Patient Education

A valuable and unique source of timely, trusted and credible public health information on healthy living, disease and injury prevention.

Offered as a service of the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, this database offers access to over-the-counter and prescription drug information and is Drugs can be searched by generic or brand names.

Provides latest news and top stories on heath topics around the globe, disease outbreak news, fact sheets, data & research, and other resources.

This website is by The American Academy of Family Physicians. It has a list of conditions from A-Z, linking to full-text pamphlets.

Expert answers on in-depth topics.

Health tips and articles on popular consumer health topics from Harvard Medical School.

Simple, clear health information on many topics in almost 20 languages.

Good, evidence-based source of information from the UK.

From CAPHIS, the consumer and patient health information section of the Medical Library Assocation.

US Department of Health and Human Services

"Information to help keep you and your family safe and healthy." From product recalls to consumer products, nutrition info and environmental safety, a broad range of interesting topics.

Provides health care information and a place to discuss Canada’s health care systems.

Plain language summaries of reviews that systematically look at all studies on specific health topics.

Systematic reviews on public health issues.

Comprehensive site about prescription medications. The site is not affiliated with any manufacturer. It provides up-to-date medical health information for health professionals, patients and their families. A well trusted site as it is continuously reviewed and provides well referenced sources from government, medical journals, and FDA drug label information, just to name a few. Provides tailored services such as: answers to your specific questions about your medication, orders for free medication comparisons, and orders for free list of medications. Provides an index of common medications (drug monographs).

Ask who is sponsoring the website, when the website was last updated, if the website presents facts rather than opinions, and who is the intended audience. These tips are from the Medical Library Association.

Many of our patient pamphlets are also indexed in public library catalogues around Nova Scotia.

MUHC Patient Education Office works with interprofessional teams of clinical content experts (including nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, pharmacists, nutritionists and others), healthcare educators, and artists to help patients to make informed decisions with their healthcare teams.

HealthReach, from the US National Library of Medicine, allows you to search for patient education materials by language, topic, and format (audio, video, document). It gives an A-Z list of topics.

From the Medical Library Association, a list of abbreviations healthcare professionals use.

This guide, created by OpenLab, University Health Network in Toronto in consultation with patients, includes information about the language of hospitals and explanations of common staff roles, in addition to useful checklists and other information to help you prepare for a hospital stay as well as going home.

A vocabulary guide of essential terms in Health Science created by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.