I have shut down this thread about medical websites.  There are a lot of good medical websites mentioned below.  Thank you.  If you still would like to tell us of a medical website, please do so by starting a new Thread.

WebMD at http://www.webmd.com is the most popular medical website, but some say it is not the best. Does anyone know of a better medical website?
I have been to many but they usually lack in one area or another. The areas that I see as important are diagnosing the ailment, describing illnesses, and explaining treatments.
WebMD seems to do a good job with all of these areas if you know where to find them on the website and if you can put up with all of the advertisements.

You might want to try http://www.medscape.com/home. Lots of info. There is a medical practioners' section, as well.

A bit off-topic but I hope relevant:

I've used the net to research numerous medical conditions over the past several years. Although I could not name a 'catch-all' site necessarily better than those posted, I prefer searching on the specific condition or symptom(s) to find sites which specialize in what I am seeking. As a result of such searches, I have found enough hits to keep me busy for hours and most importantly I have located the information I needed.

Examples: Searching on lump bottom foot led me to podiatrynetwork.com, arch-pain.com, drfoot (in uk), & more. Searching on malignant melanoma brain tumor or even just on brain tumor yielded a wealth of information from which I learned to refine my search parameters.

hth

As indicated above, I don't think there is a single best medical site.  Medicine is too broad for that so I try to find specialty areas.  For example, as an older person, I take about 16 Rx and OTC medications and am interested in drug interactions.  I find that http://www.drugdigest.com is very good allowing you to compare any number of drugs  with the ability to print the results.  It also provides all the information about the medication that is contained in the package insert.

Using this information, I made a spreadsheet listing the drugs vertically and horizontally (a matrix) in which each block is color coded. Serious interactions are purple, moderates are a medium red, minor reactions are pink, and no interactions are green.  You'll be surprised at what you find  

   Thank you for your posts so far.  Good information.  Here are my comments to the above postings.
   seeker1 - It looks like Medscape is a part of WebMD.
   shana - Searching is a good way to find information if you know what you are looking for.  I have found it helpful to first go to a medical website and find out what the illness or treatment is called and then search for that.
   crgaush - I also would like to know about good specialty areas like that, so thanks.

   If anyone else knows any good medical websites please let me know.  I plan on compiling the results and writing an article for a future newsletter.

Shana makes an excellent point.  Many times searching on a description of the ailment as described (lump bottom foot) provides a number of choices.  Many branches or disciplines in the medical field have their own web site with lots of board member submissions.  As it is the nature of the Internet to provide too much information, patience is required because you will often need to filter through a lot of information and web sites.

Sites that I often go into right away are http://www.mayoclinic.com/ where you can sign up for a useful news letter email; http://www.wellnessmd.com has its uses.

I use http://www.surgerydoor.co.uk run by a practising doctor in Stroud, Glos.UK. It has links to follow if you want to research a topic in depth.

Have a look at The Merck Manual http://www.merck.com/mmhe/index.html.

I use several medical info sites,but most require a subscription
Try http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/

I forgot about this one which you may find better than nelh.nhs.uk
Try http://www.escriber.com/Escriber/TandC.asp

http://www.medscape.com

kind of technical but used by a lot of doctors.  very little commercialism here.  very scientific.  no foldlore or wives tales here.

http://www.askapatient.com

Great resource for "patient" responses to experiences with various drugs.  For instance, if you use Toprol-XL, you'll find a lot of information about reactions that patients have had that might aid you in determining your reactions to that particular drug.

http://www.drmirkin.com has a great many reports covering common problems.  Dr. Mirkin writes in plain English, and unlike may other websites that provide medical advice, provides references to accredited, peer-reviewed medical journals to support his views.  This is very useful if you want to print and take one of his reports to your own physician.  In addition, there are archives of more than one hundred hours of his coast-to-coast radio show, which he discontinued after more than 25 years on the air.

I'm into prevention and trying to live healthy, so these web sites I'm recommending are a bit controversial for most people, but I can spend hours reading from them.  http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/index.htm and http://www.doctoryourself.com   http://prevention.com and http://vegsource.com

The best site for me (as a physician) is emedicine.com.  Very up to date and very detailed.  It is written for physicians (and NPs, RNs etc) so the discussion can get pretty technical.  To use it go to google search and enter "condition emedicine" (example: influenza emedicine).  The search will usually show what you are looking for as the first pick.  BTW, the site is free.