- Family Doctor

www.familydoctor.org

The most common medical concerns seen by family doctors – heart disease, diabetes, skin rashes, asthma, flu shots, mono, stomach aches and many more – are authoritatively covered on this website, all in simple English (with some content in Spanish too). Doctors with the American Academy of Family Physicians write or review all articles to help ensure accuracy.

The site features some practical advice sections, including the Smart Patient Guide, with articles on “Choosing a Family Doctor,” “Talking to Your Doctor,” “Insurance Coverage” and “Medical Errors,” among other topics. The Health Tools section can help locate a doctor, calculate your body mass index (BMI), or calculate the calories you burn while jogging.

The Over-the-Counter Guide explains the various types of OTC medicines and their risks, if any, for certain patient groups. For example, there’s an article on the two kinds of cough medicines you can buy at the drugstore: antitussives and expectorants. The article explains how they differ, and even raises the question of whether you should take cough syrup at all (most of the time, no, the author says.)

The site offers sections on Healthy Living, with articles on “First Aid,” “Quitting Smoking” and many others; Parents & Kids (“Earaches,” “Vomiting & Diarrhea,” “Toilet Training”); Women (“Birth Control,” “STDs”); Men (“Impotence,” “Testicular Cancer”); and Seniors (“Arthritis,” “Memory Loss”).

The top of the home page offers a directory to Conditions A to Z. Clicking a link here takes you to a long article on the topic, or in some cases to a page full of links to many articles on the topic. There’s also Today’s Health Tip, What’s Popular (the top five subjects on the site) and What’s New (recent article additions).

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), operator of this site, is a national medical organization that represents more than 93,700 family physicians, family practice residents and medical students.

Last modified: 20 Sep 2006.