Consulting overseas medics

Pharmacies are one thing, but getting medical information online is such a big business that the cream of the international crop of websites offer very reliable, very detailed information. Here are a few from the top tier:

The US National Library of Medicine provides free access to MEDLINE (Medical Literature, Analysis, and Retrieval System Online), a bibliographic index to 4600 medical journals in 30 languages that adds 2000 references a day. Spot purchases of complete articles is possible online and the site also offers many other resources.

AllSearchengines.com offers an extensive index of medical search engines and medicine-focused websites with well-developed internal search capabilities.

KidsDoctor.com provides a massive inventory of plain-language information about children's medicine in a searchable database by category of complaint or anatomy.

HealthAtoZ.com is a family medicine portal with extensive resources and some nifty tools for managing problems such as asthma. The website also provides good background on "wellness" - as in, staying healthy.

MedicineNet.com is another exhaustive website that breaks information down by diseases and conditions, procedures and tests, medications, and medical terminology.

Emory University's MedWeb.com serves both practitioners and consumers and is one of the most frequently cited online sources of medical information.

WebMD is perhaps the largest consumer-focused online resource in the world and offers extensive resources for practitioners as well. Information can be found by direct search, or by browsing through its 25 medical specialty areas.

Most of these websites - and many other top-tier productions - make a point of subscribing to the eight principles of good practice published by the UN's Health on the Net Foundation itself a terrific starting point with huge databases of its own.