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What's your doc thinking? Web site offers clues MSNBC - Jul 30, 2008 By Robert Bazell Anyone paying the slightest attention to the digital world knows of the huge success of social networking sites, with Facebook and MySpace ... Practice Fusion brings SaaS revolution to your doc?s office ZDNet - Aug 1, 2008 Practice Fusion, and CEO Ryan Howard (right) has signed up 1300 doctors to its Web-based medical records service in just one year, and over 300000 patient ... Tech Q&A: Firefox 3 performs well San Jose Mercury News,  USA - Aug 4, 2008 But I can't open documents written in the new Word 2007 program, which creates files with a .docx suffix instead of the familiar .doc. ... Appscout Afraidtoask.com: Straight Answers to Medical Questions Appscout, NY - Aug 4, 2008 The Ask A Doc service allows you to submit your question, however complex, personal, or embarrassing to a doctor for a $35 fee. The doctor doesn't diagnose ... Dallas Morning News Electricity use sets record for year on 105-degree day Dallas Morning News, TX - Athletic trainer Doc Browning said he keeps his players hydrated with plenty of water and cooled with ice-cold towels placed on their heads. ... 'In Their Boots,' Iraq Vet's Web Doc, Takes A Look At The Battles ... MTV.com - Jul 25, 2008 The live, interactive Web show combines documentary-style stories about veterans who have returned home, families left behind by loved ones who are deployed ... Reds, Snook Taken Off Pinellas Coast Tampa Tribune, FL - Most have been taken on Doc's Goofy Jigs tipped with shrimp. One Stop Bait and Tackle, 727-842-5610: A number of reds have been caught at Dutchman's Key, ... Latest News on the beautiful Sierra Logging Museum Pine Tree, CA - There is a section with photographs of the Linebaugh logging operation, along with a history of truck acquisition by Doc over the years. ... A checkup on Web-side manners: Patient-generated doctor reviews ... Sacramento Bee,  USA - Aug 3, 2008 So, being the Web-savvy and proactive patient you are, you fire up the search engine and Google the doc. Up pop a bevy of Web sites with names such as ... Content Management Document Vecosys, UK - 9 minutes ago Guaranteed ROI - central, secure e-doc storage, retrieval & management. It is essential for global IT organizations to offer support to its employees and ...

Emma Jones is a 27-year-old cyclist from Cheshire who represented Great Britain at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Last October she was knocked off her bike while training and broke her back. She went on to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in March.

Here, Emma, who lives with her husband Jason, 34, a chef, tells PAT HAGAN about her miraculous recovery:

Top cyclist Emma was in agony after being hit by a car. But she didin't know a shard of bone was close to shredding her spinal cord.

As I lay in the road one afternoon last October, struggling to get up after being struck by a hit-and-run driver, a stranger made me stay right where I was. If I'd moved, doctors told me later, I would have been crippled for life.

I wish I could thank that woman who saved me. But I don't know her name, where she lives or even if she realises the consequences of her actions that day.

I had no idea the crash had moved a piece of bone in my back or that it was in danger of shredding my spinal cord.

Guardian angel

There was no blood and no immediate pain. So I tried desperately to sit up, convinced it was just another tumble. Luckily, my guardian angel knew better.

The accident happened during a training ride that was meant to end at the National Velodrome in Manchester. I was a mile-and-a-half away and riding through a green light when a car cut in front of me and tried to turn left.

It clipped the front of my bike and twisted the handlebars round. I was thrown into the road and landed on my bottom. I tried to get up and realised I had no feeling below my waist.

My legs wouldn't work and suddenly I was in total agony. I tried to push myself up with my hands and felt a terrible shooting pain as if I'd been hit with a sledgehammer. I started screaming.

A woman came and ordered me to lie down. She was very forceful and told me: "If you try to move, you could be crippled for life."

I said: "No, I'm a professional cyclist, I know what I'm doing — help me to sit up." Despite the pain, I could wiggle my toes, so I thought it couldn't be too serious. But she wouldn't let me get up.

After 15 minutes, before the ambulance arrived, my husband Jason, who had been waiting for me at the velodrome, appeared. When I hadn't turned up he'd rushed to see what had happened.

His face said it all. He knelt down beside me, reassured me and told me to lie still. I could see he was desperately worried.

When the paramedics came, they strapped me to a spinal board designed to protect injured backs and took me to Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Crushed vertebrae

Tests revealed the impact had crushed two of the vertebrae in my spine, and a tiny slither of bone had lodged itself in my spinal cord.

