Doctors online

We've all gone through the experience of looking for a site on a specific subject and having to wade through numerous sites thrown up by search engines. Sometimes the search can be quite frustrating, not to speak of the connectivity time and cost that is involved. So haven't we wished for a printed directory through which we could get the site that we wanted and straightaway log in to it? Now, at least for the medical profession and all those interested in health and medical sites, there is just such help available through the Proman Associates Pvt Ltd-produced and Alembic-sponsored double booklet, Internet for Doctors.
The first booklet provides Internet Foundations and is a general introduction to the Internet. If there are still doctors around who wonder how the Internet can be beneficial to them, the introductory chapter answers this question effectively by pointing out the various areas which they can delve into like access to medical journals and drug databases, consulting with other doctors, gaining information on human anatomy and keeping in touch with worldwide conferences. The rest of this booklet goes on to help you in getting started, choosing an ISP (a complete list of Indian ISPs as of March 2000 is appended), browsing, configuring your system, downloading files and software, using FTP, performing a search, e-mail, mailing lists, newsgroups, chatting and creating your own

Web presence. The booklet concludes with a useful glossary of Internet terms.
Those familiar with all the above can skip straight to the second booklet. The introduction here is an article entitled 'Web management for physicians' by Dr John G Gaughnan, in which he gives examples of how some top medical institutes like the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health have moved to the Web with great advantage to all. The good doctor, getting overawed with the number of sites a search engine can give you, has compiled his own index called A Family Physician's Starter Bookmarks (www.labmed.umn.edu/~john/bookmark.html). If nothing else, this list can form a good basis for organising your browser's Favourites (Internet Explorer) or Bookmarks (Netscape Communicator) collection. A list of the URLs (uniform resource locators) from the article are also provided.
You then have a listing of search engines which throw up more specific results than you get in a general search engine. Among these are The Librarians' Index To The Internet (www.lii.org), Infomine (infomine.ucr.edu/Main.html) and Knowledge Express (www.knowledgeexpress.com). This is followed by a listing, with a one-line write-up of general sites of medical and pharma interest. This covers both Indian and international sites. So among others, you can look out for an illustrated atlas of surgery (www.bgsm.edu/surg-sci/atlas), news about health and medicine in India

www.healthlibrary.com), a site offering continuing education modules and articles on career development and medical practice management for healthcare professionals (www.helix.com) and a collection of medical cartoons (www.towerpublishing.com).
If you want to know about hospitals, there are separate sections for Indian and international ones with a one-line description of their speciality and the facilities offered. The section called 'Assorted medical sites' is really a compendium of sites listed under various topics. There is a short description of each site to help you decide if it is the right one for you. Thus you have sites dealing with the anatomy of the human body (skeletal, muscular or pertaining to specific sections), anaesthesiology, cardiology, clinical, dentistry, dermatology, endocrinology, forensics, gastroenterology, geriartrics, neurology etc. The directory also lists sites on alternative medicine and keeping fit like reiki, yoga, ayurveda and homeopathy. Besides, there are sites listed which provide information on topics like sports medicine, medical conferences, infectious diseases, medical journals, nursing, nutrition, rural health, substance abuse and telemedicine.
While all the sites mentioned above were live and kicking, there were some for which we got a 'this page cannot be displayed message.' If you too get such messages, you're free to bring the author to book. He has asked for it. Literally.
The author Ankur Gupta has worked in the pharma industry before setting up his own consulting firm, Proman Associates Pvt Ltd. He is also known in the art world for his digital works, particularly in fractals, produced with the Apple Mac. Though a bigger version of these booklets is planned, you can get the present set by contacting Proman. Telephone: 022-8016434; e-mail: [email protected]

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Contact: Manuel Fernandes

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