Goodbye, DiabetesMine

"As one chapter closes..."

A decade ago in 2012, I had the privilege of joining with my friend and fellow diabetes advocate Amy Tenderich at DiabetesMine. At that time, my journalism career evolved into one that could be combined with my passion for diabetes and my own life with type 1 diabetes. I'd been personally blogging since 2007 and had been actively involved in the DOC (Diabetes Online Community) for a handful of years at that time, attending various conferences and forums with fellow advocates looking to "do good" in the world.



I've been proud to be managing editor for so many years, covering this community and doing advocacy journalism there - before and after we became part of Healthline in 2015.The time has come, though, for my career page to turn to the next chapter.

Healthline made a decision that it's time to close down DiabetesMine. We first heard about this decision-making in early 2022, and by mid-March the final decision had been made by the higher-ups. The final details materialized from there, with April 22 becoming the final "official" day for the DiabetesMine site on HL and no more editorial content being published on the site.

This wasn't a big surprise, as the writing had been on the wall for a while.

Still, it's bittersweet for us both — especially Amy as this has been her "baby" for 17 years since February 2005. I'm proud of the work we've done together to inform, educate, impact, and advocate within the Diabetes Community and beyond.

While we won't be doing this in the same way professionally at DiabetesMine any longer, I'm excited for what comes next. Amy will continue the DiabetesMine Innovation Project events - aka D-Data ExChange and Innovation Summit. These events have been game-changers in many ways for our Diabetes Community, not the least of which was being the birthplace of where #WeAreNotWaiting crystalized into a movement.

These are some of the proudest times of my career, in being able to be a part of something for an entire decade that rarely felt like "work" but a privilege I've had in doing what I love. I've met and covered some of the most amazing people, and I'll cherish those moments and continued relationships wherever I go from here.

Mike Hoskins, Amy Tenderich, Wil Dubois

Personally, I am staying on at Healthline in a different role on a different editorial team, where I will be doing editor tasks that probably won't touch on diabetes very much.

Though I am staying in the health information field, this new role also helps re-establish that line between my "personal" and "professional" sides — so that diabetes isn't front and center, all day all the time whether I am thinking about my work or not. That is something I've said for awhile, that my next chapter would likely take the diabetes out of that professional work. For me, this is the best time for this to happen.

That being said, I am planning to continue my own diabetes writing and advocacy on a personal level in my spare time.

So that's the latest. Here's to moving forward on the next chapter.

Comments

Rick Phillips said…
Mike, I will be excited ot hear what your next editorial task might be. I have always loved your column in Diabetes mine, but for some reason it dropped out of my feedly app, and i could never get it back. I get the Health-line RA app consistently but never diabetes mine.

None the less, this has been great work. Diabetesmine will be missed by the community and so will you clear voice.

rick
Rick Phillips said…
PS: I love Will's column I love the humor, even if others thought it might have gone off track some. I thought he was always funny and I can never get enough of that.
FatCatAnna said…
See you around the sandbox Mike - I've had two websites that I'd originally been "hired" onto that have closed, but there's also new possibilities that await you! Can't wait to see what comes out of your finger tips on the keyboards. You've all done a great job of keeping the DOC informed of anything to do with diabetes. Now onto the next chapter of your life (and trust me - you know I'm a few years older than you ... and I'm still learning new things in all the jobs I take on in this technology geared world that I never thought I'd understand! See you can teach an old cat new tricks ... if you tease them with a a yummy treat!
Scott S said…
Mike, a few weeks ago I noticed a bunch of (re)posts at Corner Booth (many posts were YEARS old, and then a new one ... this one). The diabetes blogging space as we knew it has slowly withered away to almost none, even though many continued to read DiabetesMine regularly (although Amy and Will did not appear to write much in a quite while). I get it; even Kerri Sparling now has different priorities (like her family, including children). Unfortunately, DiabetesMine won't be part of it. As for HealthLine, that could open yourself up to some interesting new work for you personally, even if I don't necessarily envision myself following it without the diabetes focus, but who knows? There could be a younger diabetes community which will emerge at some point (there already is to some extent), although they might not be publishers (virtual or otherwise), but the podcasting/YouTube angle might be an interesting direction. But I do see incremental innovation both within and outside the diabetes space. My recent focus has been on what might disable the PBM/rebate-driven mess that exists in the U.S. I like the Mark Cuban CostPlus Drug Company angle and its incorporation as a public benefit corporation angle but the mail-order fulfillment may limit the company's early success. In that same direction, the Civica Rx/GeneSys Biologics of Hyderabad India nonprofit biosimilar deal (the insulin will be cultured in bioreactors in India, and sent to a Civica Rx "fill & finish" facility outside of Richmond, Virginia) to be disruptive to the U.S. biosimilar insulin market because the biosimilar insulin market has so far mainly padded the wallets of the PBM's and other drug channel entities, leaving patients largely empty-handed (again). That could be a very big disrupter. I reached out to contacts at JDRF and Civica and encouraged them to also include old-school mix-and-inject glucagon kits which are also subject to the rebate-driven pricing nonsense with two generics made by companies other than Lilly/Novo/Xeris/Zealand Pharma retailing for over $200 for products which are cumbersome and suck. Anyway, my comment is rambling off-topic a bit. I wish you interesting work at Healthline and you know where to find many of us who are now approaching half-century diaversaries. Man, I envisioned something different when I hit my Joslin medal!
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