Surgery Help
Medicine www.g3pub.com 2008 59 W EB H ELP FOR S URGERY by John Latta Truckers facing operations will get the best internet help on professional, not commercial, websites H ealth care can be one of the most challenging problems for trucker to handle. For a trucker, consider-ing surgery means perhaps making one of the most diffi cult choices they will ever have to make. Like many people without the luxury of endless time with the doctors of your choice, be it because that option is too expensive or because you are unable to schedule the meetings, turning to the in-ternet has become a common option. But how to know if what you are find-ing is something you should rely on? Only some Web sites provide patients with reliable information before having an operation. A new study shows profes-sional society websites free of commer-cial sponsorship provide highest quality information. New research published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons shows unsponsored and professional society web sites provide signifi cantly higher quality information about common elective surgi-cal procedures compared with commer-cially sponsored Web sites. In addition, the study's authors say that providing patients with technical search terms may increase the likelihood of obtaining reliable surgical information on the internet. The quality of content on health-related continued on page 63 SurgeryWEb_G31208.indd 59 11/20/08 4:02:18 PM