1. Making Sense of The Internet
Leon Geffen MBChB MCFP(SA)

2. The Minefield of Misinformation
Don't believe everything you read
Does the information sound plausible
Are the authors listed and are they credible
Are the references published
Beware of sites providing information from "paid" sponsors
Is the information published by a credible institution, organisation or society ?

3. Searching the Internet
Search Directories
Yahoo
Excite
Search Engines
Google
Altavista

4. Effective use of search engines 1/2
Add as many words as possible city park hospital
“ ” marks "city park hospital"
Be specific & ask a question Is City Park Hospital in Cape Town
The + symbol "City Park Hospital" +radiology

5. Effective use of search engines 2/2
The - symbol "New York City" -"World Trade Centre" -bomb -terrorist -war
Combining all three "New York City" -"World Trade Centre" -bomb -terrorist -war +ballet +opera +dance
Finding specific information from a known domain (e.g country, educational facility, government etc.) "family medicine" +host:za HIV or AIDS +host:gov.za +Mbeki

6. Medline 1/3
Medline is owned & maintained by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) in Washington DC.
It is a bibliographic database covering all medical sciences including medicine, nursing, preclinical sciences, veterinary medicine & dentistry.
It covers journals published in all languages which are cited in Index Medicus®, as well as the abstracts .
All publications from 1966 to present can be found in   Medline.
Approximately  3800 journals are indexed, with records on file.
It is updated weekly, except in November & December.
About records are added each month.
It provides for powerful searching tools using a number of fields e.g Author name, journal name & Medical Subject Heading (MeSH)
One can build search queries to be reused as and when necessary

7. Medline 2/3
Approximately  3800 journals are indexed, with records on file.
It is updated weekly, except in November & December.
About records are added each month.
It provides for powerful searching tools using a number of fields e.g Author name, journal name & Medical Subject Heading (MeSH)
One can build search queries to be reused as and when necessary

8. Medline 3/3 Family Medicine Journals published in the past 90 days
Paediatric Journals published in last 30 days
Geriatric Journals published in last 60 days
Advanced Pubmed search
Basic Pubmed search
Medline Plus provides access to dictionaries, Pubmed, health topics, US consumer organisations etc.
Dementia Assessment tools
List of journals with links to their homepages

9. Sites Worth Bookmarking
Medline
CDC
Medmatrix
Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality
SA Medical Research Council
SA Healthinfo
MDconsult

10. Online Journals Nature initiative BMJ
freemedicaljournals.com free journals
University of Iowa free journals
The Lancet
The NEJM

11. Nature Initiative
Online debate about many aspects of the future of the electronic literature
Ways to improve access to the scientific literature
Proposals for making research papers free
Changing the application of copyright.