One of the blogs I follow and enjoy is the China Healthcare Blog. Through them, I learned about this article about the blogs of several doctors in Chengdu, a city in western China which is famous for being where the pandas are.

Some of the doctors’ blogs are getting hundreds of thousands — and even millions — of visitors. They are able to reach and educate people in a way that would otherwise be impossible.

Not long after the 2008 earthquake, Zhang Hujun posted news of the hospital’s food and water shortage on his blog and immediately received a huge response. Within a month, the hospital was receiving daily donations of bottled water and instant noodles from all corners of the city.

Taking advantage of this period of high traffic, Zhang Hujun returned to his “regular job” of posting health tips. He settled arguments, posted essays about foreign popular science, and dispensed advice on how to stay fit, all in straightforward language. His down-to-earth style garnered lots of fans; one essay titled “It’s Possible to Be Poisoned by Drinking Water” received over 300,000 views.

As Damjan Denoble says in his post:

Blogging has the power to better introduce the doctor to her patients and potential patients.   Email, while also a form of electronic text communication, runs into the same problem as face to face meetings – the doctor has little time to put a lot of effort into things like appearance, language softeners, and even smiley faces (I’m a fan of these in non-business emails).  With blogging, the doctor can take time to fully flesh out an opinion or observation, and introduce himself to his patients that way – one carefully conceived thought at a time.