Source Of Medicine Information Research Articles

Recuperación de la información científica en pediatría: una oportunidad para el Índice Médico Español

The international bibliographic databases (Medline, Embase, Current Contents, etc.) are one of the main sources of information in medicine. Because only some Spanish journals are included in these databases, knowledge and use of the Indice Médico Español (IME) is also important because this database includes almost all Spanish biomedical and scientific journals (basic, experimental and clinical), which provides certain well known advantages for authors and editors in Spain. Of the journals indexed at any given time in the IME (461 journals), those related to pediatrics constitute 5.2 % of the total (24 journals) with a total of 21,006 documents. Only 34 % of all the pediatrics documents in the IME are included in PubMed. The most productive pediatrics journals in the IME are Anales Españoles de Pediatría (8,639, plus 912 registered from 2002 as Anales de Pediatría), Revista Española de Pediatría (2,564), Acta Pediátrica Española (2,189), Archivos de Pediatría (1,365), Pediatrika (1,314), and Cirugía Pediátrica (685). Anales de Pediatría is the third most productive journal in the IME, after Medicina Clínica (13,323) and Revista Clínica Española (9,603). Overall, pediatrics is the second most productive field of research in medicine in Spain after internal medicine. A complementary tool of the IME is the hypothetical study of the national and international impact factor (IF) of Spanish biomedical journals. The hypothetical national IF of Anales de Pediatría (0.334) is noteworthy among Spanish medical journals overall and is much higher than those of Acta Pediátrica Española (0.134), Pediatrika (0.119), Cirugía Pediátrica (0.099) and Revista Española de Pediatría (0.079). The international IF of Anales de Pediatría (0.372) is higher than that of some pediatrics journals included in the Science Citation Index. The IME should be included in bibliographic search strategies for scientific information in pediatrics as a complement to international databases.

Travel Medicine Online: International sources of travel medicine information on the Internet

Access to global information through the Internet has become an essential ingredient to successful practice in travel medicine. Internet sites that may be useful to travel health practitioners include those that represent international organisations (eg. http://www.who.int), national and international professional bodies (eg. http://www.istm.org), national public health and disease control centres (eg. http://www.cdc.gov). These useful sites often include online journals, geographic epidemiological information, regular outbreak alerts and news and downloadable information sheets for travellers, as well as those providing official guidelines and policies in travel medicine. It is also useful to have access to search engines, which can search the literature as well as the Internet.

Randomized controlled trials as sources of information in evidence based medicine

Physicians are constantly challenged by their patients themedia, and the rapid pace of technological advance to keep abreast of new diagnostic and therapeutic developments. Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the practice of making updated medical decisions through the judicious identification, evaluation and application of the most relevant published information. RCTs are one of the best primary sources used in EBM. Thus, evaluation of the strength and validity of the RCTs that supports the discussion on making medical decisions seems to be necessary. In this paper, main types of biases occurred during the course of an RCT as well as Assessment of RCTs as sources of information in evidence-based medicine are discussed. Key Words: RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL, EVIDENCE BASED MEDICINE, ASSESSMENT

Usage of the Internet pharmacology resources among European pharmacologists: a preliminary investigation.

The Internet is becoming an ever more important source of information in pharmacology and medicine. Little is known, however, about which Internet pharmacology resources are actually used by the pharmacologists - and to what extent - and how they estimate the Internet information quality and evaluation. This pilot study used an anonymous questionnaire, distributed among 250 mostly European (220/250) pharmacologists from 30 European countries attending The 2nd European Congress of Pharmacology, held in Budapest, Hungary, in 1999. According to study results, 93% of all participants use the Internet pharmacology resources: 56%, 35% and 9% of them on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, respectively. Among 56 pharmacological/medical free online databases offered, the general scientific databases were found to greatly prevail (Pub Med 60%, Evaluated MEDLINE 37%, Internet Grateful Med 29%, etc.), while drug monographs or toxicological databases were less used [e.g. ECDIN, RxList, National Toxicology Programme (NTP) < 10%]. Some 80% of the participants estimated the quality of the pharmacological information on the Internet as good or very good, while 20% thought the quality should be improved. Also, 35% of participants felt the need for improvement of the Internet pharmacological information evaluation, which should be the goal of pharmacology professional.

Photon scattering-a 'new' source of information in medicine and biology?

Scattering has often been regarded as a problem in all aspects of medical radiation physics. The contribution of scatter to radiotherapy beams causing increased penumbra, the production of staff doses during diagnostic X-ray procedures or the contribution of scatter to image degradation in radiology have all been cited. More recently the scattering of photons has been studied to a degree that one has been able to understand these problems better and in some cases one has solutions for them. Furthermore, from these investigations it has been realized that applications usefully exploiting the scattering process can be found in medical radiation studies. Clearly, it is time to look again at the scattered photon but this time with a little more respect for its usefulness.

The Role of the Family Physician in Sports Medicine.

In brief: Sports medicine is often considered an orthopedic subspecialty, but family physicians represent the grass roots of athletic care. Millions of competitive and recreational athletes from all age-groups turn to family physicians with their sports-related problems. In this round-table discussion we asked four physicians to talk about the role of the family practitioner in providing comprehensive care, prescribing exercise, and functioning as team physician and educator. They also discuss ethics, the preparticipation screening exam, sources of sports medicine information, and a sports medicine curriculum.

The economical use of sources of information in veterinary medicine.

The economical use of sources of information in veterinary medicine.