AMICOR – HONCode

AMICOR – HONCode
Code of Conduct Department HONcode: http://www.hon.ch/Conduct.html
Health On the Net (HON) HON: http://www.hon.ch/
Geneva University Hospital -
DIM My electronic mail isCH-1211 Geneva 14, Switzerland
HONcode@healthonnet.org
Phone/Fax:(41 22)372 6250/8885
HONcode,
Health On the Net Foundation's initiative to improve the quality of the medical Internet. AMICOR has been visited and reviewed by the HONcode team for compliance.

The following lines are inspired on recommendations received from the HONCode team:
I am the author responsible for AMICOR: Aloyzio Cechella Achutti, physician, specialist in Internal Medicine and Cardiology. Graduation in 1958, in the School of Medicine from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (RGS) State, Porto Alegre, Brazil; and Professor, from the same school, until retirement in 1996.Member of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology, the Medical Association of RGS; and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Society and Federation of Cardiology (after World Heart Federation) from 1989 until 2001; also member of the Academy of Medicine from the RGS, and its President 2001 and 2002; Member of the Smoking or Health Expert Panel from the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1982 until 1999.Several times I was temporary advisor for the Brazil Ministry of Health, WHO, Pan American Health Organization and World Bank; also member of the International Advisory Board of ProCOR (initiative of Professor Bernard Lown. Boston, USA)Now, the author is advisor for the Institute of Education and Research of the Hospital Moinhos de Vento and member of its Medical Orientation Panel.AMICOR was created in 1997 May, 17, following the first National Ten Days Seminar on Epidemiology and Prevention. AMICOR started as an e-mail list to discuss the “Gramado Declaration’ with the participants that had access to this communication resource (23). Soon I discovered that was easy to share with my friends and colleagues the material I found as relevant as to keep to myself surfing in INTERNET. Now the open list is composed of more than 300 members, mostly cardiologists from Brazil. Some of the delivered material is referred by other members of the list.AMICOR have had several styles since its starting point, according to the evolution of the media. Now it is a set of Blogs aiming to facilitate pre-selection to the main interest of the specialists’ members of the list. Although destined primarily to medical professionals, the site is open to visit and "The information provided on this web site is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a patient/site visitor and his/her physician."The information I receive from the members of the list, to send periodically an alert message, are strictly confidential and not shared with any other person or institution.AMICOR is free and do not have any economic or institutional support. It is a personal, autonomic, self-supported activity, and does not accept advertising.The name AMICOR was borrowed to ProCOR, to similar activities from other countries.Collaboration and suggestions to improvements or corrections are welcome.