Dr. Clough is a member of a small band of Internet-savvy orthopedists who are trying to bring the specialty into the Information Age. They held their Fourth Annual Geek Meet in conjunction with the AAOS conference. It invites orthopedic surgeons to submit their own case reports. So far, however, no one has taken Dr. Clough up on his invitation. The difficulty is that the Internet itself is new enough for orthopedic surgeons, not many know about the existence of the site, not many have the time to send their cases in, and those who do maybe don't want to send them to me.
Patients are another matter.
After Dr. Clough posted the Gorham s case, he received 10 e-mail messages from people with the disease. This site found 10 cases in a year.