Mexico Medical Student |

It was a couple of days for me to post again earlier this week…the non-sleep of compiling Grand Rounds plus having a microbiology exam that same morning plus a clinical skills exam the following day (which I forgot about when I signed up — (bad Palm!)) meant bad mojo for me. If I had to do it all over again, I certainly would, but I’d make a few changes. Here are some small tips and warnings for future Grand Rounds hosts:

• No matter how much you beg and plead, you will get the bulk of the posts within 24h of the deadline. Accept this. It’s understandable, because people want to see if they post anything else worthwhile, people haven’t yet posted their magnum opus of the week, or, they are just simply intractable procrastinators.
• Themes are nice, but they definitely make things harder to compile, assuming you have any desire to make things flow. Unless you set a draconian deadline two days prior, you have but hours to complete your edition. As posts stream in, your concept of what you might want to do may change. Again, accept this.
• Fight very, very hard not to be judgmental about posts with which you disagree or have no interest in. Personally, I can’t stand the business end of healthcare. If I partner w/someone at all later, let it be an MD/MBA, because while someone waxes poetic about profit margins and price-for-performance, I’m probably thinking something about science or medicine instead. Or food. But, when I read a story about these topics, I have to evaluate it based on objective criteria (as much as possible) and consider including it because there are readers who want it. More power to ‘em.
• Don’t be afraid to not include a post. Posts with little or no original content have no business in Grand Rounds; that should go without saying. Posts which mentioned a news story, added a blockquote from the same, then added a 2-3 sentence pithy comment lasted about 5 seconds in my inbox.
• Most importantly, the URLs of the submissions you are considering including (not the final list by any means) should get placed in your editor properly, with title/desc, and place these in your web editor as a simple, carriage-returned list, with the title of the article submission, linked, followed by a few words as a “teaser” to remember which post it is. Do not worry about the final text to use, since this “flow” is what will be determined towards the end after all the submissions are in. This way, you can move the links around in the order you think works best based on the linked content before you start worrying about composing the rest and complicating the problem. I so wish I had done this as I would have saved nearly 6 hours of futile writer’s block on how to even begin.
• If at all possible, have some posts queued up for posting the after Grand Rounds. You’ll be tired and not feeling quite original, so write a couple of posts in advance while you’re in writing mode. Also, as Dr. Marcucci pointed out to me last week, your readership will peak on Tuesday, but stay elevated for a while. Remember that GR is what brings ppl to your site, but you have to offer something other than that for you to be blogrolled, added to their news aggregator, etc.
• It’s hard to forget this is supposed to be fun. As soon as you become really stressed, stop, breathe deep, and go do something else.

Several people in their submissions commented how amazed they were that I, as a med student, had time to do this. While true, I don’t have a lot of free time with studies and all, my schedule is still somewhat flexible. If I wanted to stay up all night and be a zombie the next day, I certainly could. If I were already a resident or practicing physician, that option would be crazy given the responsibility I’d have to patients. So I give mad props to the medical professionals out there who have to get this done STAT and still make sure all ducks are in a row to continue the next day w/o ill effect.

Finally, here is a scary look at the internals of my thought processes: I not only wanted to have more music featured combined with some sort of visual artwork, but I originally planned to also feature the edition in English as well as Spanish, just because. I know. Commit me now for even thinking it. This proves that while I certainly CAN be methodical, hyper-focused, etc. it’s only good for short (relatively) bursts of activity. I’m an incredibly intense individual but it’s usually reserved for the beginning of something, not throughout. What kind of specialty does that lend itself to…EM? surgery (seeing each individual case in terms of definite start-stop points)? Anesthesiology? I think we can all agree that slow, long-term management like heme/onc is right out. What do you think?