Medical Information on the Internet
I was working on this for colleages, and I thought I would share. This is just some medical sites that I've found useful and reliable in the past. Standard disclaimers apply: internet not a subsitiute for a doctor, some have commercial sponsorship, past performance not an indicator of future performance, if you turn into a newt it's not my fault.
Because we work with children, our first stop is always Contact a Family, who have a very good directory of conditions and links to support groups. If what you're looking for can occur in children I'd recommend it as a good start.
The others are in no particular order:
• National Library for Health searches across a number of sites for medical information, some of which is for patients/carers, some for professionals. Covers some of the sites mentioned above. http://www.library.nhs.uk/Default.aspx
• NHS Direct - concise info pages on large number of topics. http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk
• Medline Plus, US government site, so US information, but has links to oodles of reliable information. Includes a medical encyclopaedia. http://www.medlineplus.gov/
• Behind the Medical Headlines, useful for getting the full info on latest scare/miracle stories. Not very fast at reacting to the news, but still fairly good. http://www.behindthemedicalheadlines.com/
• Best Treatments, evidence-based information for patients on treatments. http://www.besttreatments.co.uk/
• Family Doctor .org, from the American Academy of Family Physicians. Have info sheets on various topics, including some aimed at children. http://familydoctor.org
• How to read a paper (medical papers that is). A series of articles from the BMJ - useful if non-medical people want to read medical journal articles. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/collections/read.htm
• OMNI reviewed internet resources on health http://omni.ac.uk/browse/
These are more aimed at professionals, so some of the info may be a bit over-complex, but I've found them useful in the past.
• Bandolier- not a huge range of subjects, but evidence based reviews that are very easy to read. http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/
• Searching for academic papers (some academic papers can give some very practical advice, eg ones on management of a condition):
o http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/searchall/
o http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed
o http://scholar.google.com/
• ICD-10, international disease classifications from the WHO: http://www3.who.int/icd/currentversion/fr-icd.htm
• eMedicine has lots of thorough articles on conditions, with references, pictures etc. Some articles need registration, but this is free. http://www.emedicine.com/
• Medscape, needs you to register (free). US centric. Lots of info on lots of topics. http://www.medscape.com/home
• Clinical Evidence only covers about 200 conditions so far, so probably won’t have anything on the more rare things. Does though have very good summaries on evidence for best treatments. http://www.clinicalevidence.com/
• The Cochrane Library holds the Cochrane reviews, which look at treatments/aspects of disease etc, and review the evidence. International note: to get free access you need to be a 'country subscriber' (or an academic subscriber), as in the country you are in has paid to get free access for everyone. I think all of the UK has - I'm not sure about other places. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/mrwhome/106568753/HOME
• SIGN, for Scottish Guidelines http://www.sign.ac.uk/
• NICE has guidelines on some issues that SIGN doesn’t http://www.nice.org.uk/
• Gray’s Anatomy. Ok, so the online version is from 1918, but it does have very nice labelled engravings of every bit of the body. http://www.bartleby.com/107/
Because we work with children, our first stop is always Contact a Family, who have a very good directory of conditions and links to support groups. If what you're looking for can occur in children I'd recommend it as a good start.
The others are in no particular order:
• National Library for Health searches across a number of sites for medical information, some of which is for patients/carers, some for professionals. Covers some of the sites mentioned above. http://www.library.nhs.uk/Default.aspx
• NHS Direct - concise info pages on large number of topics. http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk
• Medline Plus, US government site, so US information, but has links to oodles of reliable information. Includes a medical encyclopaedia. http://www.medlineplus.gov/
• Behind the Medical Headlines, useful for getting the full info on latest scare/miracle stories. Not very fast at reacting to the news, but still fairly good. http://www.behindthemedicalheadlines.com/
• Best Treatments, evidence-based information for patients on treatments. http://www.besttreatments.co.uk/
• Family Doctor .org, from the American Academy of Family Physicians. Have info sheets on various topics, including some aimed at children. http://familydoctor.org
• How to read a paper (medical papers that is). A series of articles from the BMJ - useful if non-medical people want to read medical journal articles. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/collections/read.htm
• OMNI reviewed internet resources on health http://omni.ac.uk/browse/
These are more aimed at professionals, so some of the info may be a bit over-complex, but I've found them useful in the past.
• Bandolier- not a huge range of subjects, but evidence based reviews that are very easy to read. http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/
• Searching for academic papers (some academic papers can give some very practical advice, eg ones on management of a condition):
o http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/searchall/
o http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed
o http://scholar.google.com/
• ICD-10, international disease classifications from the WHO: http://www3.who.int/icd/currentversion/fr-icd.htm
• eMedicine has lots of thorough articles on conditions, with references, pictures etc. Some articles need registration, but this is free. http://www.emedicine.com/
• Medscape, needs you to register (free). US centric. Lots of info on lots of topics. http://www.medscape.com/home
• Clinical Evidence only covers about 200 conditions so far, so probably won’t have anything on the more rare things. Does though have very good summaries on evidence for best treatments. http://www.clinicalevidence.com/
• The Cochrane Library holds the Cochrane reviews, which look at treatments/aspects of disease etc, and review the evidence. International note: to get free access you need to be a 'country subscriber' (or an academic subscriber), as in the country you are in has paid to get free access for everyone. I think all of the UK has - I'm not sure about other places. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/mrwhome/106568753/HOME
• SIGN, for Scottish Guidelines http://www.sign.ac.uk/
• NICE has guidelines on some issues that SIGN doesn’t http://www.nice.org.uk/
• Gray’s Anatomy. Ok, so the online version is from 1918, but it does have very nice labelled engravings of every bit of the body. http://www.bartleby.com/107/