Medical webwatch.

Pathology Outlines Case of the Week http://www.pathologyoutlines.com/casel.htm PathologyOutlines.com pays contributors $35 for every published case and at the time of writing, there are 77 cases listed. The cases can be reviewed on their website or by email subscription. Each case consists of a short history accompanied by images of microscope slides and gross pathology. The cases should take no more than 10-15 minutes to review and are followed by an instruction to scroll below the fold for diagnosis and discussion. The outlines are backed up by references at the end of each case. The name of the person who submitted the case and contact details are also included. The website was inaugurated in March 2005 and is a neat and brisk case test.

The Medical Palm Review http://medpalmrev.medtau.org/ is hosted by the Application Unit at Mount Sinai Hospital http://www.medtau.org/ and is a user newsletter for palmtop (Palm group) Personal Digital Assistants (PDA). The author is Paul Arnold, who is a career emergency physician currently based at the University Health Network in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The home page displays the newsletter for the current month, with archives available back to March 2000. Each newsletter has a medical computing paragraph. The website rounds off with an in-house search engine and a facility to subscribe for email alerts. The author is in the process of relocating the information to a weblog which is hyperlinked from the above website.

Center for Health Information Technology http://www.centerforhit.org/ is from the American Academy of Family Physicians and is an information package about electronic health records (EHR). There are tutorials on "Introduction to Electronic Health Records" and "Understanding Features & Functions," both of which have related reading advice. The front page of the website has an icon matrix facilitating access to the 4 steps: "Preparation," "Selection," "Implementation" and "Advice." The tutorials and hyperlinked resources are both in-house and outsourced. All the tutorials available are listed here: http://www.centerforhit.org/x1936.xml.

The James Lind Library http://www.jameslindlibrary.org follows the development of tests of medical efficacy. The James Lind Initiative, Oxford, UK, says that "The James Lind Library has been created to help people understand fair tests of treatments in healthcare by illustrating how fair tests have developed over the centuries." The first tab on the menu is "What is a fair test" and this is answered by a series of essays around the subject along with references. The "Contents" section covers the 18th Century to the 21st Century and illustrates the overarching perspective of this treatise, and this is a perspective that other, more hands-on, how-to approaches often fail to achieve. An overview of the library and its mission can be found in the section "Building the James Lind Library." Original papers and manuscripts are used throughout to illustrate the evolution of the concept of fair testing, and submenus on these pages offer key passages, commentary, portrait, and context for each manuscript. The whole website is extensively cross referenced. And just who was James Lind? You can find that out here: http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/trial_records/17th_18th_Century/lind/lind_biog.php.

This website is devoted to the Life and Times of Dr. John Snow (1813-1858) http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow.html, a legendary figure in the history of public health, epidemiology and anesthesiology. It was created by Ralph R. Frerichs, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Public Health and is hosted by the UCLA Department of Epidemiology. Dr. John Snow was the 19th-century epidemiologist and anesthesiologist who solved London's deadly cholera epidemic of 1854 by removing the handle from the pump that he found to be the culprit. The UCLA magazine says, "The site includes multiple layers of information that enable the user to dig deeply into Snow's background, pursue the facts surrounding his investigation of the 1854 epidemic and locate key sites on a detailed period map of London." The information includes a brief biography, images of John Snow's London, and interactive maps. It also covers his contribution to anesthesiology (he administered chloroform to Queen Victoria during childbirth). The "Who Was John Snow" section of this rich resource has a list of voice-over slide shows.

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