As much as I would love to help medical students and professionals find the complicated information they require to do their work, I don’t think it would be nearly as satisfying as helping consumers and patients find the resources they need to stay healthy.
Perhaps it’s because I have no prior experience in medicine, but I find consumer-level information just as or more vital than technical resources. Although evidence-based practice is made possible by librarians, I think that left to their own devices, doctors could still find the information they need, albeit not as quickly. I’d rather spend time helping a consumer or patient make a healthy decision instead of an ill-informed one. And if the general public is better informed and therefore healthier, the strain on our healthcare system might be reduced, as would costs of insurance!
A side effect of learning about new resources and how to use them has been the improvement of my searches in general, regardless of the resource. I think that the constant searching across varying platforms has made my searches more efficient in general — I’m choosing stronger keywords and boolean operators and thinking about what words should come first. Previously, I was more patient with wading through results of searches conducted with less thought, but I’d rather not waste the valuable time of a patron, student or professional doing this. As an information professional, I’d never want them to feel as if they could’ve done the same job. Honing in quickly on the most relevant results builds confidence in the help-seeker and might increase the likelihood that he or she will return for future consultations.
Yes, I do believe that EndNote Web is my bibliographic tool of choice. Not only is the web interface easy to use — I find that creating groups of citations on the fly is quicker than other tools — but the plugin for Microsoft Word syncs seamlessly to the citations in my online account.
The plugin allows for searching your list of citations nd inserting directly into the document as you write. You also can change the reference format should you have a change of heart. For example, I was formatting in my usual APA style and realized I needed to switch to Vancouver. Even after I had imported my references in APA, I was able to make the change.
I’m not sure how I lived without Endnote while in undergrad as a Psychology major, but I could’ve saved hours and my sanity by using this tool instead of a Word document I had to continually email to myself from which to copy and paste references.
Confidence restored! I think that picking out the necessary pieces of the puzzle and forming a research approach might be my favorite part of the class thus far. While I get a handle on the types of resources available, my analytical brain can formulate the necessary elements of searchable questions.
I also think that I have the advantage of lack of experience. Scarce medical expertise means that I have no preconceived notions about the answer to questions and am more likely to search using only the information from a scenario, rather than create leading questions using prior knowledge.
In addition to enjoying piecing together a search question, I also look forward to finding out the answers. Perfect random knowledge for trivia nights at the local pub…just kidding (or am I?).
Records for three articles were each found* in three databases: PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE and Ovid EMBASE.
PubMed
- Single Citation Matcher: The auto-suggest function was helpful but I was surprised to find multiple versions of the name of a single journal, so I decided to fill in fewer fields. Namely, author’s last name, year & date and a keyword in the title field, which got me the result I needed. Good for bibliographic validation — finding a single paper.
- Search Builder: More choices for fields to search than the citation matcher; although it took more clicks, it would be easier to create a complicated search with the search builder than with the citation matcher.
- Citation includes abbreviated publication name, full abstract, and hyperlinked author last names + first 2 initials, email address of first author and nearly complete mailing address of the first author’s institution.
- Collapsed fields: Publication Types (Review, Comment). MeSH Terms in alphabetical order with most important terms marked by an asterisk. Substances mentioned in the article are also listed.
Ovid MEDLINE
- Authors: Hyperlinked author last names + first 2 initials plus a separate field for authors’ full names. Full mailing address of first author’s insitituyion and email address.
- Source: Lists full source name, abbreviation and NLM journal name. Publishing model included (“Journal available in” and “Citation processed from”). Language, ISSN, and several dates included (Publication, Created, Entry, Update). Also lists the article’s status (“MEDLINE”).
- Title: Includes type of publication (except if a comment) [Review] and number of references [60 refs] in the title field.
- CAS Registry or EC Numbers and Names of Substances listed.
Ovid EMBASE
- Authors: Hyperlinked last names + first 2 initials. Mailing address of first author noted, with that author’s last name in parentheses preceding address. No email address.
- Subject headings: listed before the abstract, with starred headings listed last — terms are otherwise in alphabetical order.
- References: this field is given a separate line and is not listed in the title field like Medline.
- DOI URL listed.
- Copyright field is unique to Embase.
- Date fields include Entry Week, Date Delivered, Year of Publication.
- Listed insulin as the only substance.
- *Did not find a comment on an original article (Lavie CJ, Milani RV, O’Keefe JH. Does the choice of statin really matter? Postgrad Med. 2010 May;122(3):243-7. PubMed PMID: 20463437) despite it having a PubMed ID.
It seems that I will spend more time than my fellow students familiarizing myself with medical terms and the ins and outs of medical school. My question during last class about how to know whether a condition is caused by a single gene in the first place probably highlights this best.
The key to my success will be to know what the med student, doctor or patron is talking about in the first place and I’m hoping that continual study of medical terms will get me started in that direction.
From January 18 to May 3, 2011, this blog will be used to document my experience in LIS 697-07 Health Information Resources at Pratt-SILS. To read about the resources used in this class, please check out the Health Information Resources page.
