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A Family Physician's Web Starter

Clinical Contents Non-Clinical Contents
  • Finding Clinical Things on the Internet
  • Journals
  • Clinical References: Textbook Equivalents
  • Clinical References: MEDLINE, Tools, and Collections
  • Organizations, Institutions, and Collaboration
  • Patient Handouts and Health Information
  • Finding Things on the Internet: Google, Yahoo, and More
  • General Reference
  • News and Weather
  • Recreation
  • Family and Children
  • Finance and Investment
  • Travel and Translation
  • Government
  • Retail and Services: Books and More
  • Computer and Internet/Web Related
  • This set of web addresses is intended to serve as a starting point for a personal bookmark/favorite collection. Please let me know of failed links and of any links you feel are unsatisfactory in any way. Before providing your email address to any of these web sites, consider reviewing my Spam document.
    Page URL: http://www.faughnan.com/bookmark.html. Rev: 01 Nov 2004. Last major review: 25 July 2003. Links checked by LinkScan.


    Clinical Links

    Clinical and Organizational resources of particular interest to Family Physicians. This section is subdivided into Finding Clinical Things, Journals, References (text), References (collections), Organizations, and Handouts.

    Finding Clinical Things on the Internet: Medical Matrix and More

    See also: Google!

    Hardin medical meta-index
    Medical resource meta-index, a "directory of directories". Hardin has done a very good job of choosing quality indices and of maintaining this resource over the past few years. Rev: 9/29/99. (http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/md/index.html)
    AAFP Links list
    The American Academy of Family Practice maintains a set of very high quality links to clinical resources on the web. Although the target group is family physicians, the nature of Family Practice means the list is of value to a larger audience of clinicians. (A progenitor of this list was descended, an epoch ago, from this web starter page.) Rev: 7/25/2003. (http://www.aafp.org/x7684.xml)

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    Journals

    Some only provide a table of contents, but the NEJM and others are providing excellent content as well. Note the sites that organize journals and track updates.

    American Family Physician
    AFP is a biweekly journal of primary care review articles, published by the American Academy of Family Practice. The full text web site is one of the premiere online medical resources. The patient handouts are superb. There's room for many improvements, and the opportunities for reusing the material are great. Encourage the AAFP to keep building this site! (http://www.aafp.org/afp/)
    AMA WebPage (JAMA, Archives)
    WebPage for JAMA, Archives series, and AMA. (http://www.ama-assn.org/)
    New England Journal of Medicine NEJM
    Available online each Thursday. Abstracts and full text of editorials and selected articles. Can order reprints through the web site. Subscribers can access all full text and special articles. Rev: 7/9/99 (http://www.nejm.org/content/current.asp)

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    Clinical References: Textbook Equivalents

    These references resemble traditional clinical textbooks. They have a well-defined scope.

    Emedicine Text: Emergency Medicine
    A set of electronic textbooks. Emergency Medicine is the most complete. (http://emedicine.com/emerg/index.shtml)
    Family Practice Handbook, 3rd Ed (1997)
    Online version of Mosby text, part of Virtual Hospital. Quite useful. Rev: 7/9/99 (http://indy.radiology.uiowa.edu/Providers/ClinRef/FPHandbook/FPContents.html)
    GeneClinics: Genetic Testing (NIH, UWash)
    Genetic testing resource. A good complement to the OMIM database. Not as comprehensive in disease coverage, but excellent testing information. Rev: 6/10/2000. (http://www.geneclinics.org/)
    MD Consult
    A consortium of publishers have put a very large range of textbooks and related materials on the web. Cost is $200/year, $20/month, or $7/day. Full text of many journals, including Pediatrics in Review, Sports Medicine. Textbooks includes 5 Minute Clinincal Consult. (http://www.mdconsult.com/)
    MerckMedicus Medical References
    Harrison's Online, MD Consult, Cecil, DxPlain, Antibiotic advisor, Merck manual of medicine and geriatrics, Dorlands, PraxisMD. Free as of 10/01, MDConsult access requires provision of state license number. Rev: 9/29/2001. (http://www.merckmedicus.com/pp/us/hcp/hcp_medical_references.jsp)
    National Organization for Rare Disorders
    Database for searching for rare disorders, resources. Rev: 6/10/2000. (http://www.rarediseases.org/)
    Nursing PDR, Delmar's
    The online version of a popular nursing drug reference. I prefer it to the online PDR because it's much terser (easier to read online), drug dosing is easily found, links to references are explicit, and no registration is required. (http://www.nursespdr.com/members/database/index.html)
    OMIM Home Page -- Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man
    Human genes and genetic disorders. Superb resource, superior to massive printed version in many ways. Many links into PubMed. (http://www3.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/Omim/)
    Pediatric Radiology & Pediatric Texts
    A large and (6/2000) active collection of links to pediatric resources and texts. Primary emphasis is radiology with a large collection of specialized information, but suprisingly good coverage of related references (such as orthopedics). Rev: 6/10/2000. (http://www.pediatricradiology.com/)
    Point of Care Medical References
    Another of my personal collections. Overlaps with the FP Starter collection, but the page contents and layout are designed for use at the point of care for primary care clinicians. I try to avoid collections and instead point to specific references. Rev: 6/10/2000. (http://www.faughnan.com/medref/refs.html)

