Being new to the MedBlog (Medical WebLog) arena it has taken a while for me to find my blogging feet. Thankfully there are some very handy and helpful articles for newbie MedBloggers, and in this post I attempt to synergistically collate some of the great resources that I have gathered during my foundling submersion in the MedBlogosphere.

I am really enjoying this foray into the pixelated communication world and have met and become friends with some amazing people along the way. MedBloggers share the same passion for collation, collaboration and altruistic synergism – they enthusiastically embrace new ideas and face challenges ‘together’ with the common aim of evolving the health 2.0 movement and engaging the new pixelated tools as efficiently as possible

This post is a collection of the best resources to ‘review top quality medical blogs’ [Carnivals and rounds], participate in relevant medical ‘health conversation’ [Medical Twitterings] and recognise the achievements of my peers [Awards]. Would love to read and then host additional suggestions – just add them to the comments section and I will incorporate them into the lists

Carnivals and Rounds

A Blog Carnival collates links pointing to blog articles on a particular topic and like a magazine it has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival come out on a regular basis and each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

There are many health, medicine and fitness related blog carnivals – but not many stand the test of time. Supporting the carnivals by reviewing the posts regularly, subscribing to the feeds and contributing comments will keep these valuable resources online and help keep you in the loop

The top Medicine and science related Carnival posts

• Medical Grand Rounds (Grand Rounds RSS feed) from @txmed and @drval – The weekly rotating carnival of the best of the medical blogosphere. This brilliant series has been running for over 4 years with great contributing posts and innovative hosting solutions. Hosting blogs solicit, search for, organize and summarize a selection of the best posts on medical blogs for the previous week and publish on Tuesday each week. Thanks to Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb fame [@Marshallk] Grand Rounds is delivered in a handy RSS feed format. Walter Jesen [@WJJessen] of Highlight Health and NextGenScience [@NextGenScience] has also created a very useful mashup of the top 8 rotating blog carnivals – so readers can get their blog carnival fix in one easy serving!
• Change of shift Blog Carnival (Change of Shift – RSS Feed) – A place for nurses and other members of the health care team, including students and patients to send their nurse related stories and ideas. To contribute to the Blog Carnival just follow these simple instructions from @crzegrl and @emergiblog [blog carnival listing] [Submission Instructions] [Archive]
• Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival (Medicine 2.0 RSS feed) – from @Berci - Medicine 2.0 is a bi-weekly blog carnival which collects some of the most interesting posts about Web 2.0 and Medicine. Archives of the blog carnival.[Blog Carnival Listing] [Submission Instructions]
• SurgXperiences (SurgXperiences RSS feed) – from @JeffreyLeow – A carnival that collects blog entries every 2 weeks on various surgical experiences. All welcome to contribute. [Blog Carnival listing] [Submission Instructions]
• Health Wonk Review – Health Wonk Review is a biweekly compendium of the best of the health policy blogs. Health policy, funding, insurance, managed care, infrastructure, IT, the uninsured, economics and trends are all fair game. The carnival ‘avoids posts of a clinical nature’ [Blog Carnival Listing] [Submission Instructions]
• HealthBolt Carnival (HealthBolt RSS feed) – Healthbolt looks for the unique, the interesting, the entertaining, and the bizarre in the world of health. [Blog Carnival listing] [Submission Instructions]
• GeneGenie Blog Carnival (Gene Genie RSS feed) – from @Berci – A blog carnival on genes, gene-related diseases. The Carnival aims to cover the ‘whole genome’ before 2082!!. [Blog Carnival Listing] [Submission Instructions]
• Cancer Research Blog Carnival (Cancer Research RSS feed) – What’s new in cancer research? The latest discussions regarding cancer, genetics, epigenetics, diagnosis, imaging, diet, therapeutics and chemotherapy. [Blog Carnival listing] [Submission Instructions]
• Encephalon Blog Carnival (Encephalon RSS feed) – from @AlvaroF – Encephalon carnival runs every other week and presents a diverse selection of great covering the best neuroscience and psychology blog posts on the web. [Submission Instructions]
• A source of Inspiration – (A source of inspiration RSS feed) from @myrtlife A place for respiratory therapists, other members of the health care team, patients, patient advocates, and members of the general public to share their respiratory- related stories, breaking news, or ideas. [Homepage] [Submission Instructions]
• MedLib’s Rounds – from @Laikas – A rotating carnival of the best of the medical library blogosphere. Written in English (bilingual posts allowed) [Submission Instructions] [Blog Carnival Listing]

Medical Twitterings

twitter emergency

Blog posts too long to read? Out of blogging ideas? Wanting something more dynamic, interactive and engaging? Run out of Tequila?…then why not try Twitter Micro-Blogging. There have been already been a huge number of articles relating to Twitter and its use in the field of health, medicine and science…so instead of re-inventing the wheel – here are some collated lists of the ‘Top MedTweeps in the Twitisphere’. [remember to always check the comments section for 'newly added' or 'missed Tweeps' to ensure your magazine rack is full]…and if your not listed….get listed

• Twitter MedTweeps from @medicalstudent
• 101 Scientific Friends from @sciencebase
• US Hospitals on Social Networks from @EdBennett
• Twellow Twitter Physicians Twellow Twitter Nurses from Twellow.com
• Health and Wellness Twitts from JustTweetIt
• Healthcare Tweeple at TwittGroups e.g. @sandnsurf
• Aussie Medbloggers (@DrCris) and Aussie key Twiterers (@niphal)
• Top 100 HealthTwits from @medicalstudent

Twitter Reviews

Twitter is a microblogging service where people answer the question “What are you doing?” via 140-character messages from their cellphone, laptop or desktop. @AllergyNotes started the trend of ‘reviewing’ the best tweets and hosting on his blog. To add variety to these excellent posts I include some other notable collections

• My Twitter Favorites from @DrVes
• Top of the Tweets from @laikas
• Scalpels Edge Tweet collections and Greatest Hits from @DrCris

Health and Medical WebLog Awards

Difficult to imagine how to ‘rank, award or reward‘ MedBlogs…however, these are some of my favorite ‘awards’ and ‘ranking lists’ from a MedBloggers perspective

• The Golden Llama Award (known as the GLA to the Hollywood elite) is given out to people who have demonstrated upstanding character, imagination, and a flare for the dramatic. [hosted by @doc_rob]
• The Shorty Awards for the best producers of short content {140 characters or less} on Twitter and the 2008 Shorty Health Award
• Aussie MedBloggers Awards from AppleQuack
• Bloggers Choice awards and the Best Health Blog for 2009
• Medgadget and the Medical Weblog Awards
• 2008 Weblog Awards and the Health and medical issues
• Wikio.com top blog and news site and the Wikio – Health Blog Rankings
• eDrugSearch.com and the eDrugSearch Top 100

HealthBlogger and MedBlogger Directories