Advocates for Independent Medicine
Knowledge Empowers
Pardon the mess. This site is still under construction
Do you get enough time with your doctor?
Do you know the right questions to ask?
Do you fret about the cost?
Does the system set you adrift at times?
Where do you get reliable medical information?
...
Have you made a great discovery to share with others: a product, a service, a discount, a doctor?
What is Independent Medicine?
We promote self-directed medical care. This doesn’t mean you don’t see doctors or don’t take their advice.
W suggest the following:
Understand
Learn how to handle
Check out the
Medical Information
Like it’s name implies, this is a dictionary, so it is good for a brief explanation, for instances of words you don’t recognize in your CAT scan report rather than for an in depth discussion of a significant medical problem.
Published by the National Library of Medicine, i.e. part of the National Institutes of Health within the Department of Human Services, i.e. paid for by your tax dollars, so it is free, and you should take advantage of it. I think most of the information here is as good as you can get, but you can always check alternative sources. I would start here, however, and not with a Google search. My goal is not to duplicate all of this knowledge, but rather to teach the critical thinking needed to use all of this information.
Perhaps the most widely used database by physicians. It covers just about all of medicine. It is updated every 3 months. I believe, it provides a very balanced opinion. These days it can be hard to find both sides of an argument. Except for COVID, UpToDate is a good place to look for a point counterpoint. It is very pricey unless you have a company that buys you a subscription or you use it every day like I do. For non-practitioners, they have a $20 rate for 7 days of access. Save up your questions for the whole family, then sign up for seven days and do all of your searches in a week. You can read the simplified versions for lay readers, or better, read the entire discussion that is written for practicing physicians - then you will get your money’s worth. You might need to print it out so you can re-read it or you might need some help interpreting it from a physician.
As they say, “PubMed® comprises more than 40 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.” Like MedlinePlus, it is also supported by your tax dollars. The site is free, but the problem is often you can only get the abstract (short summary) and not the full paper without paying a hefty fee. Where as MedlinePlus is written for lay readers, Pub Med is a catalogue of the medical literature - peer reviewed papers containing the raw data that physicians and scientists use to make medical decisions. As such, without years of experience in a particular field (and even with) it can be difficult to interpret a paper and to determine if it pertains to a particular case. As with a Google search, you can get thousands of articles, so it can be difficult to find a clear-cut answer. However, the articles referenced in Pub Med, not Fauci, are Science.
I recommend:
📜Download this free PDF How to read a CBC.pdf468.9 KB
How to read a CBC.pdf
468.9 KB
© 2025 by Mid-Atlantic Medical Consulting, dba Advocates for Independent Medicine
AIM Precepts
Individuals have the right to make their own health care decisions.
Individuals should have a personal physician whom they can trust to help interpret medical data for them. This means physicians who can devote to their patients 45 minutes per visit instead of 7 minutes.
Our society should return to the old model where science and medicine were non-partisan and where free and open discussion was allowed, indeed encouraged.
AIM believes that the internet and artificial intelligence will do the same for medicine that the internet did for financial services. Compared with the 1980's, individuals can now manage their own finances, buy their own stocks, and find the information they need to make the decisions that are right for them personally.
Disclaimer
Some things I write or say may seem like medical advice, but actually they are not. The opinions, data, and recommendations on this site are for general information only. AIM does not mean to replace advice from your personal physicians who have access to all of your medical information, who have examined you, and who have assessed any signs or symptoms you might have over time. Any medical information provided on this site is geared towards making you a more informed consumer: better able to recognize quality health care when you see it; better able to decide when or how soon you need medical evaluation for a new problem; and better able to ask incisive questions that will push your physicians to a deeper analysis of your medical situation and clearer explanations to you.
