Oxford English Dictionary

c1230 (?a1200) Ancrene Riwle (Corpus Cambr.) (1962) 92 Thu seist the nis no neod na medecine.

Did you know that it was in the early 13th century that the word "medicine" first came into use in the English language? The Oxford English Dictionary is not just a mechanism to look up spellings and pronunciations of words, it is also the premier source to trace our language back to its early roots. And the Lamar Soutter Library now has the Oxford English Dictionary available online. From the library's homepage, click "Research Tools & Resources", then "Reference Resources" and then "Oxford English Dictionary". Happy "Haruestbels" (the earliest use, from 1597, of "Harvest Festival" or "Thanksgiving") to all.

Scientific Writing Resources

For everyone interested in writing, and your focus is the Thursday Memo, a conference, or a refereed journal, there is a wealth of literature offering assistance that ranges from grammar to getting published available in the journal literature. Searching in PubMed, try the phrase: writing/standards [mh] or the phrase: authorship [mh]. Take the results and combine with a keyword to narrow your search, e.g. writing/standards [mh] AND methodology. Using the limiter [mh], retrieves articles indexed using the term writing/standards and indicates a focus of the article.

To look at writing and grammar resources, check out the library’s web site: click on Research Tools and Resources - Reference Resources - Writing and Grammer Resources (or click here)

Two Methods to Search the Cochrane Library

On our Evidence-Based Medicine page, the Lamar Soutter Library offers two ways to search the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. If you wish to peruse the library by topic and/or review group (a great way to get a feel for available reviews), use the second link (browse only) on the page. If you would like to search by keyword or want to access the full-text systematic review (called EBM Topic Reviews), use the top "Ovid" link. Either way, you are accessing the "gold standard" of in terms of best evidence - through and consistently updated reviews of best outcomes.

Natural Standard – Evidence-Based Complementary Health Information

“Is Holy Basil an effective herbal therapy for depression?” This is an actual question that came up a few months ago at chart rounds. The answer ("no") was found in “Natural Standard”, a database highlighting complementary and alternative therapies. Not only does Natural Standard provide entries for herbals (such as Holy Basil, St. John’s Wort, Ginkgo, etc.) and complementary therapies (like acupuncture and Reiki), it also discusses scientific levels of evidence for common and/or studied uses when available. Natural Standard is on the Lamar Soutter Library’s web page under “Research Tools & Resources”, then “Find Resources by Subject” and then “Complementary Therapies”.

Searching the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC)

Searching NGC can be frustrating and retrieving relevant guidelines can be hit or miss. Here are a few suggestions that may help. When you open NGC, click on “Detailed Search” located on the left of the screen. The “Detailed Search” template offers multiple search boxes. Use a few boxes to describe your topic of interest rather than trying to define your topic narrowly. The search boxes to start with are: Keyword; Disease Condition; Guideline Category; Age of Target Population and Years. You can try searching with all of these categories or use three or four. Restricting the number of years you want to search is an efficient way to control your results.

Google Scholar

Are you a Googler? Do you Google at least a few times a day? Do you use Google as a tool to locate medical information? This is not necessarily bad as long as you follow up and confirm your findings in a more trusted (e.g., edited) source such as DynaMed, eMedicine, MEDLINE, etc. In fact, using Google can often uncover “gray literature” such as conference proceedings, technical reports and white papers that are NOT found in the traditional medical databases. But, if you do use Goggle for medical purposes, it’s always best to use the version of Google known as Google Scholar. Google Scholar searches the Internet specifically for research-oriented online materials. And, if you access Google Scholar from the quick links list on the Lamar Soutter Library’s web site, you will search a version that includes links to our full text when available (as well citation-related information). But remember, Google Scholar, like regular Google, posts results based on their ranking system as opposed to most recent or subject-relative like MEDLINE and other medical databases so what you find may be good but may not be the latest or the best.

TRIP

Try using TRIP (Turning Research into Practice) to help you answer your clinical questions. TRIP is a free evidence based medicine resource committed to delivering high quality clinical information. TRIP searches for evidence as well as core journals if you select a specialty to search. Take a look at “EBM Links” and “search help”. The url is: http://www.tripdatabase.com/index.html.