As hard as it is to believe, it’s official. It appears that Respectful Insolence won the 2006 Weblog Awards as Best Medical/Health Issues blog. I had waited to announce this until it was official, plus a little time because I still couldn’t believe it. It would also appear that one other ScienceBlog, Pharyngula, edged out Bad Astronomy Blog to claim the Best Science Blog crown.
Other nominees from the ScienceBlogs collective were also nominated in these two categories, including The Cheerful Oncologist (one of the first medical blogs I discovered and a blog whose style I still sometimes wish that I could pull off), Deltoid, Good Math Bad Math (an actual blogchild of mine, and Mark may well surpass his blogfather one day, if he hasn’t already), and Mixing Memory. Like PZ, I realize that this does not mean that I actually have the Best Medical/Healthcare Issues blog (several of the other nominees were great, particularly the difficult Brain Hell, the blog of a man suffering through the physical decline caused by ALS, with which he was diagnosed nearly three years ago), but it does tell me that there are quite a few people who enjoy what I’m doing, and that’s a good thing. I also find it hard to believe that having been at this for only two years makes me “established” and even prominent in the medical blogosphere.
So, thanks to all who voted for me, and now don’t forget to support the Medical Weblog Awards (sponsored by Thinklabs). I doubt I’ll be winning that one, partially because I’ve agreed to serve as one of the judges, but more importantly because the competition is fierce (which is a shame, because my wife really wants the top prize, a Thinklabs ds32a Electronic Stethoscope). You still have time to nominate your favorite medical blog here.
I’ll conclude with something that says “award-winning blog” better than anything else I can think of:
Again, nothing says “award-winning medical blog” like a giant smiling enema bottle just making it over the goal line ahead of the defenders. The metaphor to this blog’s win should be obvious to all. Besides, they haven’t sent me my logo yet; so this will have to do.