Dolores Zegar Judkins

Searching the Medical Literature on the Internet

for finding basic biomedical research and clinical science information. Produced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and spanning 1966 to the present, it contains more than 11 million citations from 4,300 journals worldwide. Each citation includes a number of fields, including author, title, journal title, medical subject headings (MeSHs), and abstract. More than 70% of the citations include an abstract, but MEDLINE currently does not include the full text of journal articles. MEDLINE is available a number of ways: through fee-based vendors, through a variety of Web interfaces either free or for a fee, and directly from the NLM. The NLM offers MEDLINE through 2 interfaces, Internet Grateful Med (IGM) and PubMed. IGM at igm.nlm.nih.gov offers access to a number of databases, including MEDLINE [F1]. IGM users can conduct searches in a variety of AIDS databases, HealthSTAR (which focuses on health care delivery and administration), BIOETHICSLINE (which focuses on the ethical aspects of health care), and a number of other databases. IGM will be retired in phases in the coming months, to 6. Bertina RM. Molecular risk factors for thrombosis. Thromb Haemost. 1999;82:601-609.

Health resources on the Internet: a basic list.

With the plethora of health sites on the Internet, it is sometimes hard to know where to start. This is a basic list of health sites that either cover a subject area comprehensively, or are good general sites to lead to more specific information. Most of these sites include both full-text information as well as links to many other sites on the World-Wide Web. Included are medical, nursing, dental, alternative health, consumer health, organization, and government sites.