While Medline is the most famous medical database, there are other good databases online as well, which are worth exploring. You can search a database of articles from Indian medical journals at the Indian Medical Journal Database at Indmed. The OMIM, the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man at http://www3.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Omim/ is an astonishing resource: it’s a continually updated searchable database of all known human genetic diseases! The entries are quite complete and even come with journal references; as well as images of birth defects and clinical syndromes. The National Health Information Database, at http://nhic-nt.health.org/ developed by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, includes over 1000 organizations and government offices in the USA that provide health information upon request. Entries include contact information, abstracts, and information about publications and services.

The Combined Health Information Database, CHID, at http://chid.nih.gov/simple/simple.html provides information on health-related studies and research in USA.

Tragically , the Indian government , doctors and hospitals have been slow in getting online, with the result that there is little information about health and medicine in India on the Net as yet. However, there are searchable databases about the world of Indian medicine online at http://www.healthlibrary.com/india_file. While this is very incomplete at present, hopefully, this situation will improve quickly , as more Indians get wired !

Biomedical research

For doctors who would like to explore related fields, especially that of biomedical research, one of the best resources is Biomednet at http://www.biomednet.com – the Internet Community for Biological and Medical Researchers. This has an excellent e-zine called HMS Beagle at http://www.biomednet.com/hmsbeagle/ which covers Biological Science, Medicine/Health , and Biotech/Pharmacuetical as well. It has an excellent pick of the web section, a superb scientific image gallery as well as lots of information on research careers; in addition to poems and cartoons about the basic biomedical sciences.

Clinical Trials

If you need to find current information on experimental or investigational procedures, the best starting point is a collection of five existing databases of NIH-supported clinical trials that are available at www.nih.gov/health/trials/index.htm.

CenterWatch Clinical Trials Listing Service at http://www.centerwatch.com also has an international listing of clinical research trials.

Medical computing and software

For doctors who want to explore the world of medical computing further after reading this special issue of CHIP, an excellent starting place is Medical Computing Today at http://www.medicalcomputingtoday.com. Medical Software on the Web at http://www.medicalcomputingtoday.com/0nvmedsoft.html provides you with an extensive list of websites which offer medical software, including links to directories and catalogs of software programs, as well as Public Domain software , which can be used free of charge.