When I'm not writing Mac articles for MakeUseOf, I'm a full-time medical student and I have to say that life as a medical student is insufferably horrible. We commute to hospitals to attend tutorials; and in our spare time, we study. It's not because we're extremely hardworking, I wish I was - no, it's rather because Medicine is a life-long learning process. Even after we graduate, we still have to hit the books.
Besides being a persevering medical student, I'm also addicted to the Web. And so, whenever I can get myself away from my books, I'll be online to find more sources of study material. Here are some of the better sites for medical students I've managed to come up with so far:
MedicalStudent [No Longer Available]
You will find a huge repository of free online medical textbooks along with links to other helpful and informative websites regarding Continuing Medical Eduction (CME) & Board Exams, free medical journals, programs for handheld computers (Palm, Windows), professional medical organizations/societies and patient simulations. This is the "all-in-one" site for every medical student.
MedicalMatrix
Similar to MedicalStudent, this medical site is a source of links to all free (and paid) online textbooks, medical journals, CME and lots more. MedicalMatrix is more thorough and offers specific links based on specialty i.e. clicking on Gastroenterology will return links to textbooks, journals, news, practice guidelines, cases, image repositories, CME, forums and patient education regarding Gastroenterology only.
FreeBookCentre - Medical Books
This site doesn't only provide free e-books for Medicine, it also includes books for Computer Sciences, Web Technology, Languages and Networking among many others. Their medical database is divided by specialty and comprises of textbooks, handbooks, guidelines, manuals, and journals.
Student Book World
Student Book World is actually a project which aims to catalogue and compare the prices of every book available, in order to allow their readers to find the books at the cheapest prices online. Fortunately, they also have a sizable collection of free e-books related to Medicine.
NCBI Bookshelf
The National Center for Biotechnology Information was established as a resource for molecular biology information, so this is a great source for Biomedical books related to topics like Viral Molecular Biology, Bacterial Nomenclature and Biochemistry. However, their library is slowly expanding to include books about General Medicine and Surgery such as Immunobiology, Human Molecular Genetics, Neuroscience, Parkinson's Disease and many others. The NCBI also provides a few books in handheld (MobiPocket) format.
The Merck Manuals
The Merck Manuals for Healthcare Professionals is completely available online for free. The Manuals are basically a series of healthcare books for doctors on Diagnosis and Therapy based on disorders. There is also a version targeted at consumers for home medical reference.
eMedicine
eMedicine is undoubtedly one of the most concise, free medical references available online. Its website has been upgraded recently to feature printer-friendly pages and quicker navigation. All of their articles cover every aspect of both Internal Medicine and Surgery and are extensively peer-reviewed before publication.
The New England Journal of Medicine
The NEJM is a collection of every one of their publications since 1996 and covers almost every known disorder.
RCGP Medical Abbreviations
The Royal College of General Practitioners published an online listing of some of the main standardized abbreviations that may be used when writing patient medical records. These abbreviations come in very handy because most doctors will use them when speaking.
Online Medical Dictionaries
The two most popular medical dictionaries which are Dorlands and Stedmans can be found and referred to online so that you won't have to clumsily flip through those pages or worse, carry them with you wherever you go.
Medical Mnemonics
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Medicine is extremely taxing and difficult to study. There are hundreds of classifications to memorize and terms to familiarize ourselves with. Mnemonics make it just a little bit easier to remember these little details. MedicalMnemonics is a database just for this. It has online, printable and handheld versions (Palm only) of the database ready at your disposal.
Medical students, I hope you find this listing helpful in your studies. It certainly has helped me along the way. I don't think I could have survived without eMedicine and a printout of MedicalMnemonics by my side.
If there are any more medical sites for students out there that you know about, please share it with all of us in the comments!