A while back Gluten Free Mike was approached to be part of a new (and rather exciting) online venture of Harvard Medical School, the Stanford School of Medicine, The University of Michigan Medical School, the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, and other health organizations around the globe called Medpedia. Of course I jumped at the opportunity and am happy to be able to announce three exciting new services that are now in beta testing and invite all of my readers to check out the Medpedia Web site.

But first what exactly is Medpedia? Here is a description from the site itself:

The Medpedia Project is a long-term, worldwide project to evolve a new model for sharing and advancing knowledge about health, medicine and the body among medical professionals and the general public. This model is founded on providing a free online technology platform that is collaborative, interdisciplinary and transparent.

Users of the platform include physicians, consumers, medical and scientific journals, medical schools, research institutes, medical associations, hospitals, for-profit and non-profit organizations, expert patients, policy makers, students, non-professionals taking care of loved ones, individual medical professionals, scientists, etc.

There are community groups of interest across a wide-range of topics and conditions (Celiac included) where members can ask and answer questions helping other Celiacs on their journey and sharing new and relevant information.

Now for the new offerings (you can view the full press release here):

A News & Analysis section provides high-quality health and medical content sources and you will find a feed to the very blog you are reading right now (though, in the spirit of transparency you will notice my real name vs. my online alter ego but you will know it is me from my mug shot). I am in very good company (with both new and familiar faces) and encourage you to check out some of the other blogs and resources that were selected for inclusion. Medpedia Answers provides questions and answers relating to health, medicine, and the body – think real-time Q&A. Finally, Medpedia Alerts is an aggregator of health and medical news alerts from both organizations and community members so you can stay current on what is going on in your areas of interest.

I a proud and honored to be part of such a worthwhile initiative that can help raise awareness of Celiac disease and more importantly provide a sounding board for Celiacs to interact and share knowledge. The Celiac community really just scratches the surface of Medpedia’s offerings and there is a wealth of information across the spectrum of conditions and health interests.

I encourage you to take a tour of Medpedia and join the Celiac and other communities of interest. Hope to see you there.