Publishing via my Blackerry

Blogger technology is truly powerful. Yesterday, I used Blogger's Microsoft Word plug in to publish from my laptop. Today, I am publishing from my wireless Blackberry device via e-mail.

Reporters, authors, and bloggers around the world can publish on the Internet, anywhere, anytime.
____________________________
Andrew Doan, M.D., Ph.D.

adoan@medrounds.org
www.MedRounds.org
-Replied via BlackBerry Wireless-

MedRounds Receives HON Endorsement

MedRounds Publications receives endorsement from the Health on the Net (HON) Foundation, a non-profit organization that reviews medical websites and endorses these sites based on compliance of the 8 HON Principles.

The 8 Hon Principles are:

1. Authority
Any medical or health advice provided and hosted on this site will only be given by medically trained and qualified professionals unless a clear statement is made that a piece of advice offered is from a non-medically qualified individual or organization.

2. Complementarity
The information provided on this site is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a patient/site visitor and his/her existing physician.

3. Confidentiality
Confidentiality of data relating to individual patients and visitors to a medical/health Web site, including their identity, is respected by this Web site. The Web site owners undertake to honor or exceed the legal requirements of medical/health information privacy that apply in the country and state where the Web site and mirror sites are located.

4. Attribution
Where appropriate, information contained on this site will be supported by clear references to source data and, where possible, have specific HTML links to that data. The date when a clinical page was last modified will be clearly displayed (e.g. at the bottom of the page).

5. Justifiability
Any claims relating to the benefits/performance of a specific treatment, commercial product or service will be supported by appropriate, balanced evidence in the manner outlined above in Principle 4.

6. Transparency of authorship
The designers of this Web site will seek to provide information in the clearest possible manner and provide contact addresses for visitors that seek further information or support. The Webmaster will display his/her E-mail address clearly throughout the Web site.


7. Transparency of sponsorship
Support for this Web site will be clearly identified, including the identities of commercial and non-commercial organizations that have contributed funding, services or material for the site.


8. Honesty in advertising & editorial policy
If advertising is a source of funding it will be clearly stated. A brief description of the advertising policy adopted by the Web site owners will be displayed on the site. Advertising and other promotional material will be presented to viewers in a manner and context that facilitates differentiation between it and the original material created by the institution operating the site.

MedRounds was approved after the first review. This is the statement from HON:

“Thank you for showing your support for the HONcode, Health On the Net Foundation's initiative to improve the quality of the medical Internet. Your Web site has been visited and reviewed by the HONcode team for compliance.

We appreciate the quality of your site. We are very happy to count you in our community of HONcode sites. All the HONcode principles are perfectly followed by your site.”

I thank the staff, programmers, and authors who made this a reality. Good job team!

Blogger Releases Push-Button-Publishing for Microsoft Word

Blogger was a small company offering push-button-publishing for those who wanted to blog.  One day, Google came along and purchased Blogger, and now Blogger is a convenient way to publish on the Internet.  Recently, Blogger rolled out Blogger for Word, which allows authors to publish from their desktop directly to the Internet.  This is very cool, and I am testing the uploading of this article directly from Microsoft Word.

There’s been some confusion with the terms blog and blogger with my more senior colleagues. I use the term Blogger and blog, but these terms are simply slang for publishing and article.  A blog that is unedited is usually a journal entry or collections of thoughts by an individual author.  At MedRounds, we employ the term “blog” interchangeably with “article”.  Once a blog is edited or written by a professional writer, the blog is really an article.  Instead of a typewriter, word processor, or printing press, Blogger is the technology that MedRounds will use to publish most of its titles directly on the Internet.  Blogger is convenient for authors because they can update their pages and publish chapters one by one without the need of web programming skills or knowledge of how to upload to a server.

Do you want to blog too?  Please read our articles on Web Design and get the Atom feed because we’ll discuss how you can publish a blog for your medical practice, personal, or company site, and we’ll outline the steps to building and maintaining your website.  If you want to add our Atom feeds to your website, then please use this tool. However, for those who need help, you can always hire us to build your website.

This push-button-publishing from Microsoft Word is slick!

Mission for Vision

I've been invited to join the board of Mission for Vision, a non-profit organization dedicated to the funding of University based research to cure glaucoma, diabetes mellitus, dry eye disease, cancers, serious eye infections and other causes of blindness. It is with great excitement that I join the Mission for Vision Board to help guide their Internet development and create new ways to generate donations for their endeavors. It is the goal of Mission for Vision to create endowments for junior faculty research and scientists working on cures for glaucoma, diabetes mellitus, dry eye disease, cancers, and serious eye infections.


http://www.missionforvisionusa.org

The Benefits of Blogging and why I write for MedRounds

The benefits of blogging in this Information Age will help organizations in numerous ways, such as recruiting talent, forming collaborations, and communicating to the world why the organization exists. In the days before the Internet, information was purchased in the form of books, magazines, seminars, and newspapers. The Internet has allowed individuals and experts from every industry to publish directly on the Internet. As the collective knowledge of the world grows, we will be able to accomplish great things together.

There are many non-profit organizations that do great things like fund medical research, rescue families from natural disasters, or provide scholarships to students. I stumbled on a non-profit blog exchange that was formed to help promote these non-profit entities, and volunteered to write about MedRounds Publications and another blog site.

