This begins the first full calendar year of Sufficient Scruples. The last 6 months or so have been interesting and fun, but I’m still struggling to build readership, and trying to figure out how to make the blog as unique and as useful as possible. Sufficient Scruples is not quite a “new blog” anymore, but I think of the last half of 2005 (since the birth of the blog) as a shakedown period. Beginning with the New Year, I want Sufficient Scruples to play a distinct and particular role in ethics blogging, and to perform a service for readers with a certain perspective on these issues.

As many past posts should make clear, my penchant is for longer, discursive entries, and not so much commentary on every “breaking news” item that pops up. My temperament and the amount of time I have to put in make this work better for me. And there are lots of bloggers keeping abreast of the headlines - most of them are better than me.

So one thing I will try to do is find more issues of real significance in conceptual or ethical terms - rather than those that happen to be relevant as of the moment - and focus on teasing out what they have to tell us about ethical health care in general. Sufficient Scruples will be a place where particular incidents and news events will serve to illustrate larger ethical themes, and perhaps point up conflicts or difficulties attending the principles that relate to those issues.

I will also try to post more regularly, though it’s hard doing it alone, especially if you make a habit of longer posts. But this at least frees me from feeling guilty that I’m not discussing every latest event or hot topic. Look to the right and you’ll find a blogroll full of up-to-the-minute bloggers who are really hot on current issues, and have great things to say.

Another thing I will do is get podcasts going as soon as possible. (I’m jonesing for the Blue Snowball, the best USB microphone available, and at $139 just exactly $139 more than I can afford.) That was part of the original plan, but it fell by the wayside during a somewhat trying second half of 2005.

Also, I will try to expand the library of “White Papers”. (I hope to god someone’s reading those.) Any feedback on whether those essays are useful, or suggestions as to issues on which you would like to see a broad, expository discussion, are welcome.

In these ways and others I hope to supercharge Sufficient Scruples in 2006 and move onward and upward. I hope there is a niche for considered, long-form (by blogging standards), deliberative discussion of ethical principle in the healthcare setting. That’s what I will try to provide; we’ll see how well it works.

One problem, though, is readership. I don’t seem to have any. It’s still early days, but things are definitely lagging in that department, which is very frustrating. Posting and linking more will help, but I don’t know what else to do. One plea I would make to readers: say something! I know I get more readers than comments - go ahead and give some feedback, respond to each other, let me know y’all are out there. I can talk to myself at home. Seriously, it would help me feel this was worth doing if I knew that anyone was listening.

But for those who are, thanks so much, and stick around. 2006 is a new beginning and a new opportunity! Help me make the most of it!