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Clinical Clerkships Resources: Drug Info Sources

Resources for UC San Diego School of Medicine's third year medical students.

Drug Information Resources

Drug information resources include textbooks, synthesized resources, and databases.  The synthesized resources are unique tools that are a little different than the clinically-focused synthesized tools.  In addition to PubMed, the primary literature may also be found in the IPA (International Pharmacuritcal Abstracts) database.

 

 

Clinical Pharmacology

 

  therapy, diagnosis, prognosis, harm

 

Content:
 Clinical Pharmacology contains "monographs" (encyclopedic entries about drugs) that include information on doseing, adverse effects, drug interactions and more. It also includes patient handouts written in lay language.

The monographs are written in a narrative format, eith links to primary sources of information (usually journal articles)

Use:

You can retrieve lists of drugs that meet specific criteria, e.g indicated for severe pain AND not known to cause drowsiness.

Use Tools to identify drugs, check IV compatibility, compare drug efficacies and more. 

 

 

Micromedex

  therapy, diagnosis, prognosis, harm

 

Content:
Micromedex is similar to Clinical pharmacology in content. Its monographs are in and uoutline format, rather than narrative. In addition to the monographs, it includes the classic drug reference, Martindale's, and a section on reproductive risks. It also includes disease information in addition to frug information. It does not provide the same clinical comparison tools that Clinical pharmacology has.

Use:

Use Micromedex if you are looking for international drugs. Also, use the patient information section to get handouts about diseases and conditions in addition to drugs.

 

 

PubMed/MEDLINE
National Library of Medicine

  therapy, diagnosis, prognosis, harm
 

(use the Library's link to get the UC-eLinks button)		 Content: Most popular database forliterature in the medical sciences. Includes pre-clinical to clinical topics in the fields of medicine, dentistry, nursing, psyciatry, and public health. Archive of articles goes back into the 1950s.

Use: Identify key primary (RCT) and secondary articles in medicine and related fields.

Many of the expert opinion & background info sources base their information on articles found in