I volunteered without realizing that the non-profit blog exchange is for non-profit organizations. I wrote Emily who organized this event and apologize because MedRounds is a for-profit entity. However, I wrote back to Emily stating that MedRounds is a for-profit entity with a non-profit mind set in its inner core. Emily felt that our blogs will be useful for those interested in the medical field.

When I launched MedRounds, I envisioned a future where my kids could log into a library of textbooks, media, and books without paying costly fees. The current books available in medicine are in the orders of costing hundreds of dollars each. Even though the authors who wrote these books are essential to the survival of these major publishers, less than $5 per $100 book is returned back to the authors for their contributions. While academic professors struggle with NIH grant cuts and begging for money to do research, the industry has little interest to protect the financial future of academia.

In the old days, before the Internet allowed free exchange of information, we needed publishers to distribute, ship, sell, and market books and textbooks. The publishers, however, do provide a necessary archiving of collections and services to help with copy editing. In medicine and science, however, the publishers offer little more than spelling and grammar check because the content is often beyond the scope of understanding of the copy editors. It is the senior editor of a textbook, who is usually an established academic scientist or physician, that makes sure the content is reliable and current. The individual authors who contribute chapters are rarely compensated financially, yet they are driven to publish because of their innate desire to educate and contribute their knowledge.

MedRounds was first going to be formed as a non-profit organization, however, I wanted to run and guide the company. Because of the red tape associated with the non-profit organization, I decided to seek board members for a for-profit publishing company that will give back to academic communities and be advocates for authors. I also felt that stocks and ownership in a company will motivate and recruit individuals essential to MedRounds survival.

At MedRounds, we are publishing our books and information freely using the same Blogger engine that drives this article. We are planning to launch new peer-review journals in areas that do not currently have journals. Everything on MedRounds will be FREE and for public access.

How will we make money? We ask corporate America to pay for this material via their advertising budgets. As MedRounds fill its archive with information for world-wide access, we will nickle and dime the revenue from advertisers, sponsors, and through donations. We will pay authors before we pay the MedRounds executives. Even though MedRounds has over ten people involved, every one is donating their time to further our mission of producing reliable educational material for all. For instance, I am not receiving any salary for my work with MedRounds because I already have my day job as a physician.

In addition, most people do not like reading a 350 page book on their computer. MedRounds will offer its books in the form of downloads to portable devices, print-on-demand books, and CD-ROM/DVD for those who want a physical product. These products will be cheaper than current books and materials from traditional publishers. Our model is similar to Shareware. You can sample the book online which is completely FREE and OPEN; however, if you like it, then consider buying the book in a physical form or purchase from our Amazon.com store where MedRounds receives 5-10% commission from Amazon.

Why can't authors publish on their own website? They can and I encourage it. But for those who want to get exposure, it is wise to publish in a collection of works so that the flow of traffic is high enough to allow readers to find the work. For instance, an article published on Yahoo! draws greater traffic to it then an article published on no-name-website.com

Will you make enough money to support your mission? I believe we can. The pharmaceutical industry allocates half of their operating budget to marketing. Most scientists and physicians are hesitant, however, to take money directly because then their written work is perceived as 'bought' or 'tainted'. If MedRounds publishes the work because of its quality and contribution to medicine and science, then the work is pure from industry influence. However, MedRounds will be the agent to promote the work for corporate sponsorships and advertisers. This clears up some of the conflict of interest. All advertisers will be clearly marked on this site to separate editorial material from advertising so that our content is not influenced by commercial entities. MedRounds will share with the author, 50-50, all advertising revenue generated from their work in addition to royalties earned through the sale of the work in physical form. When authors made nothing or little before, authors now have the ability to generate revenues from their work, and if the author(s) write a successful book, then I believe the revenue generated may exceed the royalties received from traditional publishers.

When books are priced at $200 book and they don't sell, the publisher retires the title as an out-of-print book. This can happen in a matter of 2 years for titles with limited appeal. On the other hand, electronic books on MedRounds will be available as FREE HTML books as long as this corporation survives. The time to print in electronic publishing is also light years faster than paper textbooks. Medicine and science are rapidly evolving. With traditional publishing, a textbook may require 1-2 years before it is available in print; unfortunately, these textbooks are out-dated while hot-off the press.

As long as academic authors trust MedRounds to be their advocate and the team leading MedRounds Publications consists of academic leaders, then authors will publish with us. If we bring value to the world by opening a FREE library of current, reliable scientific and medical material, then we can then generate monies through other quality services and products. If the larger publishing companies do the same, then we have also won, because the goal is to build academic libraries to help educate every one who wants to learn.

Why are you so excited about MedRounds? As a physician, I am a healer. As an academic, I want to contribute to education. As a Christian, I want to go on medical missions. When physicians go to other countries, often these countries are hungry for information. Because the price of textbooks are more than the average salary of their citizen's average monthly earnings, textbooks are luxury items. This is wrong. Textbooks, books, and information are essential resources to help society educate people and teach them how to be self-sufficient. If MedRounds succeeds, then the world will benefit from the wealth of information that we have accumulated as a society. While we are still for-profit, our intentions are largely non-profit, which makes us a viable competitor in this highly, competitive publishing industry.

How can I help? If you want to write a book, then please e-mail me. If you work for a company who may want to advertise on MedRounds, then please send me a note. If you would like to help financially, please purchase something from our Amazon.com store, tell people about MedRounds, and visit the advertisers' links on our site if you see something that interests you.

Also, visit the non-profit blog exchange and support their mission.