The American Medical Association (AMA) is endorsing a social networking site of sorts called Sermo (means ‘conversation’ in Latin) that encourages physician to physican discussion on difficult medical cases. Relax, only physicians can register and login to the guts of this network.

“Someone can say, ‘I’ve got this one complicated case. Here’s the workup. Have you ever seen this before, and how would you manage it?’” Tomblyn said. “Within three hours, you can have a dozen responses from physicians in three or four different specialties. With all the burdens of practicing medicine today, there is not a lot of time and effort put into creating a physican-to-physician community. That is really something Sermo has built.”

Don’t expect any API or mashups for Sermo any time soon. What a great idea to get doctors talking among each other. This is the kind of social networking I can get behind.

This morning I’m taking a neighbor to the airport, so time to put on my chauffeur hat. Any readers need a ride anywhere today? My rates are cheap

Speaking of doctors, I’m taking my wife to another appointment this afternoon so I have to take another Hmmcast vacation day. The orthopedic doctor last week said there was nothing he could do for her because the pain she is still experiencing almost four years is still emanating from her neck and spine. Some days she feels a little better, particularly summer days when it is warmer than when it is colder.

Later today we see the doctor that operated on her neck last August to see if there is anything else he can do. Before the operation he warned that she might only be 60% cured, meaning she’ll have to live with 40% pain for the rest of her life unless we can find some other resolution.

I don’t know about you, friendly reader, but if somebody who was too busy in life to fully defrost her windows completely hit me and my son in the crosswalk and I potentially had to live with pain for the rest of my life because of it, I’d find it very hard to forgive. My wife, bless her soul, doesn’t seem to be as frustrated by the situation as me. If there was a way to take her pain I would, really. It really bothers me that she spends most days in pain.

On the financial side of things, our insurance company is still preparing some kind of offer. We haven’t gotten an attorney because there’s been no reason to do so. I know the first thing some people think about is attorneys these days but we haven’t gone to that well yet. The woman who hit my wife and son as pedestrians only had $50,000 coverage and that was exhausted in medical bills a long time ago. She didn’t have any other assets to go after to pay the other bills, so it turned to our insurance to take care of the situation. An attorney wouldn’t have been that much help in negotiating the woman’s company to pay policy limits which were not enough to pay the medical bills anyway.

Friendly word of advice: make sure you have adequate insurance coverage, especially uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage on your auto insurance policy. We have plenty of coverage so there will be no problems for us in this case but there are many people out there like this very negligent woman who don’t.

I think the part that bothers me the most is that this woman has never contacted my wife to say she was sorry. She lives about a block from our office and could have chosen any day, any time to stop by and apologize. To say sorry that she didn’t carry enough insurance coverage and that she didn’t take an extra few minutes to fully defrost her window that frosty morning 3+ years ago. While that wouldn’t take away the pain my wife might have to live with until she dies (and we hope that isn’t the case), I think it would make her feel better that the human being responsible actually cared.

Perhaps a site like Sermo could offer my wife’s case help if only patients could enter in their own case data (?) Maybe we’ll tell the doctor about Sermo today. There has to be some solution beyond just live with the pain.

Be good to each other out there.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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