Medical Information on the Internet: A Guide for Health Professionals

Citation

Andrew, A.M. (2002), "Medical Information on the Internet: A Guide for Health Professionals", Kybernetes, Vol. 31 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2002.06731aae.003

Medical Information on the Internet: A Guide for Health Professionals

Medical Information on the Internet: A Guide for Health Professionals

Robert KileyChurchill Livingstone (an imprint of Harcourt Publishers)London2nd edition1999, 2000ISBN 0-443-06194-7, paperbackxiv + 160 pp.with CD ROM, £19.95

This is an extremely comprehensive treatment, written by a medical librarian. Although it is aimed at health professionals and has a corresponding emphasis on what might be termed serious sources of information, much of the content is equally useful to the casual inquirer. The author mentions that part of his job is to introduce and guide doctors in their use of the Internet and his first two chapters give general recommendations about computers and modems and Internet service providers and search engines, and would be useful to anyone wanting to search for any kind of information. Other issues of general applicability are treated in four of the five Appendices (the fifth being a Glossary) which are well worth consulting on their own account.

In the third chapter the focus is on searching for specifically medical information and in the fourth there is discussion of the author's top ten medical resources. Most of these can be accessed without charge, including a remarkable service for promptly notflying the contents, in searchable form, of the leading medical journals. It is mentioned that the full text of papers can be downloaded on request. Presumably this is not flee of charge to users who do not have a subscription to the journal and a very minor criticism of the book (really the only one I can make) is that it does not make this clear or explain any basis for charging.

The next chapter treats a number of kinds of interactive use of the Internet, including virtual interactive patient simulations and other possibilities for interactive instruction and examining. Virtual conferencing is treated, with reference to a BioMOO (where a MOO is a multi-user domain with a Virtual Reality character). The MOO in this case allows interaction with other people looking like themselves (not hiding behind avatars) and is an excellent way of benefiting from discussion without the cost in time and money of travelling to avenue.

In the final chapter the author claims to look to the future, but paves the way by reviewing some kinds of online consultation that have actually been achieved, including a means whereby surgeons collaborated remotely in an operation, depending on graphical data that was ingeniously transmitted within the limited bandwidth permitted by the Internet. In a special network with greater bandwidth, students have been able to be virtually present at operations, with the possibility of conversing with the surgeon.

The matter of quality of information available is treated very fully, with reference to some examples of blatantly dishonesty. Also, although the readership primarily targeted is professional, there is a chapter on consumer health information giving, among other things, details of two sources of online diagnosis and a facility by which a patient can contact other victims of the same disease.

Throughout the book it is clear that it results from much experience and that the author has taken pains to get his facts straight. There are numerous transcripts of actual searches, and, for example, in discussing online diagnosis a specific case is reported in which the credentials of the doctor responsible were checked by retrieving his publications. It turned out in this case that he was a top-ranking authority in an American university, and the biographical note provided for him erred if anything in the direction of undue modesty. The investigation is typical of the careful assessments on which the book is based.

The CD ROM contains the complete text of the book, in Acrobat format. A setup procedure has to be followed and the user has two options. One is to transfer all of the material to the computer, where it will occupy 12 Megabytes and the other is to transfer only 2 Megabytes which will give the same results provided the CD ROM is inserted. The big advantage of having the material available digitally is that the web addresses contained in it can be used directly to link to the corresponding sites, without the need to copy complicated alphanumeric strings from the printed text. Users are also encouraged to interact with a site set up by the publishers where one of the functions will be to maintain revised selections of top ten sites according to the popular vote.

For such a small book, there is a remarkable amount of valuable and well- presented information here.

Alex M. Andrew