Details of the water fluoridation argument (and safety of mercury in fillings, etc) aside, it is apparent that the current ADA website does not respect a number of the HONcode principles – to an obvious and significant extent – and I imagine this to have been the case for a number of years, if not from the original review in January 2004. This example does not instill confidence in the credibility of the Health On the Net Foundation seal used for medical and health websites. I seek your explanation as to how a site reviewed numerous times with such glaring inconsistencies could be certified. I have not particularly listed examples of the inconsistencies since they appear on almost every page of the ADA website – if you cannot see them, I hold little hope for the HONcode’s reputation at all.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
Have you ever wondered what happens if there is a serious situation and you need an automated external defibrillator? According to Wikipedia:
An automated external defibrillator or AED is a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the potentially life threatening cardiac arrhythmias of ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia in a patient, and is able to treat them through defibrillation, the application of electrical therapy which stops the arrhythmia, allowing the heart to reestablish an effective rhythm.
Now Lucien Engelen from the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, The Netherlands launched a great project, AED4EU. Users can add places where AEDs are located and this database can be accessed through a new application, AED4EU on your mobile phone. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
Ed Bennett is the Director of Web Strategy at the University of Maryland Medical System and the real expert of how hospitals use social media. He has just published his recent slideshow focusing on this issue.
I’ve recently come across AcaWiki, an interesting project focusing on academic research and web 2.0.
Today, representatives from the new nonprofit project AcaWiki announced the opening of their website to the public. AcaWiki’s semantic-wiki based website allows scholars, students, and bloggers to easily post summaries, and discuss academic papers online. All content posted to the site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
AcaWiki’s mission is to make academic research more accessible and interactive by creating a “Wikipedia for academic research.” “Cutting-edge research is often locked behind firewalls and therefore lacks impact,” founder Neeru Paharia explains, “AcaWiki turns research hidden in academic journals into something that is more dynamic and accessible to have a greater influence in scholarship, and society.” AcaWiki enables users to easily post and discuss human-readable summaries of academic papers and literature reviews online. AcaWiki also helps users to share and organize summaries through the use of tags and RSS feeds.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
Now comes the Journal of Participatory Medicine to fill a gap in journals which acknowledge the active role of the patient in current medical practice. While other journals publish articles on patient participation in health care and social media, but a single journal devoted to this topic will be a welcome addition and make the topic more officially sanctioned as a valid field of medical study. The editorial board is very impressive and lends an important boost to this new journal.
It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…
I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…
I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…
When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…
I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…
Health on the Net Foundation has been evaluating and rating medical websites for years and it’s sad when we find out there might be some problems and concerns around this highly-respected system.The Bradfield Resident blog published an interesting entry:
