[MWM-L] Server envy! http://www.cyber-medicine.org - sharing knowledge between medical disciplines
Kim Solez, M.D.
http://www.cyber-medicine.org . I learned about many additional great
resources and we have added to the lists on the page.
A physician in Taiwan wrote with respect to one of the nephrology
resources we listed, the five volume Schrier Atlas of Diseases of the
Kidney http://www.kidneyatlas.org . He finds that the Acrobat pdf
files of the whole chapters which are on a "fat pipe" very fast
server in the eastern US load quite quickly while the PowerPoint
files for slide presentations from the chapters which are on our
server in Canada load considerably more slowly. Do any of the rest
of you find this difference? We cannot detect the difference here
and no one else has commented on it Can you provide statistics, i.e.
the speed and type of your connection and the amount of time it took
to download a pdf or ppt file of a certain size? If this difference
is consistent would consider moving the PowerPoint files to the
another server or creating a European or Asian mirror site as we have
for some of our other resources.
Please direct your replies to: Kim....@UAlberta.CA
All the best. - Kim
>Dear Doug:
>
>We have made the three links so obvious now that I can't imagine
>anyone will not be able to navigate them! On IE they even change
>color on mouseover!
>
>The Medical Matrix ratings are explained exactly at:
>
> http://www.medmatrix.org/info/edboard.asp#Star
>
>There might be very valuable WWW sites that one would use for
>completely different purposes, but here is the rationale behind their
>ratings from the link above:
>
>Resource Evaluation
> 1.DIMENSION / USEFULNESS FOR CLINICAL APPLICATIONS:
>
> The resource enhances the knowledgebase of the target
>clinician or specialist at the point of care.
> Resource documents have current clinical relevance and
>importance, intellectual and scientific strength,
> and clarity of presentation. The prestige of authors
>and institutions are good. The documents are
> strong compared to other web pages under review in the
>documents' category. The documents
> contribute to a balanced picture of medicine. (1-20 points)
>
> Ranking: 0 4 8 12 16 20
> Comment:
>
> 2.VERIFIABILITY, CLARITY, AND INTEGRITY:
>
> Resource document content is verifiable, endorsed,
>dated, current, and referenced. The material is
> original; the writing is clear; there is a minimization
>of bias; conclusions are reasonable and supported
> by evidence presented. The effort is ethical. The
>documents offer a comparison with relevant findings
> from other publications; and whenever possible, the
>medical literature is systematically reviewed and
> summarized to assist in the estimate of the strength of
>the documents' conclusions. Financial interests
> are disclosed, whether they are direct or indirect.
>(1-10 points)
>
> Ranking: 0 2 4 6 8 10
> Comment:
>
> 3.EVIDENCE-BASED CRITERIA:
>
> Conclusions are based on studies that are
>methodologically sound, meet statistical validity criteria,
> and are clinically relevant. Conclusions are rated
>against a "gold standard" in that they are founded
> upon randomized trials with appropriate follow-up and
>are based on studies that make an
> independent, blind comparison of tests. (1-10 points)
>
> Ranking: 0 2 4 6 8 10
> Comment:
>
> 4.MEDIA:
>
> Text, hypertext, or use of multimedia: images, video,
>sound in the context of the resource (eg: image
> database). (1-10 points)
>
> Ranking: 0 1 2 3 4 5
> Comment:
>
> 5.FEEL/EASE OF ACCESS:
>
> Easy to follow in terms of composition, advanced HTML
>tools, and integration within a larger database.
> Clinical content highlighted, reliability and speed of
>the link, bytes to the page. (1-5 points)
>
> Ranking: 0 1 2 3 4 5
> Comment:
>
>My history with Medical Matrix is quite simple. I had a huge fight
>with them in 1996 because I thought their listings in nephrology were
>totally inappropriate. As a consequence I completely ignored them
>for four years. But now coming back to them I find that they have
>improved a lot and they are the only source at the moment of the sort
>of data that appears on their pages spanning all areas of medicine.
>I have had no contact with them for four years and that can be well
>documented, so I consider myself quite an objective observer!
>
>Best regards. - Kim
>
>> > We have created just today the WWW site http://www.cyber-medicine.org
>>> (note the hyphen!) devoted to enhancing health uses of the Internet
>>> across all areas of medicine. We invite you to go to the site and
>>> react to the information already there by sharing ideas about
>>> innovative approaches using on line resources and the sites you have
>>> found most useful and novel to add to the list. I think there is
>> > something of interest to everyone since we have statistics on every
>>> area of medicine. We would welcome input either sent privately to me
>>> or, if the comments of broad general interest, sent to
>>> MEDWEBMASTERS-L or MMATRIX-L . We look forward to hearing from all
>>> of you and working with you to make this new site the best it can
>>> possibly be and making things better for all of us!
>>>
>>> All the best. - Kim
>>
>>I would like to point out a couple of things...
>>
>>1) The links are hard to see. I had to look at the source code
>>to find them. Maybe I'm just dense....
>>
>>2) I have found medmatrix.org to be singularly useless. I have asked
>>them countless times to list my web site, with no response and
>>no action. The sites that are listed are, in my opinion, usually
>>not even the best ones on the internet. And the ratings? Well,
>>they seem kind of arbitrary and not particularly accurate.
>>
>>For example, if you look up testicular cancer, the number one
>>rated site (due to sorting, plus having 5 stars) is the
>>merck manual. Now the merck manual may be a great resource, but
>>it has about 1 page of information on testicular cancer. 5 stars?
>>I don't think so. The second site listed is actually an article
>>written by one of the doctors on my medical advisory board who
>>happened to have testicular cancer. It is a good article, but it
>>is still a short article aimed at family doctors. Other sites
>>are far more comprehensive. perhaps I am too critical, but I
>>would classify close to half the 5 star sites as marginal or
>>just plain crap. Just look at this 5 star site for an example
>>of "crap": http://www.sadap.org.za/edl/adult/14.2.asp
>>
>>I think that the links pages on smaller sites devoted to
>>single diseases or conditions are far more likely to have
>>carefully evaluated links. It is clear that medmatrix evaluates
>>sites as a whole, ranks them as a whole, and then applies that
>>ranking to every damn subject the site covers, even if it covers
>>some only in passing.
>>
>>....tirade done for now. Sorry.
>>
>>--
>>Doug Bank Secure Design Center
>>do...@comm.mot.com Motorola Communications Sector
>>847-576-8207 Schaumburg, Illinois