Thursday, September 20, 2007
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Visual Medical Dictionary
It goes beyond regular dictionaries by displaying an ontology context tree (MeSH based) and interactive network graph of related drugs, diseases and therapies.
For example: a search for "psoriasis" will show a strong relationship with "Cyclosporine" and "Phototherapy" among other drugs and therapies.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Google vs. PubMed
Open Medicine Blog has a post on Google vs. PubMed, which points out that Google Scholar is a supplement and not a replacement for PubMed.
References
David Rothman Blog
BMJ Learning
Checkout BMJLearning.com - another wonderful resource from the BMJ Group which offers a wide range of learning resources for medical professionals.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Social Networking for Doctors
A Social Network is a social structure made of individuals which are tied by some specific type of relations like profession, idea, vision etc., Social Networks play a critical role in our daily lives.
There are many Advantages of joining a Social Network Website
1) You can meet doctors with common interests
2) Free Flow of Ideas
3) Finding a business partner
4) Personal Branding
5) Personal Marketing
6) Exchanging Medical Knowledge
and so ...on...
Social Networking is popularized by websites like Myspace, Facebook, Socify and Orkut.
In this post, I collected all Social Networking websites related to Doctors and not general purpose social networking websites like Myspace etc.,
Social Networking - Doctors
1) DoctorsHangout.com
Description : DoctorsHangout.com is an exclusive next generation social networking service for Medical Students, Residents and Doctors. DoctorsHangout social network can help you maintain existing personal and professional relationships and establish new ones by reaching out to Doctors you've never met before. Doctors Hangout makes it easy to find people who share your hobbies and interests, look for long lasting connections or establish new professional contacts. At DoctorsHangout.com, Doctors exchange clinical experiences, review their cases and share clinical knowledge.
2) Cardiology Network
Description : A Social Network for Cardiologists to build relationships in personal life, clinical practice, career, research and industry.
3) Sermo.com
Description : Here, physicians aggregate observations from their daily practice and then - rapidly and in large numbers - challenge or corroborate each others opinions, accelerating the emergence of trends and new insights on medications, devices and treatments. You can then apply the collective knowledge to achieve better outcomes for your patients.
4) StudentDoctor.net
Description : The Student Doctor Network (SDN) is an independent community of students, advisors, educators, and practicing doctors. Our membership extends from college students to practicing doctors in every field of healthcare, from allopathic medicine to veterinary medicine.
5) Healtheva.com
Description : Healtheva was started to improve communication flow in the life sciences area. Using Healtheva, members can find other doctors or researchers, keep track of colleagues met at conferences, and collaborate on projects with others. In addition, members can upload documents, evaluate and discuss issues in the forums, or start a blog. With increased information flow, together we can improve innovation and knowledge in science and healthcare.
6) DoctorNetworking.com
Description : This is the premier professional networking site for physicians and other professionals in health care. You can Enlarge professional network, Discuss medical topics, Ask and answer medical questions, Post and find medical jobs & Get to know more friends & colleagues.
7) Relaxdoc.com
Description : RelaxDoc.com is a private, online community created exclusively for physicians. It is a highly selective portal for physician-pertinent content, offering physicians the opportunity to network, find information and access services that meet both their professional and personal needs.
8) Tiromed.com
Description : Tiromed is a professional knowledge network exclusively for students of medicine and physicians. The purpose of this network is to facilitate communication not only between peers at the same academic and professional level, but to allow communication between all levels.
9) SocialMD.com
Description : SocialMD is a great new way to network with other physicians. Whether you are a medical student, resident, fellow or physician you will find that SocialMD is a great way to meet and network with other medical professionals.
10) ClinicalVillage.com
Description : ClinicalVillage.com was created to give you the ability to communicate with other clinicians and build an online community where you can share your clinical and life experience with colleagues, ask and answer questions, blog about your current hot button issues, find old college or med school friends, or make new ones. This site depends on you for it’s content and direction. It’s your community, please help build it. Remember, this site has no sponsorship or any other ties to industry.
11) MedicSpeak.com
Description : MedicSpeak is a powerful networking site for Physicians, Biomedical Researchers, Medical/Biomedical Students. The objective is to enhance communication, collaborations, exchange of ideas and sharing of knowledge. Keep in touch with your mentors, colleagues and students. Create clubs and invite people who share your interests.Upload videos about your lab, surgical procedures etc. Have fun!
This is not a comprehensive list of all Social Networking websites for Doctors. If you come across a website which is not included in the above list, please drop a comment to this post and I will include this as early as possible.
Update on 06 June 2007
David Rothman writes on his blog, "Dr. Karuturi also mentions Doctor .VG and the Student Doctor Network. Respectfully, I cannot agree with with Dr. Karuturi that these are social networks in the way that (for example) MySpace or Facebook are social networks. Online Bulletin boards and forums have been around for a long time, and I think what separates online “social networks” from online forums and bulletin boards is that they include tools by which members manage relationships within the network- not just communications."
I do agree with David Rothman that Forums like www.doctor.vg and forums.studentdoctor.net are not social networks in pure terms. When you consider the broad idea of Social Networking, you can include any tools which help us to network socially. I do consider forums as the ancient social networks of Internet as they allowed us to meet new people and interact with them. Now a days Forums are giving us a profile page where you can add your pics, join groups and also create a blog. So you can observe that new forum 2.0 concept is more inclined towards a social networking approach.
References
1. Wikipedia
2. David Rothman Blog
Image Source : Sermo
Complete List of Medical Wikis
A wiki is a website which allows user to add, edit, delete and moderate its content. The word wiki is a Hawaiian word meaning "quick." This means a wiki can be edited by anyone at anytime quickly. Wikis are popularized by Wikipedia, which is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project.
David Rothman posted a list of almost all Medical Wikis available on Internet.
References
1. Wikipedia
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Medical Encyclopedia
I planned to start a web 2.0 medical wiki so that any doctor can edit it and create a world class medical encyclopedia similar to wikipedia. I dropped this plan as I found ganfyd through google.
Ganfyd.org - The free medical knowledge base that anyone can read and any registered medical practitioner may edit. Ganfyd is a collaborative medical reference by medical professionals and invited non-medical experts. The site is based around the wiki format, enabling true sharing of knowledge. Ganfyd is the first of its type and relies on your contributions to make it a truly world-class resource.
