Finding Internet resources

1. Finding Internet medical information aimed at patients:
1. Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital Well-Connected Disease Digests sponsored by Novartis HealthandAge
2. Memorial Memorial Hospital Eden North Carolina sponsored Well-Connected including graphics, written by Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital physicians
2. UK NetDoctor Diseases, Medicines, Health Advice, Medical Examinations, Ask the doctor, Travel Medicine, Search Medline, Patient support groups for Depression, Pregnancy and childbirth, Sex and relationships
3. Internet search engines:
1. google
2. Copernic
4. Evaluating medical information you find on the Internet: Patient Power: Turning a Medical Mountain Into a Manageable Molehill by Susan Coburn of the New York Times, a free site that requires registration for use
5. Finding medical articles aimed at physicians:
1. At Medscape: Medscape is a free service, aimed at doctors, but open to anyone who registers. It is updated frequently and features articles and conference summaries.
2. You may also search Medscape's free Medline search engine. Medline includes abstracts of medical articles, not full-text articles. Use the abstract to find the full-text article. You may purchase full-text articles at this site, but they are very expensive. It is cheaper to read them at a hospital or medical school library.
6. Determining how reliable medical journal articles are: Trisha Greenhalgh explains how to evaluate medical articles in these British Medical Journal articles:
1. Is the article valid? This includes a clear explanation of levels of evidence, from single case reports, which are the least valid to randomized controlled studies, which if properly performed, are the most valid.
2. Were the methods valid?
3. Evaluating papers that summarize other papers, including review articles and meta-analyses (analyses of multiple other research studies)
4. Evaluating drug trials
5. Understanding statistics Part I
6. Understanding Statistics Part II "Significant" relations and their pitfalls
7. Purchasing nursing books: Read reader reviews at amazon.com bookstore.

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