Doctors often feel a bit threatened by the technobabble and management speak that can be associated with telemedicine. Happily these are absent from the Telemedicine Information Exchange, which is run by the Telemedicine Research Center in Portland, Oregon. The site has a number of useful features including a searchable bibliography of 12 877 references on telemedicine (200 hits for “psychiatry”, 47 for “neurosurgery”, and a paltry 42 for “neurology”). A good proportion of these do not show up on Pubmed.

The rather cryptically named Telemed 101 section aims to be a beginner’s guide to starting a telemedicine service and contains some useful overviews of what telemedicine actually is. There is a list of established telemedicine programmes worldwide that, because it relies on self-notification, is probably incomplete.

The Meetings section allows you to see if the programme for that idyllic sounding meeting on the Ligurian coast in June can possibly justify your attendance. Other sections deal with legal aspects, equipment vendors, and jobs vacant—a true global marketplace. There are good links to the telemedicine journals, and to other telemedicine related sites. My personal favourite is the What’s New section, which provides twice monthly news updates from around the world and is an eclectic mix of cutting edge and gossip. And you can receive it free by email.

This is a well kept and regularly updated website with the human touch of Nancy Brown, librarian, enthusiast, and telemedicine pioneer. It provides as good an overview of telemedicine as you will get anywhere, and is well worth a look.