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Newsgroups, which are also called Internet Discussion Groups, function like electronic worldwide bulletin boards. In a newsgroup you can post or view messages or reply to someone else's. There are many newsgroups for infertile couples, including: alt.infertility, alt.infertility.primary, alt.infertility.secondary, alt.adoption and misc.health.infertility. You can use Deja News (www.dejanews.com) to find the one of interest to you. LISTSERVS, also called mailing lists, are a way of communicating with others via email on various topics of interest. To search for a particular LISTSERV topic go to www.liszt.com. You'll find there's a support group in cyberspace for just about any medical problem, ranging from miscarriage to endometriosis, and instead of being limited to a few local patients, you can communicate with dozens of people going through the same things you are. The Internet also provides a safe cloak of anonymity, so you never need to reveal your identity. There are now many online communities of infertile couples, who network with each other, and provide much needed emotional support and practical information. A good example of such a support group, which uses bulletin boards to allow couples to "talk" to each other, is at www.fertilethoughts.net. You can post your message online, read about other's problems - and offer advice as well!
If you have been able to identify an expert on your problem, it is also possible to send him an email directly, and he may then reply to you. You can find email addresses of doctors through a little bit of lateral thinking. For example, many leading infertility clinics have websites that list the names, addresses and emails of their faculty members. Also, many authors of medical journal articles (which you can find on the Medline database) now include their email addresses along with their institutional address.
If you want to find out information that is on the cutting edge of research, or read articles that have appeared in medical journals, then you need to search the Medline database. This Medline database (maintained by the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, USA at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/) is the best way of retrieving medical information today. This database has over 10 million references, and indexes all articles published in reputed medical journals from all over the world. It's quite easy to learn to do a Medline search and there is plenty of online help available as well!
Once you've found the information, how do you evaluate it? This is still the most difficult part of searching for medical information, and unfortunately many patients become misinformed, thanks to the Net. The problem, of course, is anyone can publish on the net - and it's not easy to make out whether the information being presented is credible or not! A good website should be accurate, useful, credible, readable, up-to-date and have useful links to other sites - but the most important guideline is to find the source of the information!
© Dr. Aniruddha Malpani and Dr. Anjali Malpani www.drmalpani.com
Credits: How to Have a Baby: Overcoming Infertility
