Web Sites Worth Watching

Psychiatric Services offers a monthly listing of mental-health-related Web sites and other sites of interest. This list changes monthly as new sites are identified and existing sites add new features. We'd like maintaining the list to be an interactive process, so tell us about your favorite sites or what you'd like to be able to find on the Web. You can reach us by e-mail at [email protected].

Associations

American Group Psychotherapy Association—www.agpa.org This site presents general information about group psychotherapy and ethical guidelines for practitioners. It also provides a database of group therapists and information for practitioners and students.

Canadian Mental Health Association—www.cmha.ca This bilingual site provides a brief overview of the association, membership information, information on publications, and a directory of members. It also presents an online workplace stress test and a list of tips for maintaining good mental health.

Journals

Academic Medicine—www.academicmedicine.org The journal is currently offering a free trial period for readers to see full-text items. The Web site also includes information for authors, subscription information and pricing, tables of contents of current and future issues, and abstracts of current articles.

Health and Medicine

Discovery Health—www.discoveryhealth.com Maintained by the Discovery Channel, this site offers daily highlights of multiple topics of interest to consumers as well as information specifically related to the health of women, men, children, and elderly persons.

America's Doctor—Americasdoc tor.com The only Web site to offer real-time, 24-hour online consultation with board-certified doctors, it also offers current news, information on clinical trials, and forums dedicated to various topics.

Government

CDC Prevention Guidelines Database—aepo-xdv-www.epo.cdc.gov /wonder/prevguid/prevhguid.htm A compendium of all of the official guidelines and recommendations published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the prevention of diseases, injuries, and disabilities.

Other Useful Resources

Doctors of Color—www.doctors ofcolor.com This site offers doctors of color an opportunity to network with one another in various online forums, and gives patients an opportunity to locate doctors from cultural backgrounds similar to their own.

American Medical Specialty Organization—www.amso.com The site features a weekly poll question related to health care, designed to foster a national dialogue on the issues surrounding managed health care.

Certified Doctor—www.certified doctor.com As part of the public education program of the American Board of Medical Specialties, this site allows visitors to verify the board certification status, location by city and state, and specialty of any physician certified by one or more of the member boards of the ABMS.

Featured Site

E-letter on Drugs for Severe Psychiatric Illnesses —www.citizen.org/eletter

Public Citizen's Health Research Group, in consultation with the Treatment Advocacy Center, has created a new Web site to provide information to consumers and their families on current medications for severe psychiatric illnesses. Major depression, manic depression, and schizophrenia are described, along with the drugs most commonly prescribed for these disorders and adverse reactions that may occur. Visitors to the site can also select from a list of generic and brand names of drugs to read current information about adverse reactions. A section called "Ten Rules for Safer Drug Use" tells consumers what they can do to avoid such reactions. The site provides instructions on how to report adverse reactions to federal authorities by mail and fax and on the Internet.