Sermo's Daniel Palestrant MD tells his entrepreneurial physician story

Daniel Palestrant MD is a man with a clear mission.

As the founder of Sermo, a 130,000+ physician-strong networking platform, this deeply thoughtful entrepreneurial physician businessman and leader intends to create the go-to on-line "conversation pit" to facilitate nationwide physician dialog and collaboration. 

Since the days of the doctors' lounge or dining room are largely products of a bygone era, he envisions a cyber community, exclusive to physicians, where curbside consults occur, knowledge is shared, and opinions rendered - across time and geography.

Since he is a businessman at heart, he has formulated an income-generating business model that, despite some controversy, appears to be very successful.

Like almost all entrepreneurial physicians, Dr. Palestrant began his journey into business from a background in medical training. As a surgical resident, he questioned the in-the-box reductive thinking demanded of him by his professors and peers. Sidelined by a back problem, he found an opportunity to reflect on the match (or non-match as it turned out) between his entrepreneurial inclinations and the role that was being carved out for him in his highly traditional surgical residency training.

He was able to draw upon his prior experience as an entrepreneur, having created and sold a healthcare informatics company and conceived of and created a commercial Web-based healthcare resources for physicians and allied health professionals 

As a result, Sermo was born in 2006. And judging by its growth over the last 5 years, it is a true entrepreneurial physician success story ... with plenty more up its sleeve, including its new Sermo Mobile app, "giving physicians real-time access to the knowledge base that resides with the network’s member base of doctors".

Oh, and by the way, a little known fact - Daniel Palestrant is part South African -- yeah!!

Our conversation was so wide-ranging that I decided to create a Part 1 and a Part 2 podcast.

Listen here to our podcast conversation Part 1, which is focused on how he became an entrepreneur. In Part 2, yet to come, we will talk about his insights into the roles that physicians can and should play as healthcare undergoes reform in the coming years. 

When you have finished listening to this interview podcast, come back to The Entrepreneurial MD to add your thoughts or questions