Stephen J McPhee, Lawrence M Tierney Jr, Maxine A Papadakis, Ralph Gonzales
Appleton and Lange, £67
ISBN 0 8385 1480 4
———————
Rating: ★★★
Can a reference source really meet the needs of “a student, resident or clinician,” as the user’s guide for this CD claims? To do so, the information it provides would need to be readily accessible, up to date, and capable of answering the questions that members of each of these groups might pose.
It is certainly quick. The questions I asked it in a week seeing patients, preparing for teaching sessions, and reviewing grant applications convinced me of that. Whether I wanted to know about drugs, diseases, or diagnostic tests that were unfamiliar to me, the search engine usually found what I was looking for within 2 seconds (you don’t even need to understand its Boolean search operators).
When I checked how current it was I was even more impressed. Every reference untilthe end of 1997 that I knew about was there with abstracts and hypertext links. I was unable to discover any omitted references without extending my searches beyond Medline.
Of course, the kinds of questions its three target groups ask vary considerably. Students and residents will like the accessible, authoritative text, and they will love the audio and video multimedia features. Cardiovascular and respiratory systems are well represented in these features, with less detail on other systems.
The system’s functionality goes beyond the limitations of other CD Roms by providing facilities for updating and personalising the material it contains. The database may be continuously updated via links to 200 internet addresses. Individuals can tag and bookmark the material that is relevant to them.
Many students, residents, and even clinicians don’t yet have uninterrupted access to a computer with a CD Rom. Perhaps the availability of reference material like this will encourage more information technology managers to invest in giving their students and clinicians the rapid, relevant access they need to practise evidence based medicine.