Great resources online

[Tiago Villanueva]

Following on from Deirdre Bonnycastle's suggestion of starting a discussion about great resources online, I'd like to give it a kick start...
I'm seeing an increasing number of fabulous blogs, wikis and so on, which increasingly compete for my attention against more run-of-the-mill medical journals. The latter, as well as Medline, though, still tend to win out, even though less and less, as most of them, that used to be free, are turning into pay-per -view. I still have a few favourites, though:
-NEJM
-BMJ
-American Family Physician and Australian Family Physician
-www.congressovirtualmgf.com (Virtual Congress of Family Medicine - have conflict of interest here, as I was member of the Orgazing Committee)
And watch out for www.medpedia.com!

So, what are for you those "must-see" resources?

[Dusan Mesko]

Hi Tiago,
you are true, there is mismatch and myriads of web links. I have started to collect medical links database www.medinfo.sk in 1998. I know, again it is an ocean of information, but where is "a safe information harbour" both for students and teachers?
Greetings
Dusan

[Tiago Villanueva]

Thanks, Dusan, it is great to also see invaluable non-English resources, even if we can't make much out of it, because of the language barrier!

And you raise an important issue, how to sort out the wheat from the chaff? How can we gauge credibility of educational resources, particularly those that are not pay-per-view? And even in those that are pay-per-view, how to ensure independence and Pharma-free influence?


Dusan Mesko said:

Hi Tiago,
you are true, there is mismatch and myriads of web links. I have started to collect medical links database www.medinfo.sk in 1998. I know, again it is an ocean of information, but where is "a safe information harbour" both for students and teachers?
Greetings
Dusan

[Dusan Mesko]

Hello Tiago,
in medinfo.sk there are thousands of non-Slovak (mostly English) educational resources according to medical disciplines (videos, journals, atlases, guidelines, encyclopedias, textbooks etc. etc.), - including rare/exotic disciplines and only a small part is devoted to the topics in Slovak.

Key question - who is responsible for net/non-net information values in the era of total freedom, when the world of medicine is balancing between EBM on one side and "alternative attitudes" on the other side, between medical use (patient) and misuse (athletes), between "scientific approach" and "boss based medicine", between independent clinical expertise and permanent pharmabusiness attacks, between classical medicine and genetical engineering and many many more. And - of course - between classical education approach and Web + Medicine 2.0, 2.5 (and more?).
The way "pay-per-view" resources are valuable, independent, credible etc etc could result in, there will be a fashion to pay for information, because only payed information are . . .
On the contrary, there were some strong initiatives to "open all scientific knowledge" - "free information for all". I know, the reality is going other way.
Sincerely
Dusan

[Deirdre Bonnycastle]

Clinical Cases and Images
This case-based curriculum was started by physicians at Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University (St. Vincent/St. Luke) Internal Medicine Residency Program for the purpose of medical education.

The Clinical Teacher
Designed with the active, practising clinician in mind, it aims to provide a digest of current research, practice and thinking in medical education presented in a readable, stimulating and practical style.

Family Medicine Digital Resource Library
Contains user-posted conference presentations and handouts, and shared curricular materials such as PowerPoint lectures, learning modules, syllabi, digital images, video and audio recordings, recommended Web sites and more.

MedEdPORTAL
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) developed MedEdPORTAL as a free publishing venue and dissemination portal to support educators and learners as they create and use on-line teaching materials, assessment tools and faculty development resources.

Medical Education Blog
A blog from the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine about teaching in medicine.

Medical Education Wiki
A new resource about teaching in medical school both in the classroom and in a clinical setting.

Medical Student.com
A digital library of authoritative medical information for all students of medicine includes some online textbooks.

Merlot Health Sciences Portal
A large selection of teaching resources licensed under Creative Commons

Office Based Teacher
This feature is intended to provide office-based teachers with usable knowledge presented in a readable, enjoyable format.

PracticalProf
Concise, high quality teaching tools for busy rural clinicians instructing medical students and residents. PracticalProf resources include effective, time-efficient teaching tips and tools appropriate for use in rural offices or hospitals.

Strategies in Clinical Teaching
This teaching site is composed of mini-teaching modules, designed to give quick facts about teaching issues and is one of the best available.

[Deirdre Bonnycastle]

Medical Blogs

Grand rounds is hosted each week by a different blogger who picks examples of the best blogs for that week. This site is an archive and list of upcoming sessions. Physicians, nurses and patients all post here.

Canadian Medicine
Canadian Medicine from the National Review of Medicine (NRM) was a 2007 Medical Weblog Awards nominee in the category of Best New Medical Weblog.

Canadian EMR
Canadian physicians share information about electronic medical records

Code Blue
Award winning commentary on issues in healthcare

Future Making Serious Games
One of the best sites about how serious games are being used in medical education.

