Pregnancy 2.0: A Free Web Guidance Package June 22, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in e-patient, Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0, Webicina.1 comment so far
Webicina, the first medical web 2.0 guidance service, launched Pregnancy 2.0, a free comprehensive resource containing all the web 2.0 tools from quality blogs and communities to online slideshows that women seeking pregnancy, pregnant women and new mothers can use in their health management.
Please take a look at the table of contents:
- News and Information on Pregnancy
- Pregnancy in the Medical Blogosphere
- Pregnancy Blog Carnivals
- Pregnancy Podcasts and Interviews
- Pregnancy Community Sites, FaceBook Groups and Forums
- Microblogging: Twitter and Friendfeed
- Pregnancy Wikis
- Pregnancy Videos, animations and videocasts
- Mobile Applications
- Social Bookmarking
- Medical Search Engines
- Slideshows about Pregnancy
Next week, we will release a free eGuide containing several step-by-step tutorials about how to give presentations and organize medical conferences cost-effectively in the virtual world.
Please let us know which medical condition or medical specialty we should focus on next time.
Free Webicina content:
Your Mobile and Your Genomic Data? June 21, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Genome, Medicine 2.0, Mobile.9 comments
Dr. Andras Pellionisz shared a press release with me today:
Sunnyvale, CA (PRWEB) June 19, 2009 — The Google Phone demonstration introduced the imminent reality of the Genome Based Economy, as presented by HolGenTech Founder Dr. Andras Pellionisz at the Consumer Genetics in Boston the morning of June 10. HolGenTech Founder Dr. Andras Pellionisz demonstrated use of PDA for customers at the Consumer Genetics Conference in Boston in in the morning of June 10. Within hours, Illumina’s CEO Jay Flately featured a different business model application for personal genomes in the Apple iPhone. The demonstrations of hand held device applications intended for personal genomes stunned the audience of approximately 400 with a view into how practical applications of our personal genomes will change everything. Dr. Pellionisz illuminated the potential of the personal genome when applied to shopping in the Genome Based Economy.
Using the Google Phone’s built-in bar code reader, Dr. Pellionisz demonstrated how personal genome computing can detect genome-friendly and genome-supportive products from foods to cosmetics to building materials and beyond. In a demonstration, the PDA user was assumed to have a genomic proclivity to Parkinson’s Disease. The demonstration leveraged the Google Phone’s bar code reader to capture product information and a product rating scale to identify the prevention efficacy of any product under consideration. The consumer is equipped to make immediate product comparisons based on both personal health-preferences and genomic information with special consideration of the disease or syndrome of concern.
Near-real Clinical Experience in Second Life June 21, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medical education, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Second Life, Virtuality, Web 2.0.3 comments
I’ve recently come across the island of the University of Auckland, New Zealand in Second Life where they try to create a medical simulation.
This simulation is being constructed to explore the potential of virtual worlds to offer near-real clinical and human experiences for medical training.
Most of the “build” to date has been focused on the physical structures and equipment, however continued work will be to animate equipment and avatars to simulate real-life contingencies.
If you want to know the exact location of the site, please contact me.
UPDATE: Thanks to Chris Paton, here is a video about the site:
Further reading:
- Top 10: Virtual Medical Sites in Second Life!
- How and Why to use Second Life for Education?
- Scientific Events in Second Life?
- Live Blogging Today: First Medical Simulation in Second Life!
- Unique Medical Simulation in Second Life!
- Everything about Second Life and Medical Education
- New Educational Tools in Second Life
- NHS London in Second Life
- Interview about the genetic revolution of Second Life
- Electronic Medical Records in a Virtual Hospital: Interview!
Personalized Medicine: Genetic Tests for Drugs June 20, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Genetic testing, genetics, Genome, Medicine, Pharma, Pharmacogenomics.4 comments
- Pharmacogenetics of warfarin – is testing clinically indicated?: A must-read about warfarin and Coumadin issues.
- This page catalogues drugs with pharmacogenomic information in the context of FDA-approved drug labels and lists drugs with mounting pharmacogenomic evidence.
- Have you ever seen a Promethease Report?
Promethease is a tool to build a report based on SNPedia and a file of genotypes. Customers of testing services (23andMe, deCODEme, Navigenics, …) can use it to learn more about their DNA. It can also pool the data from multiple testing services. The program runs for approximately 2 hours. If you make an optional $2 payment via Amazon.com the program runs faster.
