It is easy to meander around the various places on the World Wide Web (WWW) reading information on any topic or idea. It is becoming a central repository of what we know, and it is growing at a phenomenal rate. For better or for worse, this growth is, for the most part, uncontrolled. Comparing the WWW with a child's brain would be an appropriate analogy. There are millions of connections moving and processing information each day. Like a child, this stream of information is not organized or structured in a way that can be easily understood or assimilated.
Much as a child sizes up a complex series of social events, learns some information, but does not fully grasp the volume of data that transpires, this immature Web, full of numerous transactions and interactions, does not allow us to synthesize or organize all this volume of information better. To continue the analogy, when the child moves into adolescence and begins to understand the subtleties of social behavior, the Web will as it matures offer us a more organized approach to our interactions with this incredible network.
Currently, the Web is a toddler. Many of us are both excited and frustrated with our involvement with this new medium. We are frustrated because finding anything is a discovery process. A search can yield so much good—and bad—information; it is hard to differentiate the important from the trivial, and it is a time-consuming task to prioritize the data.
There are many websites, but few that you visit and say "This site is great, I want to come back and explore some more!" The reason for this may be that the Web is a remarkable democracy, in which all things are given equal standing—all the "real estate" has an equally valuable location. Good and bad, interesting and boring, mundane and bizarre, these sites all have addresses on the Web that are equally easy to visit. You may come across simple websites put together by an individual as a personal webpage, which may show a picture of the person, his/her educational background, research interests, resume, other favorite websites, or anything else of his/her choosing. There are tribute sites devoted to strange things, such as the "Pez Prozac" dispenser website. There are elaborate, well-funded websites for the medical profession such as Physicians Online.
A number of components contribute to making a good website interesting, informative, or entertaining. Sites based on better, more powerful computers or connections have a faster speed of access, that is, webpages that draw quickly and give you information quickly. Too many complex frames or graphics can make the WWW become the "World Wide Wait" as sites take forever to download/draw on your screen. Advertising is a fact of life on the Web, like most other media, and advertising can subsidize some wonderful free sites for the public, especially for physicians, but some of the advertising can be intrusive and jarring. Obnoxious animated graphics can run across the screen or tell you to spend money or to buy a product. Too many websites bombard you with every color ever created. A website should be easy to navigate and not so complex that you cannot even find the button to move onto the next page.
What follows is a highly subjective, arbitrary, and incomplete list of websites that we would recommend for you, the practicing psychiatrist, which you might find interesting and useful.
This site is a vast, well-planned, and frequently updated site that has a tremendous amount of information for today's psychiatrist. Here you will find everything, from the latest legislation that is important to know about, to information about upcoming meetings, conferences, and symposia. There is also a listing of the various national district branches that have a site of their own. There are too few, but the ones that are listed contain information relevant to your area. Not only are they excellent for announcements to help keep you updated, but also some have on-line journals or pertinent articles to read. This site is an important bookmark for your browser.
This site is a comprehensive information and news service for physicians. It requires registering (with your DEA number) to get the most out of the service, but it gives you free MEDLINE searches, full-text review articles, specialty-specific news, and probably the best psychiatry section of any Internet service to date.
This is our own Website, which was generated by popular demand. As we taught computer literacy and other more advanced courses to psychiatrists around the country, many asked us to offer some kind of service to enable our attendees to continue the educational process about computers and their ever-increasing uses for psychiatrists. Come visit us here.
This website is Dr. John Grohol's mental health page. It is described as "your personalized one-stop index for psychology, support, and mental health issues, resources, and people on the Internet." Psych Central offers countless links to other mental health websites, support groups, and news and chat groups.
This site was put together by Phillip W. Long, M.D., from Canada. The site offers psychopharmacological information, diagnostic information, and more. The site is described as a free encyclopedia of mental health information. It seems mostly aimed at the general public, but is a good resource as well for students, families of patients, and support groups.
Dr. Kramer is Assistant Director for Training, Arkansas Mental Health Research and Training Institute, Little Rock, AR; and Mr. Kennedy is Director of Fellowship Training and Director of Computing Services, Department of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY. Dr. Kramer's e-mail address is tamkmd@aol.com. Mr. Kennedy's e-mail address is kennedy@aecom.yu.edu.