After years of writing on other blogs, including the Society for Participatory Medicine’s blog, I felt as if I should really be writing posts on my own blog. But for me, perhaps because I am self-critical and perfectionistic, writing has always been time-consuming, and time is something I do not have in excess. While some find blogging therapeutic, I often find it arduous.

(On the other hand, I find presenting ideas to students or to an audience to be therapeutic, but more on that in a later post.) Although I share plenty of tweets, sometimes it’s worthwhile expressing thoughts in more than 140 characters and my blog seemed like the place to do it (although I’ve read far too many lengthy blog posts that would have been better condensed to 140 characters, so I think I’ll try to keep posts brief).

My background, as a practicing primary care physician with a strong background in clinical informatics and business, gives me a fairly unique perspective, which I hope will infuse my posts and be of value to someone other than me. I pledge to not post unless I have something to say (I’m not really much of a narcissist).

And I must give my thanks to my patient, e-Patient Dave, who has been goading me to do this for years.

With that as background, let’s go.

When one starts to blog, the first thing to consider is the name.  I chose “Connecting” for a number of reasons.

First, I’m a people person and I like to make personal connections.

Next, I have spent my career trying to connect a disconnected and dysfunctional healthcare system. I will have more to say about this in a future post.

Another form of connection that is important to me is the connection I have with my patients. And I firmly believe that many of the ills of our healthcare system and the poor health of our citizens can be cured through an improved connection between patient and provider.

Finally I hope that this blog will help me by connecting me to my readers.

I look forward to connecting with you. Please share feedback at any time.