Mountain Region Family Medicine Selected Links to Information on the
Internet
The
Internet is rich with resources and information about health. Some is
helpful and some is misleading and potentially harmful. This page has
links to sites felt to be reputable or providing useful information. We
hope these links will help you find the specific drug or disease or
treatment information you are looking for more quickly. Please bear in
mind the following guidelines for judging the content of any information
you find on the Internet:
- See who wrote the information. Many U.S. Government
agencies use the Internet as a cost-effective way to disseminate
information to the public. This is generally good quality information.
Many commercial companies also disseminate information that may be
biased to promote their products, so beware. Many individuals, even
doctors, publish information that they believe to be true but which has
not been reviewed by peers or other experts, and may be false. "Alternative
Medicine" or "Complementary Medicine" sites describe the
use of treatments that are not well accepted in the mainstream of our
healthcare system. They may well be useful treatments that haven't been
studied as well because they can't be patented by a company. On the
other hand, if they were known to be safe and effective they would no
longer be "alternative medicine," but would be accepted
medical treatments. The National
Institutes of Health recognizes the
problem and provides funding to test some of these treatments. In the
meantime, we recommend asking your doctor personally about any treatment that
isn't considered mainstream treatment.
- See when it was written. It may be out-of-date information.
- Notice when you link to other sites. You may be in a reputable site which includes a link to
an site of unknown repute.
- If it seems to good to be true, it probably is. In
fact, if you get information sent to you via e-mail, consider it false
until proven otherwise!
- Merck Medicus
- This is the best place to find information on a
specific disease, and is a free service provided by Merck & Co. Inc., a
pharmaceutical company. It includes the Merk Manual, a sort of "Readers
Digest" of medical textbooks; patient handouts for many diseases; and Dr. Pen,
a pointer to other websites for patient information on diseases. When you
enter the Merck site, click on the "Patient Resources" tab to see these and
others listed.
- Medline Plus
- Super site by the National Library of Medicine - a
good place to start for investigating medical questions
- CancerNet
- The National Cancer Institute's site for cancer
information
- HealthFinder
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
site of pointers to other sites with medical information they find useful
- CDC
- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) site is
especially useful for obtaining health related travel information.
- National Library of
Medicine
- The National Library of Medicine offers Medline, the
index and abstracts of all medical research journals in the world (just
about).
- National Health
Information Center
- The National Health Information Center (NHIC) is a
health information referral service. NHIC puts health professionals and
consumers who have health questions in touch with those organizations that are
best able to provide answers.
- American Psychiatric
Association
- An authoritative site on psychiatric and mental illness. Includes
information sheets on many topics, but not as many topics as the less
authoritative site, Mental
Health, by an individual Canadian Dr. Phillip
W. Long, M.D.
- HCFA
- Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the
federal agency that administers the Medicare, Medicaid and Child Health
Insurance Programs.
- Medical Tribune
- The Medical Tribune News Service provides daily
electronic transmission of consumer-oriented articles pertinent to healthcare.
- HealthAnswers.COM
- is a commercial site of medical information, but seems
to have responsible and useful information.
- Pediatric
Database
- This Pediatric Database was designed by Dr. Alan Gandy
(MD.,PhD.,FRCP(C)) while enrolled in the Pediatric Residency Programme at the
University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada from 1990-1994.
- HealthAtoZ
- HealthAtoZ is a comprehensive, well-integrated health
and medical resource developed by healthcare professionals.
- Salud.com
- Has medical information in Spanish.
- Wesley's Doctor
Place
- is Dr. Eastridge's own website, geared for doctors to use, but with lots
of links to other sites.
(Dr.Vincent's daughter Haley touched us with her smiles, courage and her
special song.)
