Integrating the Internet into Your Clinical Practice
http://www.fpen.org/allina
May 8, 1998

A physician would like to find some information on the LASIK procedure (laser-assisted eye surgery) to give to a patient who is considering this procedure.

1. Connect to the AltaVista search engine by clicking on the web address: http://www.altavista.digital.com.
2. You are now in the Basic Search Option. Click in the white rectangular search form.
3. Type (in all caps): LASIK
4. Click on Search
5. Scroll down and look at some of the hits you retrieved. Record the number of hits here __________.
6. Now conduct an Advanced Search in AltaVista by clicking on the Advanced Search link below the Refine link. Look for your topic in non-profit web sites only by typing: LASIK AND domain:org
7. Note the differences in retrieval when you further qualified your request.

General Search Engines: HotBot

1. Connect to the HotBot search engine by clicking on the web address:

http://www.hotbot.com

2. Repeat the above search. Note that you can select the  non-profit domain (.org) directly from the default search page. Record the number of hits here _________.
3. Note the differences in retrieval between the AltaVista and HotBot search engines. The retrieval is different because you are searching a unique database of web sites at each search engine site. That is why it can be useful to search your topic in more than one search engine.

Professional Associations

1. Another strategy to find similar information would be to go to the professional association that governs the specialty represented; many of these societies have put up excellent patient education materials on their web sites. Click on the address for the American Academy of Opthalmologists (http://http://www.eyenet.org/public/ref_surg/lasik.html) where there is an excellent description of the LASIK procedure.

Patient Education Web Sites

1. Yet another strategy is to search a web site that serves as an index to other web sites on a variety of topics. You may have already looked at some of these sites in the beginning exercise. Two good examples are FamilyVillage or Healthfinder. To explore one of these sites, click on either FamilyVillage (http://www.familyvillage.wisc.edu) or Healthfinder (http://www.healthfinder.gov) and search for information on arthritis to give to a patient.

You are looking for the e-mail address of a Maryland internist who works at the National Institutes of Health and whom you met at a recent conference. You remember his name, Richard Spencer, and you know he is in Baltimore, but you can’t find the napkin on which you wrote his e-mail.

1. Connect to HotBot by clicking on the web address: http://www.hotbot.com (or use your back button to get to the HotBot home page)
2. Select the E-mail Directory link and type in the information you have in the appropriate boxes.

You want to find out some general information about the new HCFA documentation guidelines.

1. Connect to AltaVista.
2. Conduct a Basic Search. Click in the Search Form. Type (including quotations marks) "HCFA documentation guidelines"
3. Review some of your hits.

There are many web sites that are offering Continuing Medical Education credits. Some involve interactive tutorials, and charge a fee; while others are free-of-charge and involve reading and/or viewing images and responding to a quiz. Try one of the free CME modules offerred by NIH's Consensus Development Program: