Take a Guess: Just How Many Nurses' Blogs Are Out There?

Nurses have a lot on their minds and are eager to share their opinions, perspectives, and insights on Internet blogs. A quick search using the term “nurses’ blogs” led me to dozens of nurse bloggers with interesting blog site names, such as “At Your Cervix,” “Sisterhood of the Traveling Scrubs,” Thoughts from the Night Shift,” and “I’m OK, You Need Meds.” Some bloggers focus on a particular specialty area, such as “ER RN” (emergency department) or “Highway Hypodermics” (travel nursing). From what I could tell, there are at least 100 nursing-related blogs where nurses speak their minds on a daily, or at least weekly, basis.

In this blog on blogs, called “Nurses’ Blogs,” I’ll comment on what's going on in the nursing blog world. Each week, I’ll take a peek at the many nursing blog sites and let you know what the current “buzz” is. You’ll learn what nurses are really talking about in the safety and anonymity of a blog environment. And you’ll see how other nurses respond to the bloggers’ comments.

Did you know that the term “blog” is a contraction of the words “web log”? The word “blog” can also be used as verb and means adding content to a blog. While many blogs function as a personal online diary, nurses’ blogs tend to focus less on personal issues and focus more on professional issues. And the spectrum of professional issues is huge—everything from new grads to burnout to the age old question, “will I ever be able to retire from nursing or will nursing kill me first?”

The collective community of blogs is now known as the blogosphere. A group of local blogs, like those here at www.hcplive.com, is called a bloghood. Comments and discussions in the blogosphere are increasingly being used to gauge what the public at large is thinking and feeling, and this blog on nursing blogs hopes to capture what’s really going on in nursing. Stay tuned.