Consumer health and medical information
Although the Wellcome Library is primarily a History of Medicine library, some collections are also relevant to contemporary health and medical information. The Library does not deal with requests for contemporary health information, however, visitors to the Library can make full use of these resources once they join
the Library. For those unable to visit the Library, here is a list of suggestions for a range of high quality internet resources on all aspects of contemporary health and medicine.
Wellcome Library collections:
The Medicine and Society Collection has some contemporary books and reports, mainly dealing with the biomedical sciences and medicine as they relate to society and social issues. The collection is aimed at a general readership, although health professionals and students may also find the
collection of interest. You may search the Collection using the Library catalogue.
In addition, some contemporary resources are available via the Library computer network:
• Health and medicine databases
• Current medical journals
• Current health journals
Some of these are also available for remote access to Library members.
Internet resources
Health advice
NHS Direct
A UK government source of health information for consumers.
Dr Foster
Essential information for a range of health services across the UK, including guides for hospitals, consultants, birth units and complementary practitioners.
Informed Health Online
A scientific resource for the general public and the health care community. It is an independent publisher of evidence-based consumer health and patient information.
MedicDirect
A health website hosted by medical consultants in the UK. The site includes videos of operations, a virtual tour of the body, an A-Z of common diseases and health problems and information of tests and procedures.
MedlinePlus
Brings together information from the US National Library of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health and other US government agencies and health related organisations. It gives easy access to medical journal articles, drug information, a medical encyclopaedia, interactive patient tutorials and health news.
Medpedia
Collaborative site for sharing knowledge about health, medicine and the body among medical professionals and the general public.
Patient UK
A web site set up by UK GPs to help lay people find reliable information on the Internet.
Directories of health and medical information
Google Health
Directory of worldwide health resources on the internet organised by subdivision and ranked by importance.
Healthsites
A portal to health and medical information on the internet, aiming to point health professionals and patients to reliable health related information.
Healthfinder
Produced by the US Department of Health and Human Services for consumer health information provided by professional health bodies.
HONselect
This is a search engine for strictly medical and health queries, combining subject terms, authoritative scientific articles, healthcare news, websites and multimedia. See also MedHunt on the same website for medical information by country and region.
Intute
Several directories of evaluated websites relating to health and medicine, including Medicine and Dentistry, and Nursing Midwifery and Allied Health.
National Library of Medicine Gateway
The Gateway is a "One-stop shop" for an increasing number of the information resources of the National Library of Medicine. Resources include: PubMed, the NLM catalog, and Toxline. For a full list check the website.
UK Department of Health
Information on all the key government initiatives in the field of health. Much of the information is available as full-text documents.
US National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research.
World Health Organisation
WHO is the authority for health within the United Nations. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping health research agendas, setting norms and standards, and evidence based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.
Patient / support groups
Association of Medical Research Charities
Provide general information about member charities and routes to further information. The site also gives information about grants activities in the medical research charities.
Contact a Family
For families with disabled children.
Genetic Interest Group
The Genetic Interest Group (GIG) is a national alliance of patient organisations with a membership of over 130 charities which support children, families and individuals affected by genetic disorders.
UK Self Help
A web site providing links to over 760 UK Self Help Groups.
Drug / pharmaceutical information
British National Formulary
An up-to-date and authoritative information resource on medicines prescribed in the UK.
MedlinePlus: drugs, supplements and herbal information
A guide to thousands of prescription and over-the-counter medications provided by the United States Pharmacopeia and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
Assessing health information
Discern
Provides an questionnaire to assess the quality of health information on a website.
Cochrane consumer learning
A series of guides on the nature of medical research and evidence based medicine.
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