Arte Y Pico

September 7, 2008 at 10:58 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

What a lovely surprise! Someonetc. at Orthopaedic Residency: the Attending Perspective has given me the Arte Y Pico award for this blog. Here’s what he said:

Hurricane Jill: This former general surgery resident, future neurosurgeon, and now pharmacist consistently writes her humorously honest prose about her day to day life and struggles.

Who knew that my little exercise in self-indulgence would be of interest to anyone besides myself?

But let’s answer the prior question first: what the hell is the Arte Y Pico award? Click on the link and all will be explained. That is, if you can read Spanish. Yeah, I can’t either. But my trusty Google Translate made it pretty entertaining to read.

If you read my earlier post on awards, you know I am ambivalent about them. Nonetheless, I like this particular one. Mostly because I get to give it to, not one, but FIVE other blogs. How cool is that?

The rules of this award are as follows:

1. You have to pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award in terms of creativity, design, interesting material, and general contributions to the blogger community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each winner has to show the award and give the name and link to the blog that has given him or her the award itself.
4. Each winner and each giver of the prize has to show the link of “Arte y pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5. To show these rules

So without further ado, here are the blogs I’ve chosen:

1. Cut On The Dotted Line by Dr. Alice. Her earnest and empathetic writing is a constant reminder of the idealism we all still have, somewhere underneath the tough skin we’ve developed. She is also someone you would never expect to go into surgery, and her transformation into a surgeon is a story not to be missed.
2. Indifferential Diagnosis by Kevin and David. These guys are having way too much fun. Someone needs to crush their spirit, STAT! But really, this blog, with it’s ironic commentary on medicine and medical education, and anything else that occurs to them, is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. Thanks to Scalpel for the link.
3. The Angry Pharmacist. Pharmacy’s answer to Dr. House. Frequently vulgar, crude, offensive, what have you. But thoroughly on point regarding all things retail pharmacy.
4. DrugMonkey by DrugMonkey and PhysioProf. The view from inside the ivory tower. Well written, and by authors who are far enough along to have an opinion, and willing to share it.
5. Running a Hospital by Paul Levy. The only hospital CEO with the confidence (and courage) to speak openly and honestly about his organization. It helps that it’s well-run and highly regarded. But the level of openness is still remarkable. And for physicians, it helps to see things from the other side, because the things that hospitals do don’t always make sense from ours.

There are lots of other blogs I read regularly, so it wasn’t easy to make this list. But I wanted to focus on blogs that were well-written, frequently updated, and which add a unique perspective on medicine as a whole. It’s just too bad there aren’t any blogs by neurosurgeons.