What medical benefits can a doctor get from the Internet?

Despite the tremendous growth of the Internet, and the vast amount of information available to medical practitioners, busy physicians (especially those in clinical practice) have little time to spend exploring the Internet. In some cases physicians simply don't know how to grab their required medical information in the best and fastest possible way. And many physicians don't know how beneficial the Internet can be for their medical careers, especially in such areas as patient care, academic work or research.

In these modules, we have tried to introduce you, from a practical perspective, to the benefits a doctor can get from the Internet. In each case we provide some excellent sites as examples for that particular use. It is not the purpose of this seminar to mention all available sites in each category because each of these categories can have hundreds or thousands of sites on the Internet.

These categories have been selected according to our best knowledge of current medical Internet applications in medicine. We are confident that with the exponential growth of the Internet, many other medical benefits for physicians and patients will emerge over time. Advancement includes areas such as Internet and Intranet communication facilities, computer speed, memory and storage capacity, which is now doubling every six months.

The first and most important question or concern in a doctor's mind should be "What medical benefits can I get from the Internet and how?"

The answers are provided in the following modules:

Modules

Module 1- An Introduction to the Internet
(E-mail, Mailing Lists, Newsgroup, FTP, Gopher and Telnet)

E-mail communication with others including colleagues (for consultation), patients (to give advice), and others, in the form of direct e-mail , subscription to a mailing list, or newsgroup, or even a live chat group!

Module 2 - Internet Search Engines

If we missed anything you can also search the Internet using one of the many popular search engines like Yahoo, Alta Vista, Infoseek, Excite, Lycos and HotBot. HotBot is the most beneficial search engine among these.

Module 3 - Medical News & Journals

Get the latest medical information, including hot medical news and online journals, free of charge and personally configured according to your area of specialization.

Module 4 - Physicians/Patients Reference Information

Easy access to clinical guidelines, reference materials, drug information, medical images and atlases, and patient educational materials.

Module 5 - Medical Associations/Societies

Connect to professional associations, attain membership in different societies and get online information about association activities.

Module 6 - Medical Research

Medical research - use of Medline, Cancerlit, PDQ - free of charge.

Module 7 - Continuing Medical Education (CME)

CME - get CME credit easily - and often free of charge.

Module 8 - Virtual Conferences

Participate in virtual conferences on the Internet from your home. Find information about other congresses and online registration.

Module 9 - Telemedicine

With advances in communication protocol, you can examine patients, see their radiology images and diagnose their diseases from remote locations. Even computer-assisted surgery is possible.

Module 10 - Computerized Medical Records & Decision Support Systems

With development of Web-based Patient Records like W3EMR, universal access to medical records is no longer a dream (see Web-based EMR Projects ). Integrating Decision Support Systems like Dxplain into your daily practice will definitely improve medical practice. Although reaching mature stages in these medical advancements still has a long way to go, in a few years time we may see the full realization of these systems.

Module 11 - Authoring on The Internet

Write articles and books ... for yourself, patients or online journals on the Internet. For example, to review a new book about medical mnemonics, simply go to this site http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Quad/3066/

Module 12 - Home Page & Other Free Utilities

Create your own Web page on the Internet, then make appointments with your patients and give advice through your Web page.

Module 13 - Medical Humors

And finally, if you get tired or bored with these serious matters, why not visit some amusing Web sites.

Module 14 - Some more exercises for the serious reader

Module 15 - References and suggested readings and links