The Internet and the World Wide Web...

The Internet and the World Wide Web have created many opportunities for clinicians and patients to learn more about evidence-based practice. A fresh Internet search on the phrase "evidence-based practice" riseed in more than 10,000 hits related to this topic. Many of these sites provide users with resources to learn more about the evidence-based proces and propound strategies and links to help users find evidence. Continuing with last month's theme, this row identifies and describes some of the helpful web sites that propose background information, analytical tools, glossaries, and search strategies, as well as articles, tutorials, software, discussion lists, and education related to evidence-based practice.

GETTING STARTED

common helpful place for clinicians to begin their journey to learn more about evidence-based practice is the Mt Sinai Hospital--University Health Network middle for Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) at www.library.utoronto.ca/ medicine/ebm/. This web site's goal is to perform the operations indicated in disseminate, and evaluate resources that can be used to practice and teach EBM The intended audience includes individuals involved in undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education programs for health care professionals. Within this site, users will find a number of options to learn more about EBM There are resources for practicing or teaching EBM as well as a clean glossary of EBM terms and links to additional evidence resources. Also available upon the site are syllabi for practicing EBM in general surgery general practice, neonatal medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, critical care medicine, and six other specialty areas. Although this site still is subject to development, its resources provide extensive background and helpful clinical information. Additional tools available in the EBM "toolbox" include statistical tools, self-evaluation tools, and tips upon critical appraisal of the evidence.

The National Health Service's midst for Evidence-Based Medicine (http://cebm.jr2.ox.ac uk) was common of the first centers in the United Kingdom to provide resources and support to clinicians practicing and teaching EBM This site issues complete with an EBM toolbox, teaching activities and materials, and the CATbank, which allows users to create, store, and retrieve critically appraised topics (CATs). The toolbox provides a glossary, a guide for searching for the best evidence, a comparison of consideration designs, and information about the evens of evidence and grades of recommendation. The teaching materials include a self-contained, seven-session course in practicing EBM for clinicians, scenarios for problems-based learning, and worksheets for critical appraisals of various marks of research reports.

Another useful site is the Canadian midsts for Health Evidence (www.cche.net/). According to the web site, the middles were established to help patients, practitioners, and policy makers "know what to do, do what is known, and understand what is done."(1) Within this site, united can find a users' guide to evidence-based practice that is based forward publications on the same topic previously published in JAMA (www.cche.net/ principles/content_all.asp). This online respect provides a step-by-step guide in succession how to get started using evidence and in what manner to use primary studies and integrative reports. This site also provides worksheets for critiquing research reports as well as resources for educating clinicians about EBM

USING RESOURCES FOR EVIDENCE-BASED SURGERY

Resources for evidence-based surgery can be set up at www .rcseng.ac.uk/public/infores/ reso_ir.htm, a web site provided and maintained by means of the Royal College of Surgeon in England. It includes links to medical databases (eg Medline), comprehensive guides to evidence-based practice, and links to surgery related clinical practice guidelines and systematic reviews. This site proffers a variety of links to Internet resources, along with many e-mail discussion collections for surgeons. One helpful resource linked to this page is a listing of the Cochrane Systematic Reviews related to surgery Organized according to individual of 13 surgical specialties, these guidelines provide up-to-date integrated reviews of the pertinent research.

The Royal community of Surgeons' web site also provides links to resources that support evidence-based surgery as well as links to medical gateways, search engines, educational resources, textbook online, images, atlases, medical of the present days and reference materials. For example, the British Journal of Surgery link provides a passing from hand to hand list of randomized trials and meta-analyses related to vascular, lower and upper gastrointestinal, and general surgery Visitors to this site can easily access the Internet Pathology Laboratory for Medical Education (http://www-medlib.med.utah .edu/WebPath/webpath.html) to examine more than 1900 images, along with passage tutorials, laboratory exercises, and examination items that demonstrate gros and microscopic pathologic findings.

SumSearch, available at http://sumsearch.uthscsa.edu/ searchform45.htm, provides a meta-search service that searches