Many companies have realised that doctors are busy people, who would prefer finding the clinically useful information they are looking for on the web instantly, rather than have to wade through pages of irrelevant material. In order to satisfy this need, there are now comprehensive medical websites which provide all the information which a doctor may need at one place.

Some, like Physician’s Online at http://www.pol.net are restricted to US physicians only. An excellent site is Medscape at www.medscape.com , which says it has "the web’s largest collection of free, full-text, peer-reviewed clinical medicine articles." You have to register, but it’s free; and Medscape now offers a "specialty home page" feature that customizes the site toward your interests when you log in. Medscape has a Exam Room which offers an Interactive Case Challenge for you to test your clinical skills; Conference summaries of important medical meetings; continuing medical education credit; medical news, as well a Journal Scan section which provides short summaries of key articles from leading medical journals. The heart of medscape is its unique library which offers the full-text of many medical journals free, including : American Heart Journal, CHEST, Clinical Reviews, Complications in Surgery, Current Medical Research and Opinion, Hospital Medicine, Journal of Invasive Cardiology, Medscape Oncology, Physician’s News Digest, and, as a special bonus, when you need a break, the hilarious STITCHES, The Journal of Medical Humour. These are all searchable, as are the Medline, AIDSline and Toxline databases, so that you can find articles of your interest with ease.

Another superb site is www.pdr.net. This is from the publishers of the leading American medical magazine, Medical Economics. The site is jam-packed with information, targetted for the practising physician. While the material is designed for doctors practising in USA, most of it is useful for doctors in private practise in India as well ! You need to register before you can access the site, but this is free. Doctors from India need to register as consumers, since we do not have a DEA number ( which is restricted to US physicians only). This means that access to this site is crippled, but nevertheless, there are still nuggets which are worth mining for here ! Excellent online magazines include: Medical Economics – The Business Magazine of the Medical Profession, Patient Care, - The Practical Journal for Primary Care Physicians, Drug Topics, Contemporary OB/GYN and Contemporary Urology. Unfortunately, only older issues of these magazines have been included in the online archives, but there are still well-worth browsing – and after all, it’s completely free, so you can hardly complain !


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