Andrea Weckerle

Recognizing that the best and most credible PR sometimes comes from actual students, the  University of Michigan Medical School has added student blogs to its official website.

The students, representing all four years of medical school, offer a Dose of Reality, namely "what it’s really like at the University of Michigan Medical School. [They] give you an intimate look at their med school lives—their insights, ‘ah-ha’ moments, frustrations and excitement."

According to American Medical News (online subscription required; quote from April 17, 2006 article, Med school’s Web site adds student blogs): 

"Plenty of medical students have independent blogs, but 12 students…have blogs on the medical school web site, an event the university says is a first among medical schools…

The blogs are part of an overall strategy to use the Internet as a recruitment too. Officials hope that an unfiltered picture of life at the school will increase the applicants….

Dan Remick, MD, assistant dean for admissions and director of the blog project, said prospective medical students want information that hasn’t been run through administration filters or censored in any way."

The article also states that the medical school offers monthly Internet chats for applicants and those who have been accepted but haven’t decided whether to attend. The combined efforts resulted in an increase of 20% admissions acceptances for the 2005-06 class.

The Dose of Reality site currently hosts these students’ blogs:

• M1 Amanda Elliott
• M1 Andrea Knittel
• M1 Karen Lo
• M1 Jon Streit
• M2 Ben Bryner
• M2 Janani Krishnaswami
• M2 Jason Cheng
• M2 Tim Bodnar
• M2 Shelby Stewart
• M3 Tanyaporn Wansom
• M3 Elliott Gozansky
• M4 Okeoma Mmeje

The blogs’ greatest appeal is that the students don’t gloss over their medical school experiences. For example, in a May 3rd post, first-year student Andrea Knittel writes:

"As the bearer and compulsive checker of a fibroadenoma (a benign fibrous lump of breast tissue identified only a week after I learned what the word meant in our first pathology sequence), I know what waiting for a diagnosis is like.  It’s a time filled with worry, what-ifs, and pre-emptive decision making.  It’s hard, and even harder to describe.  At the same time, I can only imagine that the pain of waiting for a diagnosis and wondering what was going is nothing compared with the pain of breast cancer treatment both emotionally and physically.  It’s the kind of pain that you probably can’t treat with medicines…" 

Meanwhile, fourth-year student Okeoma Mmeje writes this on March 24 (warning: post covers the topics of abortion and rape) :

"My team always takes call on Thursday and my second day on service we were on call. I worked with the intern and resident assigned to gynecology emergency and there were so many interesting cases, particulary ectopic pregnancies and incomplete abortions. The first case was of a 24 year old woman that presented in a semi-conscious state with peritoneal signs. An ultrasound done at an outside hospital revelaed that she had an ectopic pregnancy. We did a lapartomy and took out her right fallopian tube. She lost 2300 mL of blood during the case. I don’t think she had much time left before the outcome of the case would have been fatal…. Next, we evaluated a 12 year old girl that came with her grandmother after being raped. She said she was raped the day before by a man who forced her to go with him to the beach. The resident completed the police reprt and took samples. On physical exam, there were signs suggesting that she had a forced sexual encounter. The hymen was rugged in appearance and lacerations were also present. Now, it’s left in the hands of the police to prosecute the offender. According to the girl, her friends knew the guy so they would be able to find him. What’s really sad about this case is that the girl has some type of developmental delay, which I thought was due to cerebral palsy.

The remaining cases we saw were all incomplete abortions… Many young girls and women can’t afford to go to a private clinic and get an abortion so they start the process at home…, then when they start bleeding and cramping they come to the hospital to complete the abortion. When the patients present with an incomplete abortion, a MVA (manual vacuum aspiration) is done to remove the remaining uterine contents. This was quite painful to watch because it’s done with no anesthesia. They offered  me an opportunity to do one of the MVAs, but I couldn’t do it knowing that the patient wasn’t anesthetized. The patients already go through enough pain.."

Does the use of this type of recruiting mean that traditional/professional-led PR is becoming less relevant? Not necessarily. But it does represent the growing influence and appeal that insiders — in this case actual students sharing in their own words their real-life experiences — continue to have with particular audiences. The fact that the University of Michigan recognizes this reflects its true understanding of public relations and marketing.