The Forbes Medicine Show blog highlights the clinical trails search site today from “Patients Like Me.”

Patients enter their illness, age, and zip code and get a list of clinical trials into that they can enter. Hopefully this will help more patients find studies that might offer them some hope and help advance the speed of research.

So, note that Tufts has recently launched a recrutiment site as well, joining Partners in offering simplified access to clinical trials.

Tufts Medical Center and Floating Hospital for Children are pioneers in groundbreaking research including numerous clinical trials taking place in Boston. Research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, private foundations, industry, and private individuals. Our mission is not only to advance knowledge but to train physicians and non-clinicians to become the investigators of the future.

Tufts Medical Center research led to the discovery of drugs that prevent the body’s rejection of transplanted organs, coining the term “immunosuppression,” and also brought to light the link between obesity and heart disease. Tufts Medical Center and Floating Hospital for Children rank among the top 10 percent of the nation’s independent hospitals that receive federal research funds.

One suggestion for all the sites: Maybe be a bit clearer that a clinical trail is a study, not a form of treatment. Many patients sign up for these studies with the “therapeutic misconception” — the idea that they’re getting cutting edge research. Which may or may not be true. They might get a placebo. Or they might get a treatment that turns out not to work so well.

This is science, not treatment. A bit too often, hospitals market clinical trilas as care.