Latest discoveries, pathology pop quiz and orphan diseases

By Carol Lindsay, RN
May 20, 2002

Recent medical breakthroughs are reported daily at www.ivanhoe.com. Ivanhoe is the country's largest news-gathering organization to cover medical breakthrough health information.

The organization strives to produce and deliver life-changing information. Its site reports traditional medical advances and covers spiritual healing, special reports and Web extras.

Stories are available on topics such as a Chinese therapy for breast cancer and harmful herbal reactions. Visitors can participate in discussion groups, where the topics change regularly.

Visual aids

Bristol Biomed image archive [www.brisbio.ac.uk] has more than 8,500 medical images that can be used for teaching and learning.

The high-quality images are indexed alphabetically, which makes finding the image you want easy. The only downside to this site is that it contains a large number of veterinary images as well.

So, you may find an interesting image only to discover it depicts alopecia in a dog and not a human. But a picture of a diseased dog could come in handy if you want to make sure your class is paying attention.

Military nursing history

The Army Nurse Corps history site [www.army.mil/cmh-pg/anc/anchhome.html] provides an overview of 100 years of Army nursing, featuring Army nursing history in pictures, a slide presentation with narration and highlights of the history of the Army Nurse Corps.

Another site, www.illyria.com/vnwnurse.html, honors military nurses who served in Vietnam. This site informs readers about nurses and their role in Vietnam and is a resource for nurses who served during the war.

It lists reunions, upcoming events and asks nurses to share their stories and memories.

Both sites provide links to other sites with information about military nursing past and present.

Rare disorders

The National Organization for Rare Disorders [www.rarediseases.org] is a federation of 140 nonprofit health organizations that serves people who suffer from rare disorders and disabilities.

A rare or "orphan" disease is defined as one that affects fewer than 200,000 people in the United States. More than 6,000 rare disorders affect about 25 million Americans.

The site database lists more than 1,100 rare diseases, 2,000 support groups and 1,000 orphan drugs. It also provides special resources to physicians, including a handbook and research fellowship programs to increase awareness and early diagnosis of rare diseases.

Disease database

The Lightning Hypertext of Disease [www.pathinfo.com] is a free site that offers paying members additional services.

Targeted at health care professionals, the site allows you to enter a search query of any word or phrase.

More than 100,000 disease-related information packets are available, and the results can be read in English, German or Spanish. The site also features 9,000 pathology image links.

Sharpen your pathology skills by entering a disease or body system, then answering challenging multiple-choice questions on the topic. The quiz provides the correct answer.