MEDPEDIA, an online health resource and technology platform, has been receiving compliments from medical professionals and the general public, alike.
The platform facilitates three inter-related services: a collaborative knowledge base, a professional network and directory for health professionals and organisations, and communities of interest in which medical professionals and non-professionals can share information about symptoms, treatments, and lifestyle choices.
The Medpedia portals include:
* Adult Primary Care
* Allergy and Immunology
* Anatomy
* Cardiology
* Emergency Medicine
* Endocrinology
* Epidemiology
* Gastroenterology and Hepatology
* General Medicine
* Infectious Diseases
* Internal Medicine
* Neurology & Neurobiology
* OB/GYN and Reproductive Health
* Oncology
* Orthopaedics
* Pediatrics
* Pharmacology
* Psychiatry
* Public Health
* Rheumatology
* Women’s Health
The content in these portals are edited by eminent professionals and are organised alphabetically and by topic. For example, the articles at Medpedia’s Oncology portal which focusses on tumours and cancer, including the diagnosis and treatment, collects and indexes all contributors and content in this area, with articles covering everything from breast cancer to melanoma, epirubicin, bone marrow tests, and colposcopy.
Medpedia provides an interactive environment where content is written, edited and constantly re-edited by a large group of editors. Hundreds of editors read the articles and monitor changes using the Recent Changes pages.
This ensures that incorrect information is corrected quickly, and the overall accuracy of Medpedia is maintained at a very high level. Medpedia is collaborative - consumers, medical professionals, and organisations contribute in their own way. Medpedia is inter-disciplinary – it taps knowledge from all medical and health professionals, starting with physicians and Ph.D researchers, nurses, public health officials, social workers, etc.
Thousands of medical professionals and others have joined this world health community which enjoys the support of Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School, and over 110 health organisations worldwide.
By becoming contributors and editors at Medpedia, the medical professionals and writers now have the opportunity to transform how the world can access medical knowledge. Among the active contributors are Brian E Moore, MD, a neuropathologist who specialises in the diagnosis of brain tumours, neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, and muscle diseases; Prashanth Nuggehalli Srinivas, Director (Projects & Research), Karuna Trust, BR Hills; Emmanuel Maicas, MD, a practicing anatomical pathologist with particular interest in dematopathology; Appa Rao Bandi, MRCP and MD, a cardiologist and Clinical Asst. Prof at the Michigan State University; John B Welsh, PhD, Molecular Pathology, with extensive experience in drug R&D, molecular diagnostics, and medical writing; and Dr Sandip Kumar Agrawal, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, RIMS, Ranchi, India.
Medpedia is a platform of free tools that anyone can use. Medical professionals can use it as a knowledge sharing and communication tool, a recruiting tool for research collaborators, a clinical referral network, an article publishing network, or as a means to enhance their reputation.
Organisations can use Medpedia as a communications tool for their members and to fulfill their mission. Users can subscribe to Medpedia alerts to follow topics of interest, to learn and collect knowledge, to teach and share information. Medpedia presently hosts 7,000 pages of content under 141 communities.
A few of those communities are
* Healthcare IT
* Breast Cancer
* Clinical Informatics
* Healthcare on the web
* Pediatrics
* Medical Ethics
* Family Medicine
* Influenza H1N1 (Swine Flu), Smoking Cessation.
If you are a physician, researcher, nurse, hospital administrator, public health official, engineer in medical device companies, or an individual with a special interest in this area, you can help Medpedia.