Geek Doctor
John D. Halamka, MD, MS, is Chief Information Officer of the CareGroup Health System, Chief Information Officer and Dean for Technology at Harvard Medical School,

Kevin MD
A practicing primary-care physician tells it like it is.

Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival
A biweekly journal on the best articles about medical use of technology hosted by guest bloggers

Medgadget
An independent journal of the latest medical gadgets, technologies and discoveries. Updated every weekday. Written, edited and published by a group of MDs and biomed engineers.

Patient Education Matters
A bi-weekly e-newsletter for the staff and volunteers of Inova Health System.

Plain Brown Wrapper
Dr. Kishore Visvanathan of Saskatoon’s blog about quality practice

Rebel Doctor
Very eclectic commentary of a psychiatrist/sleep specialist/internist

Science Roll
Written by our own Bertalan Mesko, this blog covers a variety of cutting edge topics, including Second Life.

The Top 100 Academic Medical Blogs

Unbounded Medicine
Cases and phenomenal images of surgical procedures.

White Coat Black Art
CBC’s Dr. Brian Goldman blog about the show that takes listeners through the swinging doors of hospitals and doctors' offices, behind the curtain where the gurney lies.

[Deirdre Bonnycastle]

Medical Information

ACC Conversations with Experts
Videos about Epidemiology, Primary Prevention and Management of Coronary Heart Disease

American College of Physicians
A variety of add on PDA medical tools

Health Knowledge Central
HKC is a project of the Ontario Program for Optimal Therapeutics (OPOT), which receives arms length funding from the Ontario Ministry of Health. The directive of HKC is to create multi-faceted health knowledge support to enable best practice.

Journal of the American Medical Association Podcasts
Catherine D. DeAngelis, MD, MPH, Editor-in-Chief of JAMA, summarizes and comments on the week's issue.

MedlinePlus
Brings together authoritative information from NLM, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies and health-related organizations. Preformulated MEDLINE searches are included in MedlinePlus and give easy access to medical journal articles. MedlinePlus also has extensive information about drugs, an illustrated medical encyclopedia, interactive patient tutorials, and latest health news.

MedWorm
The medical RSS filter engine with over 5000 authoritative digital feeds.

[Bertalan Meskó]

That's a great idea! Shouldn't we give it a better form? Like a Google Docs page? Or the wiki Deirdre just created?

It will be almost impossible to follow all the content here. What do you think?

[Bertalan Meskó]

Tiago, I think we can make a difference with the database of useful links I mentioned above. If we, medical students, educators, publishers and physicians trust those websites and services, why student should not?

I know it's not the answer you expected, but otherwise how we can make sure the links we collect are all reliable sources.

Tiago Villanueva said:

Thanks, Dusan, it is great to also see invaluable non-English resources, even if we can't make much out of it, because of the language barrier!

And you raise an important issue, how to sort out the wheat from the chaff? How can we gauge credibility of educational resources, particularly those that are not pay-per-view? And even in those that are pay-per-view, how to ensure independence and Pharma-free influence?


Dusan Mesko said:

Hi Tiago,
you are true, there is mismatch and myriads of web links. I have started to collect medical links database www.medinfo.sk in 1998. I know, again it is an ocean of information, but where is "a safe information harbour" both for students and teachers?
Greetings
Dusan

[Tiago Villanueva]

I think the Google docs would probably be more feasible for this forum, what do you think, just not sure how the wiki would work.

We already have a massive amount of information, so a database is definitely a great idea!



Bertalan Meskó said:

That's a great idea! Shouldn't we give it a better form? Like a Google Docs page? Or the wiki Deirdre just created?

It will be almost impossible to follow all the content here. What do you think?

[Deirdre Bonnycastle]

One option is to start a del.icio.us site like this. One click and the website is added and tagged for quick retrieval. Numerous people can add links by using a shared site/password.

A wiki like this is another option. Three people edit this site. I'd be happy to help set it up, but I think it's a great learning opportunity for someone else to take on.

[Deirdre Bonnycastle]

Upcoming Medical Conferences

Medicine 2.0 Sept 3-5th in Toronto, Canada
Innovations in Medical Education March 14-15th 2008 in Pasedena, California

[Bertalan Meskó]

Well, I think the best option would be to create a database here. Just share your favourite links with us and I will construct a well-designed list of links later. Is it ok for everyone?

Deirdre Bonnycastle said:

One option is to start a del.icio.us site like this. One click and the website is added and tagged for quick retrieval. Numerous people can add links by using a shared site/password.

A wiki like this is another option. Three people edit this site. I'd be happy to help set it up, but I think it's a great learning opportunity for someone else to take on.