The Internet offers a vast amount of information about diseases, conditions or medical treatments. It can be overwhelming and confusing. Added to the confusion is the question about credibility, and whether the information we find is actually useful to us.
Among the best Internet health resources are peer-reviewed medical journals. Many have been published in print for years and have established excellent reputations. Some journals may be familiar, such as the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) or the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA.) Others may be less recognizable, but will be valuable to you because they concentrate on your medical condition or the body system that is giving you trouble.
How can you use these publications to your benefit?
In most cases, you’ll be interested in articles about new treatment options or study results. Plan at the outset to review relevant results with your doctor. Rarely will your findings be useful to you without her endorsement since she will be the one who adjusts your treatment recommendations if she thinks the article warrants it.
It’s important to realize that journal articles are written by medical professionals for other medical professionals. Patients are not the intended audience, and most don’t have the medical knowledge and experience required to understand them.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try! Master the med-speak by using online medical dictionaries and other, more understandable resources. If you find something worthy of being reviewed with your doctor, she can help you decipher the difficult-to-understand points.
Make sure the journals you research are peer-reviewed. That means their content has been analyzed for quality and objectivity by professionals who were not the original authors. A positive review deems the information credible, and possibly helpful to you.
Finally, make sure the information you find is the most currently published on the subject matter. For example, you might find an article that argues against the use of a particular therapy. But more recent information in favor of the therapy may contradict the earlier report. When in doubt, take copies of both articles to your doctor.
A master list of the hundreds of medical journals available online can be found at
