I've saved the best for last ! If I had to pick just one website, which I feel answers all the information needs of the doctor, I would pick www.mdconsult.com which labels itself as "What Doctors Need to Know". This site provides access to the ultimate digital online medical library . The online full-text medical reference books are the standard authoritative texts and cover all fields of medicine, including: Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics , Cecil Textbook of Medicine , DeVita: Cancer: Principles & Practice of Oncology , Rakel: Conn’s Current Therapy , Rowland: Merritt’s Textbook of Neurology, Ryan: Kistner’s Gynecology: Principles and Practice, Sabiston: Textbook of Surgery , and Campbell’s Urology . You can search the entire collection at the same time, then pinpoint the information you need within the consummate text on the subject.

The site also provides access to the complete text of all the articles in the famous Clinics of North America ; the entire series of Year Books; as well as many leading Journals including the American Heart Journal , American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology , Chest , Journal of Pediatrics , Medicine , Neurology , and Pediatrics, so that you are no longer restricted to abstracts only. You can also search the MEDLINE database at the same time !

The section on practice guidelines offers you the complete text of over 600 peer-reviewed clinical practice guidelines contributed by more than 50 medical societies and government agencies.

An additional bonus is the Patient Education section, which offers you access to any of 2,500 acclaimed patient education handouts. You can add your own comments to customise them for your practise, and then print the handout, complete with your own special instructions, practice name, and contact information !

The Drug Information section provides regularly updated prescribing information on over 30,000 medications from a leading independent drug reference source. While all the brand names are for US drugs, this is very valuable information, which allows you to find the right drug for the right problem !

MD Consult has been laid out, so that it provides answers to clinical queries; as well as a section which allows you be updated regularly. The updates section offers many choices. The Today In Medicine division allows you to stay informed about the newest developments in medicine. It reviews new developments from all the major journals, government agencies, and medical conferences, and provides you with concise clinical summaries and links to related information.

The In This Week's Journals allows you to keep up with all the major weekly journals by presenting you with the key contents of the big six journals – JAMA, BMJ, Lancet, NEJM , Archives of Internal Medicine and Annals of Internal Medicine , and in an easy-to-scan format, including concise article summaries which help you quickly stay abreast.

Clinical Topic Tours offers a new tour each week and lets you explore current thought and accepted wisdom on consequential topics in medicine through a focused collection of information from journal articles, books, drug data, practice guidelines, educational materials, to useful web sites.

What makes MD Consult the best is its impeccable clinical content and its superb structure, so that less than three Web pages have to be viewed in order to find an answer to any original query. MDConsult is comprehensive since it covers all areas of medicine, and since it’s subscription -based , it is free from advertising and all the irritating and distracting banner ads so common on other sites. You can get a free demo of the power of mdconsult by logging on at http://www.mdconsult.com ! Subscriptions for Indian doctors are available at a specially subsidised price of Rs 5999 per year and are available from HELP, Om Chambers, Kemps Corner, Bombay 400 036 ( helplib@bigfoot.com) . This is excellent value for money, considering the fact that for you will never need to buy another medical text book again in your life !

This webguide is based on an article I wrote for a special issue for doctors published by Chip-India, India's leading computer magazine.