Had I succeeded in standing, this fragment would have pierced the cord and I would have ended up in a wheelchair for life.

Specialists said my chances of recovery were slim. I was warned that, after nearly 13 years of battling my way through the ranks of British cycling competitors, my career was over.

They said I could forget about Commonwealth Games in Melbourne — I might never be able to ride a bike again.

It was the worst news possible. Ever since I was a small child, sport had dominated my life. My father, John Davies, was an 800 metres runner who competed in two Olympics for Great Britain.

I always wanted to follow in his footsteps, but I was rubbish at running.

Dad's other great passion was cycling. So when I was 13, I entered my first race and came second. I was delighted. Dad asked me if I wanted to do it seriously, and when I said yes, that's when the hard training began.

After the Athens Olympics in 2004, where I rode well but did not win a medal, I had decided to turn professional. Now, just months later, my career seemed to be all over as I lay virtually crippled in the road. Racing was what I lived for.

Because I was at risk of being paralysed, I was referred to a neurosurgeon at the nearby Hope Hospital's spinal unit, for MRI and CAT scans.

Before I could be moved, the doctors had to dose me up with morphine for the pain. They transferred me in something that looked like a bean bag - it moulds to your spine and holds it in position.

Then the neurosurgeons presented me with two options. They could operate, fuse three vertebrae together and remove the dangerous bone fragment. This would leave me very inflexible and unable ever to ride again.

Or they could put me in a spinal jacket for two weeks and make me rest to see if the fractures would heal. The hope was my body would dispose of the bone fragment itself by breaking it down naturally.

But there was no guarantee my back would heal itself properly. If it didn't work after three months, it would be back to option one.

Agonising recovery

I chose the second option because it was the only way I could ever ride again. It meant going through an agonising recovery period, first in hospital and then at home.

I was strapped up in a spinal 'jacket' to hold everything in place, and told I would have to spend a few weeks in hospital having physiotherapy to get me mobile before going home.

The first time I was allowed to sit up in bed, I fainted because of the pain. The same thing happened on the second attempt — and the third.

I started to get better as soon as I put the Commonwealth Games out of my mind.

I set myself a goal of getting up without fainting. When I achieved that, I set another goal: to walk. I transferred all the skills I had learned in sport to my recovery.

Despite the agony of physiotherapy, I attended every session. By January, X-rays showed the bone fragment had disappeared, broken down by the body. The two fractures had also healed. The doctors were dumbfounded.

Great news

My consultant came in and said: "Right, you'd better send me a postcard from Melbourne." It was great news. I was given the all-clear to get back on my bike.

I trained harder than I'd ever trained before, and eight weeks later, after the initial heats, I lined up in Melbourne for a race to decide the bronze medal in the women's 3km individual pursuit.

It's a contest where two riders start on opposite sides of the track and the cyclist who is fastest round the circuit wins.

As the race progressed, the crowd got noisier, so I knew it was close. In the last 250 metres I put every ounce of energy left in my body into a sprint and clinched the bronze medal.

It was one of the proudest moments of my life. As I crossed the line, I punched the air and let out an enormous cry. I could hear my coach, my family and Jason all screaming with joy.

I'm proud of myself. But I'm also so grateful to my guardian angel who saved me. I'm forever indebted to her.

Children's whooping cough 'endemic'

Whooping cough is "endemic" among UK schoolchildren despite the fact most have been immunised, experts have said.

A study found that 37.2% of children who visited their doctor with a persistent cough had evidence of a recent whooping cough infection.

That was true even though 85.9% of them had been vaccinated, said the study published online in the British Medical Journal.

The worrying findings suggest the condition is "endemic among younger school-age children" and doctors should consider a diagnosis of whooping cough even if the child has been immunised, said the authors, from Oxford University, University of Auckland in New Zealand, and the Health Protection Agency.

The study involved 172 children aged five to 16 who visited their family doctor with a cough lasting 14 days or more.

Immunisation records were checked and notes made on the symptoms and duration of cough.

Blood samples were also taken to test for the bacterium Bordetella pertussis, which causes whooping cough.

The experts found that 64 (37.2%) of the children had evidence of a recent pertussis infection and 55 (85.9%) of them had been fully immunised.

They found that children with whooping cough were more likely to have symptoms of vomiting and were more likely to still be coughing two months after the start of their illness.

They were also more likely to continue to have more than five coughing episodes a day, and to disrupt their parents' sleep.

The authors said that, despite the fact many children with a persistent cough appear to have the condition, "general practitioners rarely diagnose and notify whooping cough in this age group", and warned that siblings could easily pass on the infection.