Mulford Library Blog

By Janice Flahiff

Spring Images is a growing collection of scientific images from Springer publications. It covers scientific, technical and medical fields, with clinical images from images.MD. One may search captions, keywords, context and more, even jumping from the image to the source article. Users can create personalized image “sets,” and can easily export images for use in their own presentations or lectures.

Springer Exemplar lets you search for and then see how a particular term or phrase is used in peer-reviewed material published by Springer.  Obviously the search is limited to only Springer content.   However Springer is a large publisher and the interface is easy to use.   Subject, Country and Journal category filters that appear with search results. There’s also a year of publication visualiser in graph format.  This is potentially useful in searching for unique keywords and specific years or subjects. It could also serve as an additional search to more focused Pubmed searches involving MeSH terms (Medical Subject Headings).

Please do not hesitate to contact Mulford Reference Assistance with your information and research needs.

Looking for places to publish or present?

The University Libraries is pleased to announce a new trial through Nov. 30 for EBSCOhost’s Publishing Opportunities database.

This database provides access to:

Check it out today and let us know what you think! Send feedback to mulfordreference@utoledo.edu or call 419-383-4218.

By Janice

MedlinePlus recently released a new version of the A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia that includes approximately 400 new Patient Instruction pages, covering pre-operative information and instructions, discharge instructions, self-care instructions, and questions to ask your doctor.
The Patient Instruction pages are available in both English and Spanish, and you will be able to find them in the MedlinePlus search engine (at the home page)  and A-Z index pages for the Encyclopedia. Additionally, you will see links to related Patient Instructions in the side-bar of many encyclopedia articles.

The Micromedex Health Care Series (available only on the UT-HSC campus) contains a wide range of evidence based information  including drugs, toxicology, diseases, acute care, and alternative medicine.

A sampling of information accessible through the tabs:
Drugs
*Review extensive drug information (including generics) with references
*Specific database search provides summaries, consults, evaulations (comparisons with similar drugs)
* Compare drug summaries in a side by side format
*Therapeutic classes
*Black Box Warnings

Toxicology
*Toxic Substance list
–searchable by product/substance, imprint code, active ingredientm and product ID
– option to look up AAPCC codes
*Drug Identification interface including imprint code, shape, color, and pattern
*Specific Database Search includes select material from POISINDEX® Managements
*Specific Topic Search includes search refinements as clincial effects, range of toxicity, laboratory monitoring, and treatment

Interactions
*By entering any number of drugs, up to 128 concurrent clinical conflicts can be reviewed on the spot

Patient Ed
*Includes the Care Note sytem where one may personalize a patient handout

Please do not hesitate to contact Mulford Reference Assistance with your informational and research needs.

The US Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ) strives to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans.  It focuses on clinical information, consumer/patient information, and provides information in the forms as data & surveys,
and research findings.

The National Guideline Clearinghouse™ (NGC) is a public resource for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines.
Key components of NGC include:
—–Structured abstracts (summaries) about the guideline and its
development
—–Links to full-text guidelines, where available [If no full text is
available, please search by journal title in
the UTcatalog, single citation matcher in PubMed, or Ask-A-Health-Science Librarian]
—–A Guideline Comparison utility that gives users the ability to
generate side-by-side comparisons for any combination of two
or more guidelines
—–Unique guideline comparisons called Guideline Syntheses compare guidelines covering similar topics, highlighting areas of similarity and difference. NGC Guideline Syntheses often provide a comparison of guidelines developed in different countries, providing insight into commonalities and differences in international health practices.

Other more specialized sources of practice guidelines include

–Practice Guidelines in AccessMedicine (click on Guidelines) [restricted to UT-HSC affiliates
–American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Practice Standards
–Health Services/Technology Assessment Text - assesses the clinical utility of medical interventions.

For more information or further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact Mulford Reference Assistance.

A trial subscription is currently in progress for MedicinesComplete, which provides online access to leading international drug and healthcare references. The resource includes:

– More than 10,000 drug, poison, interaction and herbal monographs
– The latest advice on prescribing, dispensing and administering drugs and medicines
– Up-to-date guidance on disease treatments, disease management and therapeutics
– The latest advice on analysing, formulating and preparing drugs, medicines, and many other   pharmaceutical products
– The combined knowledge of hundreds of leading experts, scientists and researchers

MedicinesComplete will be accessible for free until October 13th, 2009. Your comments and suggestions are valuable in helping us to evaluate this resource.

JAMAevidence is designed to help identify the best available evidence to combine with clinical experience  to allow for more informed recommendations by clinicians and more informed choices by patients. The resource considers the validity, importance, and applicability of claims about the assessment of health problems and the outcomes of health care.

This trial period will end on October 1st, 2009. Please help us assess this resource by emailing us.

The University Libraries are being offered trial use of Natural Standard, a database that provides evidence-based, consensus-based, and peer- reviewed information on complementary and alternative therapies for clinicians, patients, and healthcare institutions, for the purpose of making more informed and safer therapeutic decisions. The trial runs through October 11, 2009. Please email your comments to us to help us evaluate this resource.

MD Consult now presents results of symptom searches arranged within these clinically relevant categories: Overview, Etiology, Diagnosis (including DDX), and Treatment/Management.
Enter a symptom in the search box and Search all sections.
Symptom search results also include additional resources through the tab Top Results from All Sections.

Please do not hesitate to contact Mulford Reference Assistance with your reference and research needs!

The Mulford Library has a free trial of the NCLEX-RN online preparation and review guide via ExamMaster. Below are the log-in instructions for accessing this free trial. The trial has recently been extended through October 31. Check it out and let us know what you think!

1. Go to your custom gateway:
http://www.exammaster2.com/wdsentry/utoledo.htm
Click “Click to Start” and Click “Not Registered Yet?”
To continue, click [I Accept] on the Licensing Agreement page

2. Complete the registration form, click [Submit Registration]

3. Confirmation of registration and your temporary password will be e-mailed to you immediately.

4. Log-in with your “User Name” and “Temporary Password.”

5. The Welcome Page gives a description of the button functions and On Screen Help is available throughout the application.

6. Select [New Exam] to build exams and study sessions.

7. Select [Active Exams] to access exams and study sessions.

Comments, Questions, Suggestions? Contact a librarian.