Book Review

Abstract

R. Kiley Medical information on the Internet: a guide for health professionals . Edinburgh : Chuchill Livingstone , 1999 . ISBN 0-443-06194-7 . Second edition , 160 pp., £18.95. R. KILEY. Edinburgh: Chuchill Livingstone, 1999. ISBN 0-443-06194-7. Second edition, 160 pp., £18.95. The second edition of this book aims for a similar audience to the first. It is written for health professionals who want to learn about the Internet and access the vast array of medical information available somewhere ‘out there’. The first couple of chapters explain what the Internet is and how to get connected. Search engines and evaluated subject directories have a chapter including worked examples. Kiley has retained his top 10 medical resources and states the selection criteria. There are two new chapters on the quality of medical information on the Internet and consumer health information. Interactive learning resources and e-mail communication are also covered. All of the chapters in this second edition have been revised and updated. New screen shots of Websites illustrate resources mentioned. The CD contains the entire text, viewed using the Adobe Acrobat Reader software included on the disk. An accompanying Website publishes updates to the book. The strength of this title is in its practical approach to the Internet. It is easily possible to get bogged down in detail when introducing newcomers to Internet services, Bruce McKenzie’s book Medicine and the Internet being an example. Kiley avoids this by providing the reader with just enough information on the topic before moving on to cover new ground. No mysticism hangs around the technical terms, each is explained in the glossary as soon as it is introduced. This is a book that will be dipped into by readers. To aid this, each chapter displays its objectives inside a box at the start. The accompanying CD version also makes it easy to find places in the text and jump between chapters to the glossary and back. It was also easy to install. It is nearly 2 years since the text was written. This is nowhere more apparent than in chapter two, where Kiley discusses getting connected to the Internet. Mentioning prices of Internet Service Providers hardly seems worth the effort. The Website has a useful role here, because it updates information in the book on free Internet providers such as Freeserve. Kiley acknowledges that this book can only provide a snapshot of the Internet. There are a few places where the addition of just a little more information would have been useful. For example the discussion of viruses in chapter six, where mention could be made of the excellent (and free) antivirus software FPROT. That said, an improvement on the first edition is the inclusion of ‘accessed dates’ for URLs at the end of chapters. The Website supplementing the book and CD includes outlines of chapters and selected links. There is also a ‘what’s new’ page that was last updated in October 1999. It would be a shame if entries to this section had stopped, as it provides a useful month by month digest of important developments. For example: medical journals on the web, Primary Care Groups, Evidence-based Practice on the Internet and the medline Plus service. The review of the previous edition commented on the US bias of the 10 resources singled out by Kiley and expressed hope that an NHS-wide network might improve the balance in a later edition. Four of the initial top 10 have retained their place in this Hall of Fame and again only one resource, the TRIP database this time, is UK-based. It must be a sign that the publishing world moves faster than technological change in the NHS.