davidrothman.net

Long list (PDF) of Healthcare Information Resources from Marcus P. Zillman that I need to comb though.

[Via beSpacific]

November 29th, 2006 | Category: Consumer Health Info, For Medical Libraryfolk, Reference, Search, Technology | Comments Off

Librarian Stewart Brower at the University of Buffalo announced on his blog a proposal (PDF) for an Open Access Drug Resource, PubDrug.

For the last several years, I’ve watched as the cost of drug resources has continued to escalate, reaching a point where even large-scale institutions like the University at Buffalo really cannot afford the licensing for the kinds of resources we need for our educational, clinical and research initiatives.

Interestingly, Brower is proposing this be done on a Wiki because (among other reasons) it “[a]llows significant editorial controls without inhibiting ‘viral’ expansion of content.”

A lot of ideas here in common with Dean Giustini’s Medizendium concept (mentioned here).

Sounds like an enormous and difficult undertaking filled with potential pitfalls…but I really admire the way Stewart is thinking really big.

Stewart invites those interested to contact him. The email address posted at his blog and in his slides is: sbrower[*at*]buffalo[*dot*]edu.

November 9th, 2006 | Category: For Medical Libraryfolk, Reference, Technology | Comments (4)

(Be sure to check out the List of Medical Wikis.)

Dean Giustini has another really good idea.

Why not leverage social software and wiki technologies to produce the content, free and open for all to share? Develop a librarians-physicians community of EBM practice? If we are concerned about the lack of authority in the anarchic wikipedia model, why not try to move toward a more “expert model” like Citizendium, but do it for medicine – Medizendium?

November 4th, 2006 | Category: Blogging, Reference, Technology, Wikis | Comments (2)

Hope Leman again points out a resource of interest to medical libraries, found this time through Neurology.

Article Details
Full Text (HTML)
Full Text (PDF)
PubMed Citation:
Neurology. 2006 Sep 12;67(5):E10.

Author Dr. Beau B. Bruce reviews and recommends a collection of videos arranged by Dr. Shirley H. Wray and says that many neurologists “have already found this site to be an invaluable teaching resource for students, residents, and themselves.”

She has organized a unique peer-reviewed, Web-accessible database of neurologic and neuroophthalmologic texts, images, and videos designed to educate practitioners, students, and patients. The archives are part of the Neuro-Ophthalmology Virtual Education Library, which has been formed by a collaboration between the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society and the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library at the University of Utah.

However, the URL Dr. Bruce gives is no longer good due to a server move. The new URL is http://library.med.utah.edu/NOVEL/

I took a quick look and checked out a couple of videos, including this one of a Benign Neonatal Ocular Flutter, and was impressed to see the video available in multiple streaming and downloadable formats, including Real Media, Windows Media, and Quicktime.

November 3rd, 2006 | Category: E-Journals, Reference, Technology, Video | Comments Off

From the same author (Dr. Darren Wheeler) who brought us Google as a Pathology Portal comes Pathology of Infectious Diseases (Adv Anat Pathol 2006;13:330–331), an article featuring an online pathology atlas based at Japan’s Fujita Health University School of Medicine created by Dr. Yutaka Tsutsumi. Due to its “focus on nonneoplastic disease,” Dr. Wheeler calls it a “rare and welcome addition to a growing body of pathology image databases.”

Dr Tsutsumi’s web site is a comprehensive and user-friendly reference focusing on the histopathologic diagnosis of infectious disease. For the pathologist faced with identifying an infectious microorganism on hematoxylin and eosin or special stain, the database offers an excellent set of control imagesor comparison. The database is also a great resource for presentations and/or board study.

Here’s a screen shot:

(Click on the image to see the page this appears on)

You can try it out yourself here:
http://www.fujita-hu.ac.jp/~tsutsumi/index.html

Note: Dr. Wheeler points out that “[t]he translation of certain Japanese text within the web pages results in scattered misplaced text symbols; however, all of the key text is well-preserved.”

[Thanks to Hope Leman for the heads-up!]

October 31st, 2006 | Category: Reference, Technology | Comments (1)

From GIDEON Labs:

Have you ever wondered about how famous people died or what diseases they have? VIPatients (Very Important Patients) is an interactive database for famous people with fatal and non-fatal diseases. It lists the patients by profession, diseases, cause of death and dates of birth and death.

You’ve probably seen the work of Dr. Stephen Berger before. He’s one of the founders of GIDEON (Global Infectious Disease and Epidemiology Network). Today, though, I’m thoroughly entertained by another tool he’s created, VIPatients.com, a neat tool that lets you look up medical conditions to see what well-known people have suffered from them.

