting my own horn -- one of 50 top blogs!

Allow me a moment of self-indulgence.

This blog has been rated in the Top 50 Medical Ethics Blogs in the world by the web site Uspharmd.com -- 23rd overall and Number One internationally. Or, at least, first on the international list.

Congratulations to me.

Uspharmd.com targets pharmacists, pharmacology students and consumers, rating schools, giving industry news and offering consumer information -- and has its own blog.

Here's what they say about this blog:

International Medical Ethics Blogs.

As the world grows more connected, medicine cannot be isolated to ethics in just one country. The following bioethics blogs offer an international perspective.

Medical Ethics blog. This blog at the Toronto Star, written by a long-time ethics journalist, gives a Canadian perspective on North American medical ethics.

The top blog in the world is blog.bioethics.net. "Written by the editors of American Bioethics Journal, this blog includes information the editors receive and share with readers," according to Uspharmd.com.

That's a tough act to beat, and it's certainly on honour to be on the same list.

Comments

[deana]

Well done Stuart, your site is excellent mostly because you keep up a presence. I don't understand sites where no one is home.

Something that bothers me about your site, however, (and this is not your doing) is the scarcity of comments and debate. Why are people so unconcerned about medical ethics, or the lack of them?

Data miners love the internet for assessing what's on people's minds. Your site, which features really important and often quite disturbing stuff, could indicate that people don't give a rat's aspirin about it. Other more self-interested observers could be loving this and actually forming policy from it...

Denial and therapeutic lying are a big part of healthcare offerings now. Are these "services" working? Or is the obvious degree of apathy coming from an inability to synthesize a thought, write it and check it over for typos. I doubt this one because where there's a will, there's a way. So a criticism of the school system wouldn't really do much.

A bigger problem faced by debaters or commentators these days is that if one has an opinion one is seen as mentally disturbed i.e. angry, obsessed, antisocial, and in medical cases, mad because your relative died etc. No one wants to look weak or sufficiently distraction-free to be troubled by reality. Now that's a bit cuckoo but the standing definition of sanity is "what most people are doing at the same time."

In any case, it's still a really good thing you post this information because it's organized, succinct and you come through as an exception among journalists. Even if there isn't too much swimming going on, it still puts water in the pool.

[Stuart Laidlaw]

Thanks, Deana, I love doing the blog and hope people find it helpful.

I wish people would comment more, too.

I spoke with a bioethicist a couple of weeks ago who said many is his field are reluctant to comment online for fear of the impact it will have on their reputations if others react badly.

The beauty of online, though, is that the postings can be anonymous.

[Susan Bracken]

This is the first time I have looked at a blog. I'm old. I looked at the categories and was saddened to see that you have no "End of Life Choices" Perhaps it is a sub category under "Patient Rights" but I think the time has come to give it a place of its own. Oregon has been joined by Washington and Montana in offering physician aid-in-dying to its citizens. No one will be able to stop the right to die with dignity movement until it achieves success (probably within a decade as the baby boomers age and demand it). A place to discuss the issues related to a comfortable end of life is needed.

[Stuart Laidlaw]

Susan, I am glad you asked about end of life care. I have been treating it as a Patient Rights issue, but you are probably right. I will look into setting up End of Life as a separate category. There is certainly much to talk about there.