Obtaining health-related information when at home is easy, but how do travelers and people living overseas cope when they have language difficulties?
An obvious, but often overlooked initial source of medical information in this situation is still the Internet. I have not visited a foreign country in recent years (including underdeveloped ones) where there were no Internet Cafes. English language speakers have a great advantage because most medical terms are either Latin or close derivations from Latin words. Once on the Net, you can translate the important terms into any language. Armed with a background of the important terms, symptoms and questions to ask, the traveler can then head to a local doctor.
Barry Hardy reports in The Ferryman about how the UK's National electronic Library for Health is enabling broadly increased access to quality healthcare information in the UK.
A US source of healthcare information, not only for travelers, is provided by the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.
Internet access to educational and healthcare information is vital for developing countries, where for some people this might be the only source of reliable information. With the important social role of the Internet in mind, how can the US Government's wish to control use of the Internet be a thought even worth contemplating?
