Blogterview with Dr. Flea

Dr. Flea won the best new medical blog category in Medgadget’s Weblog Awards competition. According to the judges:

Flea, a weblog by an anonymous pediatrician “in solo practice in the Northeast U.S.” On his website, Flea tackles many issues facing pediatricians today: from childhood obesity to anti-vaccination moonbats and their websites that scare parents with pseudo-scientific proclamations. Congratulations, Dr. Flea! Job well done.

I was thinking about how I could improve my blog and realized: what is the best way to learn? To learn from the better, so I asked Dr. Flea to answer some of my questions and he kindly did this:

• Actually, I know only one sentence about you: “Flea is a pediatrician in solo practice in the Northeast U.S.” Tell us a bit more! (What fields are you specialized in? Why did you choose pediatrics?)

General Pediatrics and Pediatric Pulmonology. I chose pediatrics because I knew I was best suited to medicine (as opposed to surgery). Kids get better and they almost never die. This is a weakness of mine. I couldn’t handle all the death, and the grief that goes with it. I also found I was able to relate to children as patients better than I did with adults.

• Why is Flea your name?

When I was a third year (clinical rotations) I was paired with an anesthesiology resident who was one of the most reprehensible human beings I have ever known. He was screwing every woman who’d let him, though he was married. He referred to any doctor who wasn’t a surgeon or an anesthesiologist as a “flea”. It’s meant as a term of denigration. When I started my blog, I decided to don the name as sort of reverse-chic badge of honor. The truth is no pediatrician is called a flea by any doc I know. I’ve generated a fair bit of confusion in the blogosphere in calling myself this.

• You’ve been blogging for over a year now. Why did you start to maintain a blog? It takes a lot of time, doesn’t it?

It takes a lot of time indeed. I blog because there are things that I want to say that I cannot say because I am a doctor. I cannot talk about malpractice in public. I cannot talk about the sorry state of my subspecialty without pissing off my colleagues.

• You won Medgadget’s Weblog Awards in the best new medical blog category. From Medgadget’s offical result: Judges scores, almost unanimously in favor of Flea, have determined the outcome in this very competitive category. Why do you think you got all of those scores?

I haven’t the foggiest fucking idea. Really!

• I like that Flea’s Illness Counter. What are your expectations regarding the year 2007?

I expect never to get sick again. Never never NEVER!!!!

Thank you Dr. Flea, and keep up this great work!