Actually, I cannot download my genomic data from Navigenics, but will be able to do so after the summer. Anyway, the results can be interpreted as follows:
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Personalized medicine: An interview with Esther Dyson (What Matters):
But if your mother died of a heart attack, or your father has colon polyps, as mine does, it’s pretty clear what the indications are. Genomes themselves give you only—with a few exceptions—percentages. So, it’s not like you put this information up and people are going to stick pins into it. I actually was expecting more medical spam about, you know, “We looked at your genome. You should buy such and such nutri-ceutical.” What will be exciting is when you have hundreds of thousands of these and you say, “Oh, wow. They’re these five genes that seem to interact.” Most things are not a gene. It’s usually a lot of different genes—and then, combined with what you eat and whether you sleep enough and whether you stay warm enough and all these other things—that actually produce a real outcome in a person of being in such and such condition.
Further reading:
Stay up to date online: Student BMJ June 20, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Scienceroll, Web 2.0, Webicina.add a comment
Alexander F Young, final year medical student, published a very comprehensive review in Student BMJ about how to stay up-to-date online. He also included Scienceroll.com:
Subscribing to web feeds from medical blogs, such as KevinMD or ScienceRoll, which produce interesting articles, may direct you to further areas of interest. Because most dedicated bloggers update their sites often, web feeds are ideal to view their latest articles.
The newest Webicina eGuide about how to keep yourself easly up-to-date in medicine was only published last week, so he certainly didn’t know about that.
Here is the table of contents of the free Webicina eGuide:
- How to keep yourself up-to-date? (Pubmed, RSS and tags)
- Step 1: Tools that help you keep yourself up-to-date (Trend Trackers)
- Step 2: What is RSS about? (RSS and web feeds)
- Step 3: Aggregators I., Desktop-based feed readers
- Step 4: Aggregators II., How to use your browser?
- Step 5: Aggregators III., Bloglines, Netvibes or Google Reader?
- Step 6: How to follow a medical journal?
- Step 7: Where should you start?
Twitter For Busy People June 20, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in twitter, Web 2.0.1 comment so far
Some months ago, I had a post about how to filter discussions on Twitter. Now here is Twitter for Busy People, an interesting application.
We found ourselves wanting to see what our friends were up to “at a glance”. By using the Twitter web site, our “active” friends often push the status messages of less active friends far down the page, or off the page completely.
So, we created this site, to see each of our friends at once (up to 500). Then we can quickly “mouse around” and see what each of our friends are up to. If we want to check recent history of a specific friend, it’s just one click.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter…
Further reading:
Cochrane Collaboration Features Webicina June 18, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Web 2.0, Webicina.2 comments
For my biggest pleasure, The Cochrane Collaboration wrote an article about the importance of evidence based medicine and featured a few sites that help promote this important issue. Including Webicina.com!
Evidence-based health care is the conscientious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients or the delivery of health services. Current best evidence is up-to-date information from relevant, valid research about the effects of different forms of health care, the potential for harm from exposure to particular agents, the accuracy of diagnostic tests, and the predictive power of prognostic factors.
Many organizations have contributed to the development of EBM or have information on systematic reviews. Below are links to websites of just a few.
Pew Internet Research: E-patients June 18, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in e-patient, Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0.4 comments
Here is the latest Pew Internet Research report about online health information and the world of e-patients. A few excerpts:
61% of American adults look online for health information.
In 2000, 46% of American adults had access to the internet, 5% of U.S. households had broadband connections, and 25% of American adults looked online for health information. Now, 74% of American adults go online, 57% of American households have broadband connections, and 61% of adults look online for health information. We use the term “e-patient” to describe this group.
American adults continue to turn to traditional sources of health information, even as many of them deepen their engagement with the online world.
A majority of e-patients access user-generated health information.
World Congress of Gerontology & Geriatrics: Tweeting Live June 18, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Conference.1 comment so far
It’s confirmed now so I can tell you I will attend and cover (through Twitter and Scienceroll) the biology/genetics section of the World Congress of Gerontology & Geriatrics taking place in Paris this July 5-10.
Held every four years, the IAGG (International Association of Gerontology & Geriatrics) World Congress of Gerontology & Geriatrics is attended by teams of experts from around the world, who will discuss the latest findings in the fields of ageing. An attractive program was created by its International Scientific Committee and will feature four main investigation areas:
- Health and geriatric sciences
- Social gerontology
- Behavioural and psychological sciences
- Biology of ageing.
I will keep you updated about the whole event (interviews, live coverage, etc.).
Twitter Search in Plain English June 17, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in twitter, Video, Web 2.0.1 comment so far
I guess everyone knows the great Commoncraft Team. Here is their newest video:
