A textbook case for online searching

Outside, the streets are lashed with rain. It is a terrible night to drive 11 km to the university library, where the latest edition of the AAP Red Book is sitting on the shelf, but our doctor must consult it tonight. Tomorrow's 8 a.m. appointment is with the worried parents of an infant ill with Campylobacter jejuni infection.

Fortunately, the Internet age means that doctors facing these types of problems no longer have to venture outside. They can visit www.cma.ca/osler, the CMA's online medical searching service, enter their username and password and select the latest feature, MD Consult. Within seconds the full text of the American Academy of Pediatrics' AAP Red Book: Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases is on the screen, fully searchable. The pages about treatment of Campylobacter infection can be read on the screen, printed or sent to the office by email for review later. While on the site, the physician also clicks on Librarian Support. The next morning, she will receive a complex MEDLINE search, complete with strategy and journal citation abstracts.

Best of all, OSLER is accessible from any computer, 24 hours a day, as a free service for CMA members. OSLER has always been popular with physicians, but the addition of MD Consult to its list of services in November 2000 caused thousands more physicians to sign on. (MD Consult is available to nonmembers for US$200 a year, home.mdconsult.com/).

The full-text component of MD Consult provides a rich complement to every medical practice. It includes 56 journals with full-text articles, ranging from the Clinics North America series to the Journal of Pediatrics and the American Heart Journal. There are also 39 nonabridged medical textbooks, including Cecil's Textbook of Medicine and Nelson's Textbook of Pediatrics. There are also 49 medical yearbooks and 3000 patient-education handouts that physicians can customize and download. This online content is searchable by keyword/MeSH heading, author, journal title and date.

While the full-text component of MD Consult is vast, current and highly praised by our users, the search engine is simple and less powerful than Ovid's. Best results are obtained by first conducting a search on Ovid and then using those citations to download material from MD Consult.

OSLER users can get help any time from cmalibrary@sympatico.ca or by calling 800 663-7336 x2255.

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