While a professor may not approve of blogs as part of a medical education, sometimes surfing could prove fruitful (and less expensive than medical textbooks). By reading an insider’s blog, for instance, you might learn about what it’s like to work in a hospital emergency room. Or, you can supplement your learning with work that professors upload to their blogs.
The following top fifty blogs, categorized by research, medical education, industry insiders, government health policy and high-tech matters, provide a wide-ranging resource for readers who want to learn more about medicine. The links in those categories are listed alphabetically to show readers that we do not value one resource over another.
Research Sites
- Dr. Shock: Dr. Walter van den Broek shares his insights into research in the treatment and neuroscience of depression.
- Duke Research: This blog focuses on the happenings at Duke University’s research community.
- Institute for Women’s Health Research: Although sometimes on the light side, this blog is on the forefront in breaking research news about women’s healthcare.
- MolBio Research Highlights: A grad student in Chile presents one of the handiest sites around — a format for others to find papers, Web sites, tools and news about molecular biology.
- NIOSH Science Blog: Bookmark this site if you want to stay updated on science and medical information relayed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
- Open Medicine: This site’s goal is to facilitate global dissemination of health research and to promote dialogue and collaboration on health issues for a deeper understanding of health and health care.
- Science-Based Medicine: This site explores the issues and contrversies in the relationship between science and medicine.
- Speaking of Medicine: PLoS Medicine is an innovative and influential venue for research and comment on the major challenges to human health worldwide.
- The Lancet Global Health Network: This blog reviews and discusses public research articles published in The Lancet. These articles are aimed at changing medical practice and adding informed analysis and opinion to scientific and policy debates.
Medical Education
- Aetiology: Join this assistant professor of epidemiology who focuses on the intersection of animal-human pathogens.
- BMJ Blogs: BMJ Group, a medical publisher, offers a plethora of blogs geared to educate readers on a variety of health issues.
- Clinical Cases and Images: Learn about health news of the day through video, blog entries, articles and social media.
- KevinMD: Dr. Kevin Pho’s blog is a popular venue for learning about breaking medical news.
- Life Sciences Blog: Dr. Konstantinos Vougas, a molecular biologist, presents this blog for those who want to keep track of the rapidly evolving field of biosciences.
- Literature, Arts and Medicine Blog: This blog is an extension of the NYU School of Medicine medical humanities web site and the Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database.
- Medical News Today: The front page headlines represent just the tip of the iceberg in this site. You can customize this site to see the news and opinions that interest you first before you delve deeper.
- Pulmonary Roundtable: Case studies, images, theories and facts abound in this blog about pulmonary disease and treatment.
- Real Medicine Foundation: Learn a different approach to medical practice through a hands-on long-term response to community medical needs.
- ScienceDaily: This link leads to the “Health and Medicine” portion of this site, but other topics may interest you as well. You may not get to those other portions, though, as the health section is filled with enough information to keep anyone busy for weeks.
- Synapse Blog: If you want to know about topics that concern the University of Nevada School of Medicine, then log into this blog to find out.
- Think Anatomy: Although more of a visual directory than a blog, this site is convenient, as it brings the best of all anatomy sites across the Web together into one space.
Industry Insiders
- Bad Science: Read every expose that Ben Goldacre has written over the years and join in on the discussion.
- DB’s Medical Rants: Dr. Robert M. Centor provides his insights on medicine and the health care system in this personal blog.
- Doctor David’s Blog: This is a personal blog for a pediatric oncologist. Learn more about this topic as well as cancer research, treatments and news.
- WhiteCoat’s Call Room: Learn more about lawsuits, practices, frustrations and triumphs in the emergency department from this white coat perspective produced by Emergency Physicians Monthly.
- GruntDoc: An inside look into emergency medicine from a doctor who once served with the USMC infantry.
- Medical Education Futures Study: The MEFS blog examines the social mission of medical education during the current period of medical school expansion.
- Medical Marginalia: Dr. IcedLatte doesn’t hesitate to share her insights from both a professional and from a patient’s perspectives. One of the best female doctor blogs on the Web for honesty, humor and instruction.
- PookieMD’s Blog: The PookieMD blog is by and for physicians, to discuss and educate each other about the business of medicine and managing life as a physician
- Practice Notes: This is a news and commentary blog sponsored by Physicians Practice and that focuses on practice management and healthcare policy
- Running a Hospital: Paul Levy offers insight into the inner workings of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, as well as commentary on health care issues.
- The Health Care Blog: Industry Insider states the worth of this site succinctly: “Learn more in ten minutes than you could reading your local paper for a week.”
- The Happy Hospitalist: Learn more about what it’s like to work with an board-certified internist at a hospital, then visit this blog. You may learn that there’s a lighter side to medicine.
- The White Coat Underground: Learn more about charlatan deception in the medical world from an insider through this blog.
- WSJ Health Blog: A journalist’s take on the health care industry, widely read by those in the medical profession.
Government Health Policy
- FDA Law Blog: Learn more about the laws and regulations governing drugs, medical devices, foods, dietary supplements, and cosmetics from one of the largest dedicated food and drug law firms in the country.
- FDA Transparency Blog: The Food and Drug Administration opened this blog in 2009 to facilitate communication with U.S. citizens.
- Health Policy Blog: The Mayo Clinic offers this blog and forum as a venue for discussion about crucial health reform issues and policies.
- Kaiser Health News: KHN is a nonprofit news organization committed to in-depth coverage of health care policy and politics.
- Med Law Blog: Learn more about how law and policy shape your career in medicine in topics such as compliance, credentialing and much more.
- Medical Humanities Blog: This blog’s author is a healthy policy and ethics fellow in the Chronic Disease Prevention & Control Center at Baylor College of Medicine. He also is an attorney, and his dissertation is on the under-treatment of pain in the U.S.
- Policy and Medicine: Tom Sullivan is a recognized authority in the changing medical education environment and economy.
High Tech Matters
- eHealth: John Sharp, an IT Manager for a major medical center in Northeast Ohio, focuses on eHealth and health IT.
- Federal Telemedicine News: Bloch consulting Group provides news briefs and information from Federal agencies on legislation, grants of interest and government activities on telemedicine, telehealth and the health IT community.
- Health Tech Review: Better known as Gooznews, this link leads to the other half of that well-known journalistic health review.
- Healthcare & Technology: A technology-turned-nurse, Deborah Leyva focuses on all aspects of healthcare and technology issues.
- Healthcare IT News: This Jesse H. Neal Award-winning site includes coverage on new technologies, strategies and tactics as well as statutory and regulatory issues.
- Med 2.0: This blog explores emerging tech and new media trends in science, medicine and pharma.
- MedGadget: The ultimate high-tech candy shop for medical personnel who want to learn about emerging technologies specifically designed for the medical field, compiled by a group of MDs and biomed engineers.
- The Palmdoc Chronicles: A great take on mobile medical apps as well as other high-tech medical issues.