A surgeon acquaintance of mine is planning a personal website, to
cover his professional work and, to a lesser extent, his personal
interests. His specialist field is hernia repairs, both research
orientated, and practical; based in the UK. I have been trying to find
similar sites to give him some ideas, but without finding too much of
reasonable quality. Can anyone help with some excellent examples?
English language preferably, but no country preference. Thanks.

---

Request for Question Clarification by voila-ga on 27 May 2004 06:40 PDT

Hi kosgoda,

The only two links I have bookmarked that might be tangentially in the
ballpark are:
http://www.doctorspage.net/otherdoc.asp  
{I'm not sure if you've browsed these already and I don't know how
many are surgeons with home pages.  It will take a bit of sifting
through these links.}

and 

http://www.medrants.com/archives
Quite a few docs are also bloggers and have blogs attached to their
home page.  That might be an option for your friend to consider.

Here's a website for a group practice in Pennsylvania:
http://hernia.tripod.com/faculty.html 
{they monitor this hernia discussion board}
http://members3.boardhost.com/NorthPennHernia

Garth Ballantyne, M.D. in New Jersey who discusses robotics in hernia surgery:
http://www.lapsurgery.com/index.htm

Neither site will run away with any design awards but there's quite a
bit of information stored inside.

Researchers also really appreciate knowing which sites you've found
already so we don't duplicate your work.  Would you mind providing us
with that information?

Thanks!
V

---

Clarification of Question by kosgoda-ga on 27 May 2004 09:45 PDT

Hello voila

The problem I had with searching with the obvious keywords (hernia,
research, etc.) was that it produced many university departments and
commercial hernia repair clinics with interesting bios of their staff,
but not really what I?m after. Personal sites are rare but examples
include:

http://www.harley-street108.co.uk/Pages/gh.htm

http://www.london-urology.co.uk/index.html

A model site for both research and personal interests would be:

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/

and this could be an excellent example to use, although not medical -
just overflowing with ideas and leads.

One way of proceeding would be to show my surgeon a range of sites
dealing with hernia surgery, to get a taste for the standard on the
web, and then a parallel range of academic sites, similar to Dr Mackay
above, and then leave him to it. I would say, however, that in North
America there does seem to be a lead with these personal sites, and in
the UK academics may be a little shy of this approach.

---

Clarification of Question by kosgoda-ga on 27 May 2004 10:44 PDT

Voila
And I would like to add my thanks for your leads, which I have found
really interesting, and opening a load of new ideas.

---

Request for Question Clarification by voila-ga on 28 May 2004 07:43 PDT

Americans, shy?  Never, but we are quite lovable amidst the braggadocio. ;-)

I'm glad the links were helpful.  I work peripherally with some of
these knuckleheads six days a week so I'm a bit burned out on
healthcare and use Google Answers as an escape from DocWorld.   A
couple more ideas and then I'm afraid I'll have to bail since I'm not
coming up with much either.

There are a ton of search engines, some that I've listed here, so I'd
switch out your engine to snag the odd fish.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=318328

Freesearch in the UK is also very good.
http://www.freesearch.co.uk

When I've been stuck a time or two, I've written the
cybrarian/webmaster at mdexpress for ideas.  If there is a collection
of physician homepages, I'm thinking she'd be the lady to ask.  It's
definitely worth a shot.   I try not to abuse her too often. ;-)
http://www.mdexpress.com

Michael Bailey's very dignified site is the only additional one I
found from geometry.net.
http://www.geometry.net/health_conditions/hernia.php
http://www.profmichaelbailey.com

My pleasure to have helped this far and good luck!
V

---

Request for Question Clarification by aceresearcher-ga on 02 Jun 2004 13:14 PDT

kosgoda,

I've forwarded to Researcher voila-ga several additional links, and
I'm hoping that you'll ask her to pull everything she's already done
together with them and post the result as an Answer, since I believe
that she's more than earned the fee for this Question.

Thanks,

aceresearcher

---

Clarification of Question by kosgoda-ga on 05 Jun 2004 01:17 PDT

Aceresearcher - sorry for the delay, but have been sampling my
surgeon's skills at first hand....

What you say makes absolute sense, and I totally agree. Adding your
links would sew it up for me (so to speak)and more than happy to
accept this has an answer. I have to admit, being new to GA, not sure
about the etiquette involved in steering a comment/clarification
towards an answer.

K

Greetings again, Kosgoda!

Please don't feel uncomfortable etiquette-wise on Google Answers.  I 
stumbled around a bit myself finding a happy medium between a 
customer's expectations and what I can actually deliver.  Researchers 
tend to proceed cautiously until we can get an agreement in place -- 
especially on subjective questions and those requiring a satisfactory 
number.