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    Clinical References: MEDLINE, Tools, and Collections

    These resources include electronic tools, MEDLINE, and large collections of clinical resources.

    CancerNet (PDQ), National Cancer Institute
    Oncology information and references for patients and clinicians. Includes clinical trials and treatment protocols. Links to PDQ, which no longer requries a user ID and password. Rev: 7/9/99 (http://cancernet.nci.nih.gov/)
    Center for Disease Control (CDC)
    Center for Disease Control. Excellent resources for travellers including country-specific vaccine and health recommendations. (http://www.cdc.gov/)
    National Guideline Clearinghouse
    A governmental resource for collecting and disseminating evidence-based guidelines. Rev: 7/25/2003. (http://www.guidelines.gov/)
    National Organization for Rare Disorders
    Database for searching for rare disorders, resources. Rev: 6/10/2000. (http://www.rarediseases.org/)
    NICU Web (U Washington)
    The NICU resources of a world class institution, Children's Hospital at the University of Washington. (http://neonatal.peds.washington.edu/)
    NIH Office of Rare Diseases
    A set of resources for patients with rare diseases and their physicians. Rev: 7/16/99. (http://cancernet.nci.nih.gov/ord/)
    PubMed & Loansome Doc- MEDLINE (free)
    Free MEDLINE searching from the National Library of Medicine. PubMed is the heir-apparent to Grateful Med. The simple interface conceals a lot of power. Well worth a visit, I now use it in place of Grateful Med for my MEDLINE searches. Loansome Doc is document delivery serivce; my participating library is the U of Minnesota: MNUMIN. Cost is $6.00/article and $5.00 for emailing PDF. Rev: 12/2/2000. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/medline.html)

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    Organizations, Institutions, and Collaboration

    Some of these organizations may also appear under other headings.

    AAFP Online Members Service
    A terrific resource. Lots of clinical and practice information that's publicly available. Private data requires member's last name and AAFP ID number. Excellent patient education handouts available for printing. (http://www.aafp.org/)
    STFM - Society of Teachers of Family Medicine
    Organizational web site. Includes many STFM printed materials, links of interest to STFM members. Rev: 7/9/99 (http://stfm.org/)
    Email Lists for Family Medicine (STFM)
    The Society of Teachers of Family Medicine maintains this excellent document on lists for collaboration and communication in family medicine. Some are for STFM only, others are open to all. (http://www.stfm.org/listserv/lists.html)
    AMA WebPage (JAMA, Archives)
    WebPage for JAMA, Archives series, and AMA. (http://www.ama-assn.org/)
    National Institutes of Health (NIH)
    NIH news, information, health resources, grants and contracts. AIDS information, clinical alerts, CancerNet. (http://www.nih.gov/)

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    Patient Handouts and Health Information

    (As of Sept. 1999 the AAFP handouts that I've liked so much are migrating to another vendor. Until this clears up they're off this list!)

