Michael: "Hi everyone, Michael Palmer here. First I want to thank you all for the questions that you've submitted. It's fun for me, I've never done anything like this before-- so if it's okay we'll get right on to some of them. Those of you who don't get your questions answered this time, tune in again, I'm going to do this at least once a week and see if we can cover most of the questions that come in. The first one I have here is from Richard."

Richard: "Glad to see you've showed up on Twitter and Facebook more regularly! You're apparently on (relative) hiatus between books right now. Is one a year about right for you?"

Michael: "The answer is that I'm never on a hiatus and one a year is about what the publishers require of a commercial fiction writer. So by the time one book comes out, I'm already well into another book. The whole idea with Facebook and Twitter is my attempt, with some professional help, for me to get more people aware of my books and what I'm doing. I work very hard on them and I love it when people read them, so I'm taking a chance on bringing in more people on these social media things. If it works, great, if it doesn't work, I'll just go back to writing."

John: "Will there be a book on CD and if so, who will be the reader?

Michael: "The truth is there will definitely be a book on CD. McMillan, who is a branch of my publisher St. Martin's, is now going to take care of the recording but I have no idea who is going to do the reading. That's one of many things they don't clear with me. But I'm excited to see it and I enjoy at least listening to a few pages once the book comes out. I've never heard one of my books in its entirety-- there's just too much work for me going on to spend time listening. And when I'm in the car I'd much rather listen to music, but thank you very much, John for your question."

Vida: "I would like to know how you got started writing these medically related books? What interested you about this subject?"

Michael: "Well, as you may or may not know, I'm an MD. I graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and trained in internal medicine and later in emergency medicine at Harvard and I practiced on Cape Cod for a long time. I still work as a doctor taking care of sick doctors. So I started writing in 1979 because my college buddy Robin Cook did it and so far things have worked out incredibly well. My first book was called The Sisterhood and you can read about it on my website. I'll do one more question and that will be it for today.

Mary: "Hi Michael! I really enjoyed 'The Second Opinion.' In fact, there are days when I feel very 'Thea-esque', even though I do not have Asperger's Syndrome."

Michael: "That book is turning out to be a lot of people's favorite of my books mostly because of Thea, who's a really fascinating character and based on a lot of people I know with Asperger Syndrome. For those who want to learn more about it, at the end of 'The Second Opinion' there's a rather lengthy question and answer note from me and also from the New England Asperger Association people. So that's it for now, come back and I'll have more answers to more questions.”