The site closest to your model would have to be Dr. Thomas Fogarty's 
but, wouldn't you know it, it seems to be off line today. It's 
probably because it coincides with the release of his new Pinot Noir 
this weekend.  I did check out his site last week and it was quite an 
impressive array of Dr. Fogarty's clinical skills, research areas, 
awards, and his personal interests.  His site is bathed in a burgundy 
wine color (go figure!) and is very well designed.

Thomas Fogarty's Rapley Trail Pinot Noir Release Weekend
June 5th & 6th.
Come sample our new vineyard designated pinots.
1:00pm to 4:00pm
No Charge for Members. Very limited wines...two separate bottlings.
Please contact the winery for more information at 650-851-6777 or info@
fogartywinery.

Dr. Fogarty is quite the renaissance man.  Besides being an renowned 
cardiovascular surgeon, he is an inventor, owner of several 
(including the winery), a guest lecturer, and an experienced fly 
fisherman.  That last talent helped him to realize one of his 
inventions -- an ultra-thin balloon which is tied with a fishing knot 
to a standard catheter and pushed through an artery to the occlusion 
and inflated once in place.

His hernia 'connection' is that he is also the co-founder of General 
Surgical Innovations who developed dissection systems for minimally 
invasive hernia repair under the trademark SPACEMAKER®.

GSI's SPACEMAKER® II visually aided balloon dissector helps facilitate 
minimally invasive surgical procedures such as laparoscopic hernia 
repair. The surgeon uses the SPACEMAKER® device to create a surgical 
working space between tissue layers in the abdominal wall. Once the 
space has been created, the surgeon is able to use minimally invasive 
techniques to reduce the hernia and reinforce the muscle layers in the 
abdominal wall. This method is less traumatic than other alternatives 
and returns the patient more quickly to normal activity.

http://www.fogarty-md.com
http://www.fogartywinery.com
http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/fogarty.html

I'm certain his site will be back online very soon and you can judge for 
yourself.

==============================

Also here is the website for Carson Liu, M.D.  He performs mostly 
bariatric surgery, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and LAP-BAND® procedures, 
but he seemed to have a good mix of practice information, research 
interests, and procedure descriptions.
http://lasurgery.online.md/index.cgi

==============================

In the meantime, I've found (with acresearcher's kind assistance) a 
variety of personal websites from across the globe -- most from 
U.S., a few from Britian, a couple from Australia, India, and one from 
Germany.  Many of them don't have the personal information you were 
interested in though.  I can only assume that physicians want to keep 
their public and private lives separate.

I looked at and excluded from this list those with only practice
information and 'meet our staff' sites.  Each has a different take on
hernia repair and might spark a few ideas for your friend's website.

===============================

Robert Kugel, M.D.
http://www.herniatreatmentcenter.com/homepage.html
http://www.kugelpatch.com/questions.htm

Dr. Namir Katkhouda
http://laparoscopicsurgeon-online.com/photos_of_actual_laparoscopic_p.htm

Peter Fan
http://www.lap-hernia.com

Edward G. Chekan, M.D.
http://www.edwardchekanmd.com

John Rogers, M.D.
http://www.jrogers.doctors.org.uk/index.html

J. Barry McKernan, M.D., Ph.D.
http://www.mindspring.com/~videosur/home.html

Barry C. Kaufmann M.D.
http://www.surgerybk.com/index.html

Mr. Harvey Minasian MS
http://www.general-surgery.co.uk
linking to Mr. John A Lynn:  http://www.endocrinesurgeon.co.uk

Dr. George Fielding
http://www.georgefielding.com.au/index.asp

David J Phillips, M.B., B.S., F.R.C.S. (Ed) F.R.A.C.S.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/davidjphillips
http://www.herniaclinicbrisbane.com.au

Robert Sewell, M.D.
http://www.robertsewellmd.com/index.htm

Arnaldo F. Trabucco, MD, FACS
http://www.institute-md.com/pages/561391/index.htm
http://www.urologychannel.com/trabucco/index.shtml
http://members.aol.com/DrUrology1

Steven I. Becker, M.D.
http://www.thesurgerycenter.net

Michael Van den Bossche, M.D., FICS
http://www.lapband.co.uk/dsp_e.htm

George Ferzli, M.D.
http://www.drferzli.com

Eckhard Löhde, M.D.
http://www.groin-hernia-operation.de/index.htm

Dr. A. Ramamoorthy, M.S
http://www.laparoscopichernia.com/index.htm

Adam Naaman, M.D., F.A.C.S.
http://www.drnaaman.com

Dr. Mohan P. Desarda
http://www.geocities.com/desarda/index.htm

Jonathan P. Yunis M.D. (one of the first U.S. physicians to use TiMESH)
http://www.centerforherniarepair.com/index.html
http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?section_id=45&document_id=7555

