First10EM updates and audience survey

First10EM is wrapping up its 9th year in existence. There have been 453 blog posts to date, and I am getting very close to having written 1 million words in total, or the equivalent of 10-20 average length nonfiction books. (Actually, the stats don’t include static pages like the catalog of research bias, so I have probably written more than a million words at this point. I am sure there are many out there who wish I would just get to the point already). The site gets more than a million page views every year, which isn’t bad for a very nerdy independent website focused primarily on nerdy evidence based medicine topics. 

I am not entirely sure what the future looks like for First10EM. To date, I have managed to produce (I hope high value) content almost every week for 9 years straight. I have had some brilliant guest posts, and First10EM has one official partner in Dr. Sarah Foohey and Foohey’s Figures, but for the most part this is an unfunded personal project. Although I have many ideas for expanding the site and providing more value, the honest truth is that my current pace is probably unsustainable (at least if I want to also excel in other areas of my life). 

Website traffic lives and dies by google search results, and google seems to prefer websites that post content consistently. Perhaps traffic shouldn’t matter, but realistically I publish on the internet so that the content can reach as wide an audience as possible. Therefore, in order for me to slow down at all, the best approach might be to increase the number of guest posts on the website. (Please see the survey at the end of this post to provide feedback, because the opinions of my readers matter a lot to me.)

I enjoy being able to share my platform with other educators. So many brilliant people put hundreds of hours into presentations for small audiences such as grand rounds, but don’t have the platform to share that knowledge more widely. I am fairly picky about the content hosted on First10EM, and previous guest authors will tell you there is often a fair amount of back and forth editing, but if you have put a lot of time into an emergency medicine topic that you would like to share with the world, feel free to reach out using this contact page. 

You will probably have noticed some advertisements on the site over the last 2 weeks. I really dislike the idea of ads on First10EM, but the financial reality is that the site costs a lot to run, and so ads might be required to make FOAMed work. (Google also seems to like to direct traffic towards websites that bring in profit, so hosting ads might increase traffic as well.) Right now, I consider this an experiment to gather feedback and some data on how effective ads are. If you hate it as much as I do, provide some feedback below. (I have disallowed any medical or healthcare related advertising to limit any appearance of conflict of interest. If you see an advertisement that you think is inappropriate, please let me know.)

If you enjoy the content being produced, the easiest and perhaps best thing you can do to support First10EM is entirely free: share it with others. If you enjoy this content, there are still many many people in the emergency medicine world who have never heard of First10EM, so please share it with your colleagues or on your social media. That helps a lot. 

It will also be tremendously helpful to me if you take a few minutes to answer the survey questions below, leave comments with suggestions for improvement, or contact me with ideas. If I am going to spend a huge portion of my life creating content, I want to ensure it is the best possible content for my audience. (Although, realistically, I don’t think this is ever going to be a business, and so the best way to keep First10EM alive is probably to continue covering whatever I find most interesting, and hope the audience comes along with me.)

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, I need to thank the core supporters of First10EM: my patrons on Patreon. For the last few years, a small group of individuals has helped to support me financially with small monthly donations. Without these individuals, First10EM wouldn’t exist. I am so incredibly grateful to all of these individuals, especially considering I don’t have any of the fancy perks that other Patreon campaigns tend to offer to get people to sign up. If you want to join this list of incredible people who keep First10EM alive and free, this is the link, and I would be eternally grateful. 

First10EM audience survey

I didn’t want to pay for advanced polling software, so I apologize if the polls are limited. I know the results are not very scientific. If you feel strongly about any topic, please leave comments at the bottom of the post.

NOTE: Sorry if the survey gives you a ‘server error’. This program apparently doesn’t play well with some web browsers.