AMA, Sermo alliance meets with criticism from bloggers

AMA, Sermo alliance meets with criticism from bloggers

The American Medical Association (AMA) has entered into a two-year partnership with Sermo (ePharm5, 4/12/07), the online community created by physicians, for physicians, that charges investment firms to view postings. The AMA/Sermo partnership has met with criticism from bloggers, who say it shouldn't be in the business of promoting a forum with the intent of selling the postings to Wall Street firms. Also, physicians and PhRMA have doubts about the actual value of the forum dialogues. The AMA hopes the partnership will allow its members, who increasingly are practicing alone or in small physician offices, to quickly share advice and opinions on various topics. In addition, the deal will allow the AMA to survey Sermo members on popular topics. Sermo has registered more than 15,000 physicians at a growth rate of more than 600 physicians per week, it reports. Physicians nationwide spent more than 6,000 hours on the site sharing observations from their practices and exchanging medical insights and viewed nearly 1 million pages in March alone.