On August 1, 2012, Pediatric Alliance launched The PediaBlog. Today marks our 2,000th PediaBlog post! (Actually, it’s 2,002, but two posts have been repeated, including this one last week.) Reaching this special milestone would not have been possible without the help of some awesome people working at Pediatric Alliance’s administrative office, the office managers, staff, and providers working at each of our 10 divisions at 17 office locations, and all our readers online and on social media. Contributors to The PediaBlog not named Ned include many of our providers, nurses, dietitians, and staff who you may see from time to time during an office visit. Without exception, all of their pieces have been outstanding and well-received. We’ve had several patients and their families contribute recipes, reviews, and ideas. And, of course, the comments we receive are invaluable and always welcome. In fact, the main goal of The PediaBlog from the beginning was to “continue the profound two-way conversation we have in our offices every day in a new and exciting way.”
It’s not new anymore, but writing and editing this blog are still exciting! Now that I’ve retired from patient care duties, the blog allows me to “keep my head in the game” — to stay involved in the clinical and practical aspects of pediatric medicine and healthcare — and remain busy (for which Mrs. Ketyer is certainly grateful!). This is important because our best essays are inspired by our patients, their parents, and the rest of our readers. One day it might be a medical article or study; the next, maybe a recipe for our Kids’ Menu feature. One of our newer features, Ask Us Anything, answers questions we get asked by patients, parents, and grandparents every day in the office or in the comments section on the blog. Ask Us Anything is one of my favorite recurring PediaBlog features, although I also like Taste Buds, College Advisor, Mind On The Run, Reflections Of A Grinder, My Story, Who’s Your Doc?, Quote Of The Day, and of course, Cool Video Of The Week on Saturdays, and the Sunday Funnies. And if we could just get a few more recipes for healthy, kid-friendly meals for Kids’ Menu, maybe we could publish our own cookbook! (I can dream, can’t I?)
We’re still looking for ideas to keep The PediaBlog fresh, informative, interesting, and fun. We welcome comments (except from the trolls — they know who they are), questions, and suggestions from you, our readers. Hopefully, you have www.thepediablog.com bookmarked on your web browser and stay up to date on our daily blog posts by following Pediatric Alliance on Facebook and Twitter. But by any medium you choose, please keep reading!
Tomorrow, we will continue with the back-to-school theme we began last week on the blog. We will be repeating four posts that ran consecutively last August as high school students were returning to the classroom and considering their college prospects. This College Advisor series was fun to write, and the feedback we received was so positive that we thought repeating it would be appropriate. Please share this week’s blog posts with the high school student(s) in your life. And feel free to share these essays, and the rest of them as well, with your friends, neighbors, teachers, grandparents, and others who care about your children as much as we do at Pediatric Alliance!
Thanks for joining us on The PediaBlog!