[...] in the real world, many people lack the money or time to visit a doctor every time they have a question (and there aren't enough medical professionals to individually answer every person's every query, anyway). "Healthcare consumers need to be savvy about where and how they source their information," says Guillaume Van Moorsel, director of the Health Sciences Library at Stamford Hospital. Well-informed healthcare consumers are likely to have better clinical outcomes (and better health status in general) than those who are poorly informed. According to Caroline Marshall, health services librarian for the Western Connecticut Healthcare Network, There's a lot of health information on the Internet. [...] how can an ordinary person without specialized medical knowledge tell the difference? Does the site make promises: quick, dramatic, instant results? A miracle cure based on secret ingredients, a pharmaceutical company trying to sell drugs? Under no circumstances should you take advice from any site offering the chance to get prescription medication online if you don't already have a prescription; this not only can get you into legal trouble, but endanger your health as well. Type almost any symptom or medical condition into a search engine, and you'll find online support groups for people who suffer from it. Van Moorsel recommends anyone seeking online medical advice stick to sites certified by the Health on the Net Foundation, found at www.hon.ch., which he called an independent organization that certifies given health-related websites comply with the eight principles of the HON Code of Conduct. Even before the rise of the Internet, there was no shortage of books and other print publications filled with either honest mistakes or outright quackery. No matter how accurate and up-to-date your online medical resource is, always leave room for the conclusion: "This problem's too big for the Internet; I need to see a doctor."