Mysterious Blog Readers

Writing this blog has opened the door to a whole new obsession... the site meter. Since the day that a helpful reader pointed me to the site that would allow me to track who is coming and going from my blog, I've been checking it more often than is likely healthy.

So with a few clicks, I'm able to learn where people are coming from and how they found me. How they found me is under 'referrals', which more often then not says 'unknown'. Unless they link to me directly from another page (rather than type in my URL or use a bookmark) this usually doesn't tell me much, but occasional it's pretty amusing. I find out who has a link to me on their page and who found me other ways. The most fun is when someone comes across my page using a search. Here are some recent searches that have (sometimes inexplicably) led to my page:

• How do you know when an appendix ruptures?
• Medical spouse (maybe this person was looking for LavaLife?)
• Unusual emergency room stories
• CaRMS plastic surgery residency programs
• Pediatric resident
• CCFP(EM) (the program that I am now headed towards-- a family medicine residency with an extra year of emergency medicine training at the end of it)
• Whipple procedure
• Post-op complications
• CaRMS match

Just to name a few.

Another neat feature that I'm having fun with is the 'location' feature. That lists the last 100 visitors to this site by where they come from. I continue to be puzzled at the number of people who read my blog from the states. From Arkansas to Wisconsin, they make up almost half of the hits to my site. Why? How are they finding me? I'm intrigued. Particularly by the regular reader from Vincennes, Indiana who seems to come by to check things out every few days. Hello! Thanks for reading.

No to mention the hits from places in the world where not only do I not know anyone, but some I'd be hard-pressed to find on a map. Recently, readers from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Japan, the UK and Germany have stopped by. Cool. Please don't make any snap judgements on the Canadian medical system based on my rantings. It's really not that bad. Particularly in Alberta. ;-)

It's a small world after all.