What Is Going On at the Mayo Clinic?

This is one time I want to leave this alone, but the latest post on the Mayo Clinic website really has me wondering what the purpose of the blog about diabetes could be. Yes, they can say they are serving the diabetes population, but I now have to wonder if they really care. I have taken blogs from other sources and expanded on what I felt they weren't saying which occasionally gives me a good blog. This time I don't feel like this is a good blog going in because I need to be critical of the blog and the authors.

Since they have two authors for the blog, I have to wonder why they can't at least have one blog per week. Other medical organizations do much better in their support of the patients with diabetes and have two or three blogs per week. In addition, most are timely and while not the most detail with every one, they do make people aware of different topics. Joslin does put some news items in their blog and especially about personnel at Joslin, I can look past this as it it good to know for those getting treatment at Joslin Diabetes Center.

The Mayo Clinic Blog has had some excellent blogs, don't think I am criticizing them on this. I do wonder where they get some of the comments. This is highlighted in this post. I can understand an individual's personal computer having problems with date and time being in error, but a computer for the Mayo Clinic? I have to ask where the comments were gleaned and are they doing this to bloat the comments section. I have searched the entire blog list to see if I could find duplicate comments for the time periods with the comments, but to no avail. It is very telling to have comments dated prior to the actual blog post. Who are they trying to fool and why?

The second thing I have found is that people do ask some very specific questions in the comments, but the authors very seldom, I have found a few answers or author comments. Questions often go unanswered and occasionally another commenter will attempt an answer, but most questions go unanswered. For a blog linked with a highly known hospital and clinic, this rises a question of how much does the highly touted Mayo Clinic really care.

When I wrote this blog back in September 2010, I really thought that the Mayo Clinic was going to have a social media presence to be respected, but I could not be more disappointed. They are like many diabetes professional organizations – the AACE comes to mind – they can talk the talk, but they won't walk the walk and do anything of value for patients. Have I lost respect for the Mayo Clinic and other organizations?. With the exception of the Joslin Diabetes Clinic, I must admit I have. Yes, they say they are serving patients, but I have a difficult time in actually believing they are doing anything but serving their own agenda, but doing little for the patient.

The one comment I can make in favor of the Mayo Clinic is that if you are researching a diabetes topic, you can find good, and detailed information within the site, but forget about the expert blog or the social media section. These two areas show a lack of direction and purpose and hype will not solve the lackadaisical attitude shown in these two areas.