Medscape

Medscape
Type of site	Health information
Available in	English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese
Owner	WebMD
URL	www.medscape.com
Registration	Required
Launched	May 22, 1995; 29 years ago

Medscape is a website providing access to medical information for clinicians and medical scientists; the organization also provides continuing education for physicians and other health professionals. It references medical journal articles, Continuing Medical Education (CME), a version of the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE database, medical news, and drug information (Medscape Drug Reference, or MDR). At one time Medscape published seven electronic peer reviewed journals.^[1]

History

Medscape launched May 22, 1995, by SCP Communications, Inc.^[2] under the direction of its CEO Peter Frishauf.^[3] The first editor of Medscape was a P.A. named Stephen Smith. In 1999, George D. Lundberg became the editor-in-chief of Medscape. For seventeen years before joining Medscape he served as editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In September 1999, Medscape, Inc. went public and began trading on NASDAQ under the symbol MSCP. In 2000, Medscape merged with MedicaLogic, Inc., another public company. MedicaLogic filed for bankruptcy within 18 months and sold Medscape to WebMD in December 2001. In 2008, Lundberg was terminated by WebMD. The following year the Medscape Journal of Medicine ceased publishing.^[4] In January 2013, Eric Topol was named editor-in-chief of Medscape.^[5] The same year, Lundberg returned to Medscape as editor-at-large.

In 2009, WebMD released an iOS application of Medscape,^[6] followed by an Android version two years later.^[7] In 2015, WebMD launched Medscape CME & Education on iOS.^[8] In 2021, Medscape launched Medscape UK to expand their business in United Kingdom.^[9]

Criticisms

In 2016 a survey of doctors found WebMD and its sister company Medscape to have incomplete medical information lacking depth and also numerous cases of misinformation on their sites.^[10] A study of Medscape and WebMD also found both services to lack neutrality and exhibiting bias potentially based on very high payments (compared to their industry competitors) from the pharmaceutical industry.^[10]

Collaboration with the Tobacco Industry

In April 2024, Medscape was strongly criticised for running educational content sponsored by tobacco transnational PMI (Philip Morris International).^[11]^[12] According to the British Medical Journal "The idea that the lethal and immoral tobacco industry has a role in medical education is absurd.”^[13] In response to pressure, Medscape withdrew from the multimillion dollar deal with PMI, which included plans to deliver 13 programmes, called the "PMI Curriculum", as well as podcasts and a TV-like series.^[14]