A DIRECTORY OF SOME AUTHENTIC, RELIABLE AND REFERENCE MEDICAL RESOURCES(CONTENT) ON INTERNET

We medicine guys can easily be categorized as the busiest professionals, so we normally do not have much time for leisure activities including net surfing. But then, thanks to mobile connectivity, internet has almost replaced the libraries and other text reference materials in medicine today. With the Student as wel as practicising doctor want to keep himself updated about the latest treatments, technologies and researches by means of internet. Not surprisingly, even journals devoted to Internet have started appearing. Specifically, the Journal of Medical Internet research (JMIR; http://www.jmir.org/nstruction.htm) founded in 1999, is an international scientific peer-reviewed journal on all aspects of research, information and communication in the healthcare field using Internet and intranet-related technologies. Unfortunately though, most, if not all of the content available on net about medicine can not be relied upon because the authenticity of the source is either unavailable or fake. So a newbie or not-so-techsavvy (as is the case with most of the medicos) medico become confused about ‘where to look for’ and what to consider authentic on internet. I was not an exception when using internet first time. Considering this difficulty and after searching, cross checking, verifying the content and source of hundreds of websites I have prepared a list of most authentic, updated, and reference websites to make your life easier. Here goes the list.......

A. GENERAL RESOURCE, DATABASE, JOURNAL AND ASSOCIATION WEBSITES
1. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez
PubMed: The US National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) search service that provides a free searchable access to millions of citations and abstracts in MEDLINE and other related databases, with links to participating online journals.
2. www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov
PubMed Central: The US NLM’s digital archive of life sciences journal literature. Access to PMC is free and unrestricted
3. www.biomedcentral.com
BioMed Centra: A commercial publisher which provides immediate free access to peer-reviewed biomedical research. BMC publishes more than 50 online journals in the fields of biology and medicine.
4. www.medscape.com
A very good resource about everything happening in the field of medicine currently, daily updated.
5. www.emedicine.com
6. www.medicalmatrix.com
7. www.medlineplus.gov
8. www.medicalstudent.com
9. www.nlm.nih.gov
10. www.freemedicaljournal.com -Free Medical Journals
11. www.amedeo.com -Amedeo: The medical literature guide
12. www.icmje.org
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE): A group of medical journal editors met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the ‘Vancouver Group’. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the ICMJE.
13. www.wame.org -World Association of Medical Editors
14. www.mco.edu/lib/instr/libinsta.html
Instructions to Authors in the Health Sciences: Contains links to web sites which provide instructions to Authors for over 3500 journals in health and life sciences.
15. www.bioline.bdt.org.br
Bioline International: A non-profit electronic publishing service committed to providing access to quality research journals published in developing countries.
16. www.indmed.nic.in
ICMR–NIC Centre for Biomedical Information, New Delhi provides, among others, a bibliographic database of 75 peer-reviewed Indian biomedical journals.
18. www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/tutorial/medic -Internet Medic: A ‘teach yourself’ tutorial
Internet Information Centre (www.nnlm.gov/netinfo)
19. www3.bc.sympatico.ca/me/patientsguide
Patient’s guide to healthcare information on the Internet
20. www.webcom.com/pgi -Physician’s guide to the Internet
21. www.sciencekomm.at/links/medicine.html
MedBioWorld: Search engine and medical link directories
22. http://library.uchc.edu/eduoff/medsites.html -Medical search engines and meta-sites
23. www.mic.ki.se/Medimages.html -Website for all medical images and illustrations.

B. RESEARCH DATABASES AND RESOURCES WEBSITES

1. www.controlled-trials.com
Provides access to a searchable database of ongoing UK-funded trials, reports of controlled trials and trial protocols and links to other online registers of controlled trials.
2. www.clinicaltrials.gov
3. www.globalforumhealth.org/pages/index.asp
Global Forum for Health Research: The Global Forum’s central objective is to help correct the 10/90 gap by focusing research efforts on diseases representing the heaviest burden on the world’s health.
4. http://omni.ac.uk
Offers free access to a searchable catalogue of Internet sites covering health and medicine.
5. www.qmedin.com/medsites -Indian Websites on medicine.
6. www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html -Medical Statistical Resources on the internet.

Note that the above given websites are comprehensive resources and do not represent any single speciality. I will also publish Speciality wise list of useful websites in subsequent posts so stay tuned and enjoy.............

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