Time again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative online destinations.
This week we feature a wide ranging source of health information from one of the world's most renown medical institutions.
EDWARDS: "MayoClinic.com is a free website produced by the Mayo Clinic that provides health information with tools and a variety of information for users to maintain healthy life and understand diseases that may affect them."
That's senior medical editor Dr. Brooks Edwards. At MayoClinic.com, you can learn about conditions that you, or perhaps a family member, have — diabetes, say, or asthma or depression. There is also a feature you can use if something is wrong, but you don't know what the problem is.
EDWARDS: "The symptom checker is a very popular feature on the site, and it does give the user an opportunity to work through a series of questions to try and hone down what could be the cause. Now, we don't necessarily make a diagnosis, but we, based on the answers to the questions, we give them a variety of information that could be causing their symptom."
That could help you decide whether you need to see your doctor. Obviously, neither MayoClinic.com nor any other website is a substitute for a trained physician, but as Dr. Edwards said, an informed patient is a better patient.
Although you may think of a health-related website as the place to go if you're feeling ill, there are also tools on MayoClinic.com to promote wellness.
EDWARDS: "We have a healthy living center that has fitness, food and nutrition, stress and working life centers. And these centers provide everything from tips for fitness and staying healthy to recipes for healthy deserts."
Those features, a Q&A section, and much more online at MayoClinic.com, or get the link from our site, voanews.com.