NETLINES

• Medical mnemonics are always useful, and generations of medical students have been greatly helped by them. So check out www.medicalmnemonics.com for a combination of amusement, education, and a healthy collection of mnemonics. Its database can be searched, browsed, and also enhanced with donations of other suitable mnemonics. The browse function gives you a bird's eye view of the whole compilation. The home page is elegantly designed, and the site as a whole is easy to navigate, making a visit a pleasurable experience.

• Although the web is a global medium, it can be used by local health groups to communicate with each other and their target patients. One such example is a website edited by a group of diabetes health professionals in the Yorkshire area (www.yorkshirediabetes.com). The site is a portal for health professionals and patients in the locality and contains a healthy array of relevant material and information. This includes descriptions of the diabetes units in the area, news, events, articles, and guidelines, to name a few of the microsites hosted here. It also has a good collection of links.

• Deep within the excellent virtual hospital website lies the Emergency Psychiatry Service Handbook (www.vh.org/adult/provider/emergencymedicine/Psychiatry/TOC.html). This page gives hypertext links to the subsections of this virtual book. Four major segments are available that would be of interest to a wide group of practitioners. It is not a large book, and in fact it is possible to read the whole thing on screen from start to finish. If this is not enough, links at the bottom of the page take you to other relevant sections in the host website.

• A commercial company hosts the “Medcyclopaedia” (www.amershamhealth.com/medcyclopaedia), an encyclopaedia of medical imaging topics. The home page states that 17 000 topics and over 8000 images are available, making it an in-depth resource. Access to the database is easy: you can use either the site's search engine or click through an alphabetical index. Overall, the facility is simple to use, the home page is uncluttered, and doctors can get access to a premium edition, which is free of charge.

• A UK based headache clinic at www.headache.exeter.nhs.uk has established a useful online presence. The home page clearly tells the reader about the site and the service. From the well designed home page it is easy to find your way around. Two sections have broad appeal—management guidelines and patient handouts—and there is a section for health professionals wishing to refer patients to the service, together with a links page. This is a small but compact site that packs in practical and easily accessible material.