Thursday, March 23, 2006

How do I find the online version of the PDR?

Looking for the electronic version of The Physician’s Desk Reference?

How to Find the PDR Online is a tutorial with step-by-step screenshots to help you find this valuable drug reference on the Affinity intranet website.

Many physicians and staff still want to use the PDR to look up medications. The updated book version is no longer routinely available in most departments, as the access is more widely available online now.

The Find Drug Information for Health Professionals link on the Library website will lead you to several other online sources for clinical drug information. These include the following :
* Clinical Pharmacology
* MDConsult (Mosby’s Drug Consult)
* Micromedex
* Online Books on Drugs and Medications
* Drug Information for Patients and Families

You might even find something you like better than the PDR!

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Michele Matucheski (920)223-0340 or via Outlook.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

What's the difference between MEDLINE and PubMed?

Medline is a subset of about 5,000 biomedical journals indexed in PubMed. All the journals indexed in Medline were chosen for inclusion. Think of Medline as indexing "the cream of the crop" for medical journals.

PubMed is a much larger database that includes the MEDLINE subset, as well as indexing info from other "worlds" such as aerospace medicine, toxicology, some out-of-scope citations in astrophysics and plate tectonics.

You will find links for both Medline (Ovid) and PubMed on the Affinity Libraries website. If you use PubMed link on the Library Website, you'll get the added benefit of having our print and some online holdings incorprated into the search results.

For more information, see the following fact sheet from The National Library of Medicine :

NLM Fact Sheet : What's the Difference between Medline and PubMed?
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/dif_med_pub.html

The Ebling Health Science Library at The University of Wisconsin Madison has a useful handout comparing both versions of Medline. MEDLINE : Ovid vs. PubMed.
(Please be aware that Ovid access info will differ through Affinity.)

What about MedlinePlus? MedlinePlus provides quality consumer health and patient education information.

Feel free to contact the Libraries if you have any questions on this.
MMC Library (Oshkosh) 3-0340
STE Library (Appleton) 8-2324

Friday, March 03, 2006

What's the difference between Medline and MedlinePlus?

MEDLINE is the database that indexes over 5,000 clinical medical, nursing and dental journals back to 1966. It is produced by The National Library of Medicine. Medline is available in many formats including Medline Ovid and PubMed. Even MDConsult offers a searchable version of Medline. MEDLINE is the standard place to begin researching clinical medical topics for physicians and health professionals. Many patients today also use MEDLINE because it is so freely available.

MedlinePlus is the consumer health side of The National Library of Medicine (NLM). This is a wonderful website that indexes and makes available patient education and consumer health information to anyone with internet access. This is an excellent place to start researching a health topic because all of the sites included have passed rigorous quality tests. None of the sites included will try to sell you anything, or ask for personal information. Their main objective is to provide qood, quality information with the patient's best interests at heart.

For more information, see the following Fact Sheets from The National Library of Medicine :

MEDLINE Fact Sheet
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/medline.html

MedlinePlus Fact Sheet
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/medlineplus.html