Objectives

Decide Where you Want to Host the Site

There are many alternative to choose from, from free and mundane to expensive but classy. We will start with the free ones.

Free: Version One (For Physicians who are members of AAOS, US or International)

The AAOS has launched its new Patient - Public Information Web Site (Your Orthopaedic Connection) and Personal Physician Web Sites for its members. Information concerning these new sites is listed under the Member Services part of the AAOS web site (refer to the box labeled "Personal Physician Web Sites"). The department of Communications under Al Nagelberg is responsible for updating and enhancing Your Orthopaedic Connection. Al has placed a significant amount of content on the site already and will be creating much more as the year progresses. The web site has two addresses: http://OrthoInfo.aaos.org and http://OrthoInfo.org. In addition, each member (Fellows, Residents, Candidates, Emeritus, and International) of the Academy can now build his or her own web site using templates provided by AAOS. Any brochure, booklet, or fact sheet found in Your Orthopaedic Connection can also be seamlessly included in the physician web sites. Also, links to any external web site can be included. Click here to begin creating your own web site.

 

Free: Version Two

There are several companies that offer physicians a free website, and offer a free utilities that allow you to upload all of the information from your browser. They offer the free websites for a variety of reasons, including the ability to show you ads and to entice advertisers and partners due to the "number of physicians that use our site." Click on the images below to go to their sites. It is a good way to get up and running quickly and cheaply.

Look at my website to get a fast overview of what these companies have to offer:

This is my website on WebMD.

This is my website on Medscape.

 

Free: Version Three

There are a number of companies that will give you a free website and provide a web-based interface to help you set up your site, (except Driveway, which gives you up to 100MB of space but not web-based interface). These companies make their money by the ads you see and the ads that your site visitors see. Free is not really free (what did you expect?), and they may not be as professional as you want for your site. The disadvantage is that you have to design you own site, and the advantage is that you get to design your own site. Take your pick, it depend on your style: do you want a site that is easy to do, or do you like to create something of your own?

 

 

Free: Version Four

You almost certainly have a free webpage that comes with your Internet service, provided by your ISP. They usually also have some primitive page design software available. The advantage is that you don't have to have those annoying banner ad or pop-up frames that drive you nuts that the Version Three (above) has. Look in your email archives: you probably got an email from your ISP describing it. You can also go to the homepage of the ISP and look around. I placed my first practice website here (it is actually a collection of webpages rather than a real website, but this is only semantics.) Again, you get the freedom to design your own site (the flip side is no one shows you how to design your site.) You will probably find that you need to get an FTP (File Transfer Program) and a HTML (HyperText Markup Language, the language of the internet) editor. (This Guide was mostly written with Dreamweaver 3, a combination of FTP and HTML editor in one.)

 

Not Free: Get Your Own URL

This is the sexy way to do it, and you will have a free hand in how your site works. It certainly is more expensive (the other ways were free! hard to beat that!). However, if you will look at the webpage listing all the authors of this book, you will see that they all have their own websites with their own URL's (I think the average number of sites is about 3, but some of the guys really skew the average!)

There are several ways to go. One is to buy a URL from one of the many vendors who sell domain names, the "www.name.com" that you see all the time. The granddaddy of them all is Network Solutions. You can find more by searching with the term "domain names." The cost is about $35 per year, with a two-year minimum. The drawback with this approach is that you still need to find some place to host your site, and you will get no help in designing your site.

Another way to go is to get a "Vanity URL", that is, a URL that ends in .MD, rather than .com. There are many vendors who work with the Domain Name Trust to provide you with a "Vanity URL" and hosting at the same time. The cost is $299 per year. Some places you might consider using are:

 

I have a "Vanity URL", DavidLNelson.MD. It is rather simple now (what I have termed a "first-order site"; see the next two sections), but growing. I have examined a number of the companies listed above. I wish that E-Address.MD had been in business when I bought my domain name! It would have saved me hours! I got absolutely no help with designing my site from the company that sold it to me. E-Address.MD has all the tools you need to design your own website, just with your browser. You just have to fill in the blanks. Their approach is so good I would recommend that you give them serious consideration. I was so impressed with their approach, and wished that I had bought my URL through them, that I contacted them. It is too late for me (my contact does not expire for a year, and I may lose my URL), but it is not too late for you. ISOST now has a revenue-sharing agreement with them. If you register with them through the Guide link, E-Address.MD will contribute a small amount to ISOST. I think that this is a win-win: they give you all you need to create your site, and ISOST gets something to help pay for further surgeon internet education. Click on the logo above.

(NOTE: ISOST is incorporated as a non-profit organization, and no organization money can go to the officers. See the ISOST site for details. None of the income from E-Address.MD goes to me or any officer of ISOST; it all goes to the organization.)

Remember, if you get your own URL, you will have to find a place to host it. Some, like the .MD sites above, will sell you hosting along with your URL. But most, such as Network Solutions, sell only the URL; you find you own host. The cost varies widely, depending on your traffic and if you have interactivity (ie, need ASP, Access, etc.)

Do you have a physician website? Let me know about it and it may help me to make this chapter better. 

Also, please send your comments about this chapter of the Orthopedist's Guide to the Internet to David Nelson. Thank you.