AmericasDoctor.com - One of the best sites available with tools to help you diagnose medical problems.  Naturally, this is only for informative purposes, and should you have a real medical problem you should always consult your personal physician.  At this site, you can chat with real physicians.  This site also has access to Medline which connects to CancerNet, the National Institute of Health and the National Library of Medicine.

The Healthwise Handbook - on the internet is found at this site.  It is the Web version of a printed handbook that has been around for many years, and gives information about many common illnesses such as bee stings, bruises, and headaches.  There is also an especially good section on infant and child care.

WebMD - this site also has good diagnostic tools.  The Ask Our Experts site is good, although voluminous.  There are exhaustive archives of information, although going through these archives can take a long time - and there is no guarantee of success.  However, if you can't find the answer, you can e-mail your questions to WebMD's experts who may answer you back.  One of the best features with this site is access to medical libraries and other resources.

Clinical Pharmacology - This is a Webspace where you can learn anything about medications and drugs.  While this site is written mainly for physicians, there is much that can be learned by the layman as well.

Intelihealth's Health News - this is where you might find breaking, new medical information, such as top stories from Johns Hopkins Health Insider and Reuters.  Alternatively, you could browse through special interest sections to see if there is something which might interest you.  You could also use Intelihealth's search engine to find news stories and other related material.

Mayo Clinic Health Oasis - the Mayo Clinic is one of the most prestigious in America, and offers a good web site for the layperson.  A team of Mayo physicians direct the site, including recent articles put together by the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Koop's Site - Dr. Koop, the former Surgeon General who headed the fight against cigarettes was certainly one of the most influential (and in my opinion, the best) Surgeon General in history.  At this site, you will find several expert chats a day on may different topics, such as Parenting and Children's Health Community.  One of the most interesting aspects of this site is the prescription area.  There are links to 22 online drugstores and refill services such as CVS pharmacy, Drugstore.com, PCS Health Systems, PlanetRX, and others.

Medscape - If you want to buy medical textbooks, this is the place where doctors shop.  The bookstore claims to have more than 90,000 books, CD-ROMs, and electronic products.  The selection is great - but don't expect bargain prices!

The Health Network - if just reading about a medical condition isn't good enough, on this Web site you might actually be able to view surgery in progress!  Operations might range from hair restoration to open-heart surgery.  You can also find out background information about the disease being treated, and even information about the procedure being performed.

Finding a physician:

In the age of the Internet, you no longer have to rely upon the Yellow Pages of your local phone book to find a physician.  Now, you can go online and learn much more about a physician than what is usually contained in an advertisement.

American Medical Association - the AMA has information about many physicians, including the medical school the physician attended, the year of graduation, and whether the physician is a member of the AMA.

Doctorline - here you can search for physicians, dentists, medical facilities, and care plans.  You also get some information about physicians who are listed on the service.  At this site, you click on a main category such as "Find a Physician or Hospital" to see information about physicians who chose to be listed.

American Board of Internal Medicine - This is the agency which certifies physicians in the practice of Internal Medicine (physicians specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of adults).  There are also many subspecialties in Internal Medicine, such as Pulmonary, Critical Care Medicine, Cardiology, Rheumatology, etc.  At this site, you can determine whether your physician really is boarded (certified) in Internal Medicine, and other subspecialties.

Pediatrics Page
    http://www.beansprout.net
  This is the product of Beansprout, a company based in Arlington, MA.  It invites pediatricians to set up their own web pages as a way to keep in contact with the parents of their pages.  The result is a wonderful and attractively packaged directory of home pages containing health and childcare information that can be accessed by parents free of charge! Parents can log onto Beansprout and check whether a particular physician takes their insurance plan, has appointment spots open, and request more information.

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)
    http://www.pcrm.org
  This is an eclectic web page which promotes preventive medicine and to push for what the page considers ethical research standards.  It is controversial, and names physicians who have received research grants for studies PCRM considers unethical.  It also wanders out into more esoteric and controversial areas by featuring, among other things, a "Vegetarian Starter Kit," that explans how to become a vegetarian in 30 days, or how diabetes can be cured by a vegan diet.  Interesting, but beware!

iMedix
    http://www.imedix.com
  This is a site primarily for cardiologists where they can participate in online discussion groups and get instant access to clinical data.  Also, physicians can enter data and automatically generate written referrals to other physicians, or use automatic procedure notes or compile discharge summaries.

Achoo
    http://www.achoo.com
  This site seeks "to catalog, index, describe, and evaluate the mountain of healthcare information on the Internet."  The site makes a good effort to cover everything from acupuncture to viruses in its listings, and has a good search function to locate the information.

First Internet Medical Bookstore
    http://www.fimb.com
  This site stems from the desire for many physicians in rural communities to have access to medical textbooks and other information their urban colleagues enjoy.  The site has a "shopping cart" style popularized by Amazon.com, were users click on books they wish to buy, and then check out later by credit card when they check out.  There are 30,000 books which run the gamut of medical topics.

National Guideline Clearinghouse
    http://www.guidelines.gov/index.asp
  There are medical guidelines for everything - usually many guidelines - all of which can be assessed from this site.  Also, the site is able to compare characteristics of guidelines head-to-head.  A comparison of various smoking cessation guidelines indicated, for example, that few were open to external review.  The only problem is that some of the guidelines are not available as full text, but at least information is provided where the entire text can be located.  Also, some have to be loaded in Adobe PDF files, but the file reader is free.

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