===============================

I threw in this one surgical group from Florida because I liked their 
'click on photo' feature link to each physicians' bio.  Knowing zilch 
about web design, that click/pop-up feature fascinates me, but I admit 
to being easily amused.
http://www.hernia-institute.com

===============================

Also here are a few major clinic listings:

Shouldice Hernia Centre
http://www.shouldice.com/index.htm

London Hernia Clinic
http://www.thelondonherniaclinic.co.uk/home.htm

Clinic of Digestive Surgery
http://www.lap-surgery.com/en/default.htm

===============================

I hope this is enough of an overview of what's out there hernia-wise 
and assists your friend in making web design choices.  

As far as a search criteria, I really followed some of my own advice
and started switching out search engines.  Once I got started, I
couldn't stop!
The most luck I had was with brainspot: http://www.brainespot.com 
trying these word combinations: hernia/hernias/herniorraphy/
hernioplasty, laparoscopic, research, publications, M.D., D.O., 
general surgeon, mesh, mesh-plug, and patch.

Here is acerearcher's:

hernia OR hernias inurl:"md.com"
://www.google.com/search?q=hernia+OR+hernias+inurl%3A%22md.com%22

We had a group effort on this one, so thanks to Ace, Pinkfreud, and 
snsh-ga for gettin' 'er done.

Best regards,
V

Many thanks for an excellent answer (and many thanks from the whole
team regarding comments, clarifications etc.)

dmoz has sites:

http://dmoz.org/Health/Conditions_and_Diseases/Digestive_Disorders/Intestinal/Hernias/Surgery/Surgeons_and_Clinics/

Snsh - that's a seriously useful reference, and gives some excellent
links - thanks; however I'm still keen to find definitive personal
sites in the medical arena - they're just not easy to find at my level
of expertise.....

Here is a website for a hernia clinic in Ohio whose surgical staff
appears to consist of one surgeon, Dr. David Grischkan:

http://www.herniasurgeries.com/

Pinkfreud - great site - many thanks for that; any surgeon who has
done 10,000 hernia ops has to be worth reading.

Voila
Many thanks again, will carry on with the search....
Kosgoda

You're most welcome, Kosgoda, and don't give up on us yet.  I know of
at least one other researcher who's looking with you as well.

I'm sure you'd like quality over quantity, but could you give us an
idea how many sites would constitute an adequate, yet diverse,
sampling for you?  We'll do our darndest to match them against your
model site to ensure a harmonious fit, but this research has been
difficult for us as well.  I hope that makes you feel better. ;-)

Looking forward to hearing from you,
V

Voila, I'm more than happy with this answer, please excuse the delay
(reason above). If there's any chance of adding aceresearcher's links
that would be great; in any case, please convert to a 'formal' answer
and I'll tidy up the Google procedures at my end.

Greetings, kosgoda, and thanks for asking voila-ga to post her Answer!

Here are a few more sites which don't meet your parameters as well as
the ones listed above, but which may be useful for obtaining ideas:

James A Goodyear, MD, FACS
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Oasis/4588 

Stephen L Barker, MD
http://www.drbarkermd.com 

Ala E Imam, MD
http://www.imam-md.com 

W Brad Wilson, MD
http://www.bradwilson-md.com 

Frederick P Loy, MD, FACS
http://www.frederick-loy-md.medem.com 
 
Dwayne M Hansen, MD, FACS
https://rexburgsurgery.online.md 

I also had luck with this Search Strategy (which eliminates a lot of
the sites belonging to big clinics and university hospitals):

hernia surgeon -institute -site:.org -site:.edu 
://www.google.com/search?q=hernia+surgeon+-institute+-site%3A.org+-site%3A.edu 


Best Wishes!

ace

Until it comes back online, here's an archived copy of Dr. Fogarty's
website from June 22, 2003 (may be a little slower to load):

http://web.archive.org/web/20030622102155/http://fogarty-md.com

Thanks, Ace!  I knew there was a backdoor archive somewhere.  And his
site isn't either burgundy.  I must've been drinking that day.  Maybe
his updated site is burgundy or maybe that was his surf-to vinter
page.  Frankly, it's all one herniastic blur. ;-)  I appreciate your
help, kiddo!

Thanks for the great rating and tip, kosgoda.  Hope you found many
useful ideas among those sites.

Best regards,
V