An Asian Parents’ Worst Nightmare: Son Gives Up Medicine to Blog

By John | Monday, July 21, 2008 | 3 Comments

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Source: New York Times. Arnold Kim, founder and senior editor of MacRumors.com.

When I first began to read this New York Times article, “My Son, the Blogger: An M.D. Trades Medicine for Apple Rumors” about Arnold Kim’s site, MacRumors.com, I thought, “Wow, this has got to be Arnold’s parents worst nightmare.”:

“For eight years, Arnold Kim has been trading gossip, rumor and facts about Apple, the notoriously secretive computer company, on his Web site, MacRumors.com. It had been a hobby — albeit a time-consuming one — while Dr. Kim earned his medical degree. He kept at it as he completed his medical training and began diagnosing patients’ kidney problems. Dr. Kim’s Web site now attracts more than 4.4 million people and 40 million page views a month, according to Quantcast, making it one of the most popular technology Web sites. It is enough to make Dr. Kim hang up his stethoscope. This month he stopped practicing medicine and started blogging full time.”

Kim makes a six figure income blogging, with advertising with Google AdSense and by major advertisers like Verizon, Audible.com and CDW. Kim decided to give up his medical career because he thought he could make more money blogging. Kim also recently became a father, so being a stay-at-home dad had a lot of appeal. I am sure that Dr. Kim could always eventually go back to practicing medicine, right?

As for what do his parents think of him giving up his medical career? I was surprised to read that:

“When he told his father, also a doctor, about the decision, Dr. Kim was pleased that “he was very supportive of it, which was sort of surprising to me.”"

Wow, that is pretty amazing IMHO, especially for an Asian parent who is a doctor as well. What would your parents think about you giving up your day job to blog? I guess if you are already making a good six figure income by blogging, there is less worry. 8Asians needs to only increase its web traffic about 1,000X more to match Dr. Kim . Then we would have to split the revenues amongst the bloggers…

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Dentists Carrollton

It's a sad thing to know that there are some doctors who would give up their profession just to focus on their blog. It's really a nightmare for the parents knowing this will just happen to their son/daughter. We really can't do anything about it since they have their own choice and they have to be responsible for the path they have chosen.

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Asianmommy

Wow--that is amazing! Good for him. Medicine can be a grueling career, with the stress, emergencies, and overnight calls. It's not as lucrative a profession as it used to be, with reimbursements down and the threat of malpractice suits. Perhaps Dr Kim's father understands this and sympathizes.

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