    Interactive Pregnancy Calendar
    Customized calendar detailing infant development (http://www.pregnancycalendar.com/)
    HealthFinder (Patient Information)
    A Health and Human Services sponsored index of patient information on the web. Rev: 7/25/2003. (http://www.healthfinder.gov/)
    Family Village
    Family Village, provided by the Waisman Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, serves families and people with mental retardation and disabilities. A solid and wide-ranging resource with links to other services. The library is particularly impressive. Highly recommended. (http://www.familyvillage.wisc.edu/)

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    Non-Clinical Links

    Finding Things on the Internet: Google, Yahoo, and More

    Google: Web and Newsgroup Search
    An innovative search engine that uses linkage weighting to find high quality web sites. Probably gives the most "precise" searches of the web with the best returns; the only weakness is that it is somewhat slow to update its indices. A separate service provides similar searching of the vast usenet newsgroup archives. A translation service will translate some european languages to english. Google is extremely easy to use and very fast. I've gotten better answer to clinical questions abour rare disorders from Google than from MEDLINE or Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man. Rev: 8/18/2001. (http://www.google.com/)
    Yahoo - Directory, Email and More
    A wide ranging provider of shopping services and extensive financial and business providers. Indexes the web as well. They have an impressive array of communication services including the best web email service (filtered messages forward to cell phone). Rev: 6/16/2001. (http://www.yahoo.com/)
    Profusion MetaSearch engine
    An unusually well done interface for running a search simultaneously across several search engines. Uses Boolean logic. Uses the better search engines. (http://www.profusion.com/)

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    General Reference

    AnyWho (AT&T) Phone Directory
    Business and personal listings, including toll-free. Covers the US. Rev: 1/19/2002. (http://www.anywho.com/)
    Encyclopedia Britannica Online
    The famous encyclopedia, atlas, and a an internet guide. Free limited access, full access is $5/month. Rev: 1/19/2002. (http://www.britannica.com/)
    Library of Congress (LOC) Catalog
    The ultimate library catalog. Rev: 7/25/2003. (http://lcweb.loc.gov/)
    MapQuest Interactive Atlas
    Maps for many countries, a world atlas, driving directions and traffic reports. In 2001 they added aerial photos corresponding to the maps and they greatly improved map display and responsiveness. Rev: 7/18/2001. (http://www.mapquest.com/)
    Merriam-Webster WWWebster Dictionary
    Official WWW version of the standard American dictionary. Free. (http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm)
    National Geographic Maps
    A fabulous collection of political and physical maps covering the entire world. Standard maps or custom overlays. Rev: 10/29/99. (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/plates.html)
    Roget's Thesaurus
    An online version of the venerable thesaurus. (http://www.thesaurus.com/)
    US Postal Service Zip Code Finder
    Zip code finder. Rev: 7/9/99 (http://www.usps.gov/ncsc/lookups/lookup_zip+4.html)

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    News and Weather

    There are zillions of news sites. The NY Times is my preferred traditional news equivalent, and Excite is my personalized news/information service.

    New York Times
    Front page stories plus some editorial content and archives. Required registration is free for US readers. Rev: 7/9/99 (http://www.nytimes.com/)
    Family Newspaper
    This is one of our family's personal web pages. It's a collection of news resources and magazines that we read daily; organized for use with a wireless slate. You can use it as is or save a copy to your personal machine and revise it to suit your interests. Rev: 9/25/99. (http://www.faughnan.com/news.html)
    Weather - Yahoo
    An excellent weather service, integrating region specific NOAA data with satellite imaging and various weather aspects. US and world coverage. You can save your local report as a bookmark/favorite for regular review. Rev: 9/22/99. (http://weather.yahoo.com/regional/US.html)

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    Recreation

    Inline Skating FAQ
    Excellent resource for inline skaters. Retail, technique, urls. A newsgroup "frequently asked questions" (FAQ) document. (http://www.skatefaq.com/frame.html)
    GolfWeb: Everything Golf ...
    An awesome respository of golfing information. Equipment, courses, news, instruction. (http://www.golfweb.com/)
    New York Times: Books on the Web
    Book Reviews and related materials. (http://www.nytimes.com/books/)

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    Family and Children

    UC Berkeley Paleontology Museum
    Dinosaurs delight, an award winning web site of interest to children and adults both. (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/)
    Franklin Institute Science Museum
    One of the very best online museums. Highly recommended for children. Links to exhibits throughout the web. A great learning resource. (http://sln.fi.edu/)
    Electric Library
    Research service for any user, strong support for high school students. Costs $60/year or $10/month (school-year is a good option). Search through 150 full-text newspapers, 800 full-text magazines, two international newswires, two thousand classic books, hundreds of maps, thousands of photographs, as well as major works of literature and art. Content is "as safe as a local public library". Rev: 7/9/99 (http://www.elibrary.com/)
    The World Wide Web Virtual Library: Museums
    An eclectic collection of WWW services connected with museums, galleries and archives. Fast and Effective. Rev: 8/18/2001. (http://www.icom.org/vlmp/)

