It’s been quite a year in the life of Clinical Correlations. One year ago today we officially announced the creation of Clinical Correlations, the NYU internal medicine blog, to the NYU medical community. Starting from scratch without much of a game plan we developed a website (a word I greatly prefer to blog) that we hoped would simultaneously inspire students, housestaff and faculty. I am so proud to say that I think we have accomplished this goal. In this year, I have learned that perseverance clearly pays off and now Clinical Correlations has become part of the very fabric of NYU.
I don’t have room to thank everyone that has had a hand in this but there are a few people I need to single out. I am particularly indebted to Cara Litvin who during the year became a world renowned author when she had a Perspective piece published in the NEJM. My only beef with her is that the byline under the article read “Cara Litvin is a resident at NYU” when she could have pushed for “Cara Litvin is a resident at NYU and the executive editor of Clinical Correlations.” She’s a terrific writer and editor and has been instrumental in keeping me motivated throughout the year. Martin Blaser, our Department of Medicine chairman, has supported and encouraged me throughout the creation of the website and pushed me to open the blog to the world, giving it a permanent link on the department of medicine home page. Marc Triola’s technical skills and patience answering my inane questions about coding and stylesheets have been vital to keeping the site up and running. I am also indebted to Raj Khandwalla who was there at the very start and had a significant hand in the creation of Clinical Correlations. I also don’t want to forget my associate editors Josh Olstein, Sean Cavanaugh and Michael Poles who have been so supportive. In addition, our pharmacology editors Helen Kourlas and John Papadopoulos have helped make our website a truly multidisciplinary blog. And finally to my fellow program directors, chief residents and housestaff editors and writers who have worked so diligently to edit, advertise and promote Clinical Correlations. Thank you everyone for all your help and support.
Clinical Correlations will continue to evolve and, to that end, we have recently added several new sections. There is now a weekly grand rounds post summarizing NYU’s internal medicine grand rounds. We have added editors for our ethics and health care policy sections and hope to shortly expand those posts. In the next few weeks we hope to start a visiting professor section with ongoing collaborations with training programs from Columbia, USC, and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt. Further, we are beginning to work with NYU’s public relations firm which we hope will dramatically increase our reach and readership. We have also begun collaborating with the NYU School of Medicine’s Ehrman Library and soon many of our posts will include links highlighting the ideal searching strategies to answer a clinical question. We still have plenty of room to grow and I hope you will come along for the ride.
Some stats:
In the last year we have had 216 posts on a wide variety medical topics. Our writers have included medical students, residents, chief residents, former chief residents and faculty from NYU. Our editorship staff has expanded to 11 senior editors and 11 copy editors. Our overall readership has steadily slowly grown through the year without a single advertisement or strategically placed comment on other blog sites or forums. We have readers in over 110 countries. Our hits are now averaging ~250/day, 6000 a month -a far cry from the early days of 8-20/day. In the last month we have had exactly 5850 hits from 105 countries. If you are interested, check out the most recent statistics from Google™ Analytics. In fact if you google “internal medicine blog” Clinical Correlations comes up as #1.
Finally I thought I’d highlight some of our best posts from the year. This is purely a personal view and I hope no one gets offended. Please add to the list by adding a comment to this post.
Medical Malpractice 101 By Sandeep Mangalmurti
Statin Pleiotropy: Unique roles for a common medication by Melissa Freeman
Quick Thinking By: Elizabeth Ross and Mitch Charap
Our very first mystery quiz by Robert Smith
Our terrific series of inpatient diabetes management posts by Mary Vouyiouklis and Ann Danoff
Can you give a cephalosporin to a patient who is allergic to Penicillin?
What is Vagally Induced Atrial Fibrillation? (a topic near and dear to my heart) by William Slater
Meeting Perspectives :The 2007 American College of cardiology Scientific Session by Steven Sedlis
The Discharge Summary, A Prerequisite for Quality Care by Cara Litvin
And finally our entire shortcuts section which has been our most regular and best received section highlighting the week in the medical literature.
And lest I forget…thank you to our readers who keep inspiring us always…
–Neil Shapiro, Editor-in-Chief
As second in command of the blog, (and the only other person who has access to posting) in addition to all the previous thank you’s, I just wanted to extend a thank you to Neil Shapiro for his perseverance, vision, and selfless work which have enabled the blog to blossom into the incredible resource that it is today. Congratulations on this milestone and I look forward to much more to come!
–Cara Litvin, Executive Editor