A Filipino Cancer Blog

I was looking through the usage statistics of the cancer blog just now.  Its interesting to note that 3/4 of all visitors access the site from the US, Canada, and Germany.  The balance hail from China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.  So what would increase local traffic?

Frankly, the blog was started out of a frustration with certain aspects of care as noted in my own Philippines-based oncology practice:  the lack of adequate health benefits & frequent misallocation of limited personal funds, the fairly low level of cancer awareness amongst patients, and the absence of true multidisciplinary professional interaction. It seemed to make sense to point the Filipino public to the peer-reviewed sites via links, overriding the impact of any primary physician biases by the weight of evidence. Its not working very well, as half-expected. Its easy to see why, but how can a government agency or NGO help?

• Write in Filipino & major dialects.  But how to describe breast cancer surgery in the vernacular? A pro job.
• Terminology & level of technical info.  Editor needed! I suspect that even my own patients think I’m glibly opinionated and nerdy.
• Improve access.  Can you imagine a typical Tarlac farmer resorting to the Net for info?   Perhaps print, video, or health center lectures would be more effective. Getting high-profile non-doctors to educate the public would be a dream scenario.
• Identify & target high risk populations. Cancer prevention is always the best & cheapest path.
• Neutrality.  I did say that I was opinionated.
• Focused agenda & constancy.  My life isn’t all oncology, much less blogging. Dissemination of cancer info for local consumption would be a major full-time undertaking, albeit a worthy one.