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    Finance and Investment

    Eloan: Loan calculations and services
    Sophisticated comparisons of loans, refinancing, etc. Very impressive. They make their money by processing the loan application. Rev: 9/29/99. (http://www.eloan.com/)
    FinancialEngines
    A very serious and sophisticated online investment toolset. It provides a solid range of free services and advanced services for investment professionals. Rev: 1/9/2002. (http://financialengines.com/)
    Yahoo Finance
    Business news, abundant research services. Rev: 1/9/2002. (http://finance.yahoo.com/)

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    Travel and Translation

    Alta Vista BabelFish Translation Service
    Cut and paste content into this page for translation to/from English. Supports many european languages, Chinese, Japanese and Russian. Rev: 1/9/2002. (http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/)
    FlightView track flights
    Almost real-time reporting on flight status from FAA data -- location, altitude, velocity and estimated arrival time. This is a free version of a professional flight tracking service. Rev: 7/25/2003. (http://www.flightview.com/TravelTools/)
    Hotel Reservations Network
    Hotel brokerage service. Excellent deals on low and high end hotesl in selected cities. Well known business predates web. (http://www.180096hotel.com/)
    Expedia
    Travel information, air ticketing, rental cars, acommodations. Great links to travel destinations, worldwide information. Go to member information to turn off selling of your email address to spammers. Rev: 7/24/2001. (http://expedia.msn.com/daily/toc/)

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    Government

    FirstGov -- US National, State and Local Government
    An immense and well done site that opens all of the US government to the world. Check out "Mapstats" for your area. Rev: 9/24/2000. (http://www.firstgov.gov/)

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    Retail and Services: Books and More

    Amazon.com
    An extraordinary source for books, music, and various other products. Discounts for many books, but watch shipping fees. Almost all medical textbooks available, but not organized for easy browsing. You may want to opt out of their intrusive email marketing. Rev: 7/21/2001. (http://www.amazon.com/)
    ePinion: a reputation service for products and services
    A reputation service collects opinions of users, and also ranks those who provide opinions. As of Sept. 1999 this is a very promising venture -- a place to go when you want to buy something. Rev: 9/10/99. (http://www.epinions.com/)
    Wal-Mart Online
    An astounding array of products for online shopping. This has been around for years, but never marketed. Huge plans for 2000. Rev: 7/9/99. (http://www.wal-mart.com/)
    UPS Home Page
    Parcel tracking, similar service offered by Federal Express. If you register, you can print shipping labels on a PC Rev: 3/5/2000. (http://www.ups.com/)

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    Computer and Internet/Web Related

    Most of the companies listed here provide free or evaluation copies of their software. You can use your web browser to download the software and "try before you buy". (Don't use beta software unless you are a computer expert or want to become one.)

    Apple Computer
    This much improved site links to the Apple store for purchases, and to information on Macintosh, eMate, and MessagePad hardware and software products. (http://www.apple.com/)
    HotMail -- Free Email
    Free web based email, owned by Microsoft. I use it as my disposable public/services address, and "spam" collector. This is also a way to check email when travelling -- HotMail can collect email from POP boxes. To reduce your junk mail collection, carefully turn off all listing options and make your demographics very unattractive. (http://www.hotmail.com/)
    Internet Tutorials
    Several tutorials focusing on use of the Internet by family and other physicians. Includes tutorials and resources on Netscape, Internet Explorer, email, finding things, getting connected, suggested sites, buying a Windows PC, etc. (http://www.faughnan.com/fp/net/index.html)
    Microsoft
    Microsoft produces Internet Explorer for the Macintosh and Windows, and almost all Windows office software. Their site can be confusing. Rev: 7/10/99. (http://www.microsoft.com/)

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    Author: John G. Faughnan.  The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author. Pages are updated on an irregular schedule; suggestions/fixes are welcome but they may take weeks to years to be incorporated. Anyone may freely link to anything on this site and print any page; no permission is needed for citing, linking,  printing, or distributing printed copies.