First, you choose the profession, disease, and date range of person’s death, as well as choosing whether or not the condition should have been fatal- then click Search.

VIPatients returns a list of people in its database that meet this criteria:

Select one of the people listed, and get the details on that individual:

The lovely person who made me aware of VIPatients says that Dr. Berger’s efforts on this tool began in 1980:

…he was lecturing some students and happened to mention that Eleanor Roosevelt died of TB. He says he noticed that the students suddenly ‘woke up’ and became interested in this otherwise boring subject. So he went home and looked up others who died of the disease [Vivian Leigh, George Orwell] and started keeping a file on index cards. His initial research consisted of going through the entire Biography section of the Brooklyn Public Library – every book, then the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Bible, Books about Popes, Plagues, the Wild West, Famous Animals and all issues of Time and Newsweek.

So I’m just tickled with VIPatients, and have added it to my collection of reference bookmarks, but I’d like it even more if it included some indication of from whence came the information about a particular person/illness.

For more about Dr. Stephen A. Berger, see his ZoomInfo bio.

For more on GIDEON, see this description from EBSCO.

10/26/2006: Better link for more information on GIDEON.

October 25th, 2006 | Category: Reference, Search, Technology | Comments (1)

MetaGlossary is pretty impressive. It appears to be a metasearch tool for online dictionaries, glossaries, and lexicons.

I decided to try looking up some specialized and/or ambiguous terms, like SDI (strategic dissemination of information), and it found the right definition at the bottom of this results page.

Next, I tried some slang by looking up the word “shizzle.” No problems with that, either.

Next, I tried a word from pop culture, “transmetropolitan.” It found that, too.

Next, I tried a clinical term, “ulcerative colitis,” and it returned a number of decent definitions.

Lastly, I thought I’d see how it handled a typo or mispelling, by searching for “ulcerutive culitis.” Lo and behold, it figured out that I meant “ulcerative colitis.”

From MetaGlossary’s About Us page, here’s why they believe this is better than using a define:”Ulcerative Colitis” query in Google.

…unlike other search engines, MetaGlossary is able to precisely extract the meanings of terms and phrases from the often frustratingly unmanageable mass of information on the web. It provides you with concise, direct explanations for terms and phrases, not just endless links to sift through in search of a comprehensive definition.

What’s more, MetaGlossary organizes these meanings based on topic and usage, so you’ll find the one you’re looking for quickly and easily. Since MetaGlossary spans the expanse of the web, even your most field-specific requests for terms, phrases, acronyms, technical jargon, and slang, will be successfully met.

Neat. If they come out with a plugin for the IE Google Toolbar and for Firefox, this might be my new default online dictionary.

October 24th, 2006 | Category: Reference, Technology | Comments Off

Via ResourceShelf, globalhealthfacts.org has added 40 new indicators.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has recently expanded GlobalHealthFacts.org to include 40 new data indicators that can be easily displayed in tables, charts, and color-coded maps and downloaded for custom analyses. It’s a great resource for the global health community – which relies on information for, well, just about everything – and I strongly encourage you to check out the new and improved site. Even better, Kaiser welcomes suggestions for future additions as well; personally, I would love to see the eventual inclusion of DTP3 coverage rates, which are widely used as a proxy for health system strength (as discussed in our recent report, Measuring Commitment to Health).

More:
Complete list of indicators
About Globalhealthfacts.org

Tangent: I don’t know as much about health care policy as I should- so perhaps others might help me understand this.

How is it that the United States, wealthiest nation in the history of the planet, is only tied for 14th place in fewest maternal mortalities per 100,000 live births?

October 21st, 2006 | Category: Reference | Comments Off

Check out this post from Medical Librarian Rachel Walden at Women’s Heath News:

Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Once a Librarian, Always a Librarian
To the person who got here searching for “nursing journal articles on human trafficking,”

Email me, I can help you find them.

posted by Rachel at 10/17/2006

How cool is that? Rachel doesn’t just wait for people to make their information needs known to her. She detects a need and actively seeks out the information-seeker with an offer to help.

Is this not the expression of an outstanding service ethic? Isn’t it pretty much a perfect example of the reflexive desire to help serve an information need that should ideally drive the work of all libraryfolk?

Can I get an amen?

Seriously. Please leave a comment with your “amen” if you find this as admirable as I do!

October 18th, 2006 | Category: Blogging, Reference | Comments (5)