Tools

New Look for Links

The LSUHSC New Orleans Libraries have launched a new Links page using the social bookmarking website, Delicious. The new page features a tag cloud for easy access to the items tagged by LSUHSC Librarians.

Get the skinny on your zip code

ZIPskinny is a new find. Enter your zip code and to see US Census data (from 2000) and comparisons with neighboring zip codes. That’s one way to keep up with the Joneses!

ZIPskinny: http://zipskinny.com/

Here’s the skinny on 70112: the zip code for LSUHSC New Orleans campus

USMLE/NBDE Preparation Resources

The semester is almost over, but some students aren’t planning their summer vacations just yet. If you’re planning to take the USMLE Step 1, 2 or 3 or the NBDE soon, take a look at EXAM MASTER, a medical exam preparation and review resource that is available for FREE to LSUHSC students.

EXAM MASTER FEATURES

• Over 7,700 questions, answers, and explanations covering the USMLE Step 1 Exam.
• 3,100 clinical vignette type questions
• Questions created by physicians and medical educators
• Exam customization – Select questions by integrated outline, medical subjects, keywords, or take a pre-made practice exam
• Images and tables are associated with many questions.
• Scoring feature – track user performance and get the analysis necessary for concentrated study efforts.

More information on Exam Master

Students need to create an Exam Master username & password to use this resource. Off campus access requires log-in with library barcode & PIN, then login with your Exam Master info.

Anatomy got you down?

Get a leg up on your classmates and check out www.getbodysmart.com. Created by an anatomy teacher, this website is a great resource for learning about the skeletal system, muscle tissue physiology and the nervous system among other subjects. The animated drawings, diagrams and interactive quizzes will help you ace your next exam.

Wriggle your way through medical news with MedWorm

Here’s nifty tool that can help you stay current on medical news and topics. MedWorm is a web-based program that takes thousands of RSS feeds from medical journals, websites, blogs, and more, and sorts them into categories so you can quickly get up to date news on the topic of your choice.

Whether you want to know the latest on Alzeheimers or need to stay up to date with consumer health news, MedWorm wriggles its way through the internet to bring you a comprehensive and current snapshot. You can even subscribe to it through your RSS reader. Now that’s a parasite I don’t mind having on my computer.

LINKS:
MedWorm: http://www.medworm.com/

Mac Leopard Wireless

Reference Librarian, Molly Knapp has written webpage instructions on how to connect to the LSUHSC wireless system using the Mac OS 10.5, aka Leopard.

Mac Tiger Wireless Instructions

Reference Librarian, Molly Knapp has put together an instruction sheet for how to connect to the Library’s wireless connections using Mac OS 10.3/10.4, aka Tiger. Another sheet on the newer OS, Leopard is forthcoming.

NLM Drug Information Portal

The National Library of Medicine has announced the release of its Drug Information Portal. The portal “gives the public, healthcare professionals, and researchers a gateway to current, accurate and understandable drug information from the National Library of Medicine and other key government agencies.” (from the official press release) There are over 12,000 records with links to MedlinePlus, PubMed, etc.

e-Anatomy

Gearing up for gross anatomy? Check out this free online anatomy tool:

http://www.e-anatomy.org/index.html

e-anatomy is an anatomy e-learning web site. More than 1500 slices from normal CT and MR exams were selected in order to cover the entire sectional anatomy of human body. Images were labeled using Terminologia Anatomica. A user-friendly interface allows to cine through multi-slice image series combined with interactive textual information, 3D models and anatomy drawings.

PDR consumer health style

New from the publishers of the PDR: PDRhealth.com, a free consumer health website.

Thomson Healthcare publishes the Physicians?óÔé¼Ôäó Desk Reference (PDR), a clinical resource on drug and disease monographs. PDRhealth.com is a free consumer health website based on the same information platform as the PDR.

PDRhealth.com offers drug & dietary supplement information, disease info and online health tools like cholesterol calculators and a drug interaction checker, in order to make critical health information accessible to consumers.

Individuals can also sign up to receive electronic newsletters, alerts on new clinical trials, and any new information about prescription drugs. The only thing lacking are pictures of the drugs and supplements, which are always available in the print edition of the PDR (available at our Circ. Desk & in Reference at QV 22 AA1 P56).

Did you know?
U.S.-based MDs, DOs, Dentists, Optometrists, NPs and PAs and U.S. medical students, residents and other select prescribing allied health professionals have FREE online access to the PDR and Thomson Clinical Xpert (registration required).

A Picture of Health for Thanksgiving

Did you know?
Thanksgiving is also the fourth annual National Family History Day.
Over the holiday or at other times when families gather, the Surgeon General encourages Americans to talk about, and to write down, the health problems that seem to run in their family. Learning about their family’s health history may help ensure a longer, healthier future together.

My Family Health Portrait, a tool from the US Surgeon General, allows you to create a personalized and printable family health history report from any computer with an Internet connection and an up-to-date Web browser.
https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/

PeerClip – for Physicians, Physician Assistants & Nurse Practitioners

Here’s an interesting & free online resource for all you physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners out there:

PeerClip is a new tool that combines two ways gain knowledge?óÔé¼ÔÇØreading medical literature and interacting with peers?óÔé¼ÔÇØinto a powerful online tool. Currently PeerClip is available exclusively to physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners & free to qualified users. As a librarian, I can’t check it out, but it sounds mighty interesting.

Habla Medical Espa?â??ol with your PDA

Here’s a neat application for your Palm, Pocket PC or Smartphone:

FOCUSED MEDICAL SPANISH
FREE assessment tools to health care professionals who are charged with treating non-English speaking persons in the acute medical setting. These assessments are intended for all levels of Spanish proficiency, but especially for those with little or no Spanish language skills.

This could be really useful to you clinicians out there. These handouts give you phonetical pronunciations and translations of simple Spanish terms & phrases encountered during the medical interview. Whether you need to know
?Le duele el pecho? (Do you have chest pain?) to El sufre a menudo de nerios? (Does he have a history of anxiety?), these handouts show how to ask the right yes/no questions.

All you need to use it is Adobe Reader for Mobile Devices (also free – download here). Once you have Adobe reader, just download the files you want and sync your PDA. To access them from your PDA just use the Adobe link on your PDA.

DONT HAVE A PDA?
You can print out regular PDFs of medical Spanish AND listen to MP3 pronunciations on this site as well.
As they say in Spanish, ?é?íp?â?ísatelo bien! (Enjoy!)

Crime Maps from the City of New Orleans

The City of New Orleans & NOPD have redesigned their Crime Maps database. A great new site!

Need information on property around town? There’s also an address search.

Handy & free tool – PDF document converter from NLM

DocMorph is an online tool that converts files among multiple formats. For example, it will create PDFs from MS Office Documents. It is a totally free, web-based service of a federal agency, and is open to the public.

It can convert over 50 file types (MS Word documents, Raw Text, RTF, PDF, HTML, image files, etc.) into PDF, TIFF, Raw Text, or Synthesized Speech. It also does OCR.

DocMorph is simple to use: upload the document, and wait briefly for the output to appear in the browser.

You need to register and log in — registration is free and logging in requires simply your e-mail with no password.

Who can you thank for this useful & free tool?
Why, the super folks National Library of Medicine, of course!