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PBL Information Resources and Tools for the First Year: Case 2: Maria Garcia - Quinceanera

This guide provides resources and strategies for finding background, clinical and drug information, including evidence-based medicine strategies and specific information for problem-based learning exercises.

Textbooks

The following are textbooks of possible interest and are available either in print or online.  To find more books of interest, use the search box bellow

Week 2: Maria Garcia - Quinceanera

What are your questions?  Do you have a question that requires general knowledge or background information (for example, the facts of: What, Where, When, Why, How)?   Are you looking to find the best diagnostic tool for the patient or perhaps you have a treatment related question?

You might want to consult some of the following resources:

  • OMIM (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man) - for indepth coverage on the gentics of cystic fibrosis.

 

Resources for this case include:

National or State Organizations

Textbook Suggestions (look left)

Looking Across Multiple Resources - Many Resources in One Search

Pathophysiology Tool:  Medscape & Up to Date

Searching Databases - Psychological aspects of chronic disease

Highlighting Other Resources - Micromedex

Differential Diagnosis Resources

Freely Available Genetics Information for Health Professionals

Patient & Family Resources

 

National or State Organizations

National organizations

The following are some of the key government and private organizations.  National organizations often have very useful information for patients as well as physicians. 

Highlighting Other Resources

Drug Information Resources

These tools can be tremendously informative as you develop your knowledge of which medications to use in different situations.  Micromedex has an additional section so you can search on a disease or condition and get a variety of info including a differential diagnosis list, pathophysiology details, ect - very much like Medscape & Up to Date. Adjust the setting right over the search box.

Micromedex search box

On the results screen, you can see the brief version or the In-Depth version.  Additionally, look over to the right of the results and description for the Clinical Checklist regarding what to prescribe.  Micromedex clinical checklist

Particularly helpful is their newer feature of the Clinical Checklist with their "Never Do" drug information.

Looking Across Multiple Resources

Many Resources in One Search

Not sure to start?  Google doesn't have to be your "go to" resource because it is easy to search across several reliable and authoritative resources at the same time.  Access Medicine is one of our tools that provide a quick and easy search across textbooks, handbooks, and DDX tools -- check out Access Medicine.

Pathophysiology Resources

One Resource for Pathophysiology Information

Up to Date has become a very popular tool, however, the pathophysiology information is not always well defined or spread out through several sections.  A similar tool is eMedicine and they do a very nice job of pulling the pathophysiology details info one section.

DDX & Symptom Checker Resources

Symptoms & DDX Resources

Symptoms and differential diagnositic information is often buried in a number of our resources.  However, a few tools (both online and for your smart phone/PDA) have special tools to help with this process.

Dr. Gates has found a very helpful text within Access Medicine - Symptoms to Diagnosis: An Evidence Based Guide.  Presented through a series of cases of patients complaining of a specific issue, then walks you through buiding the DDX and prioritizing it, and making the diagnosis.  Unlike the interactive tools that give you list, this text helps explain the thinking process. Topics include a variety of non-specific complaints from low back pain to weight loss to GI bleeding, to abdominal pain.  Check out Chapter 1 as an overview of the diagnostic process.  

The books we have include one that helps explain the thinking process (Symptom to Diagnosis) with topics that include a variety of non-specific complaints from low back pain to weight loss to GI bleeding, to abdominal pain.  One book has a list of mnemonics (Collins' book) as well as the symptom info.  Another book (Syed & Rasul's book) is organized by body areas and the last one (DDX of Common Complaints) focuses on the most common symptions and presents the way a doctor might pursue to diagnosis (images & tests).

Isabel - the last one in the list - is an up and coming tool that is starting to be integrated into the EMR environment.  This free version should be very helpful for many look ups.

Also listed below are some of the interactive DDX tools and their advantages.

Online Look-up Tools

Google Tips

Using Google 

Knowing who might be a big player in providing a certain type of information can help with a Google search - for example, need health stats?  Most likely the CDC has them. 

For the Maria Garcia case, you might be doing some searches on genetic topics.  A big source of very credible information is the folks at NCBI (you might have noticed that PubMed is also from the NCBI group).  

In Google, enter your search terms but also include  NCBI

You could try something like cystic fibrosis NCBI or perhaps cystic fibrosis genetics NCBI.

One resource you may not be familiar with is the open education resource called StatsPearl.  They have some great information for this week's case - look for it in the Google results.

 

Database Search Tips

Searching for psychological literature in PubMed

Young patient's with chronic conditions experience a range of attitudes regarding adherence to treatment regimens as they grow.  What is the latest research in that area with teenaged patients with cystic fibrosis? Or, maybe, you want an overview/review of the literature on this issue? There are a good number of articles in both PubMed and PsycINFO (see tip below) on this question.  Use the following tips to drill into some really pertinent results. 

  • In PubMed:
    • Choose your terms  (chronic disease or cystic fibrosis or ??)
    • include adherence to treatment
    • Use the filters to narrow to the Adolescents age group (on the side of search results but you have to Use the Add Additional Filters to see and use it) or simply add adolescent in the search terms.
.

 

PsycINFO: Psychological aspects of health and medicine

PsycINFO is the key psychiatry/psychology database.  In additional to psychiatric conditions and their treatment, it also covers the psychological aspects of medicine and health - i.e,. how people cope with their health condition.  Unlike PubMed, it goes beyond just journal articles, it also ndexes books, book chapters, doctoral thesis, and even web sites.

To get a few more results than PubMed offers, PsycINFO is a great place to search for articles on the psychological issues of a growing teen who has cystic fibrosis.  Use the following steps to retrieve a small set of highly relevent articles.

  • Choose your terms - maybe some of the same ones from PubMed
  • Before hitting search, Scroll below to find the Adolescent age group & click to select it
  • Search
  • Refine as needed

Genetics Resources - Freely Available to Health Professionals

Free Resources to Know for Life Beyond UCSD

The following resources are available to everyone without a subscription and for the most part have been developed with government funding.  These tools will be available to you even when you graduate and move on from UCSD. 

Patient & Family Resources

Patient and Family Resources

MedlinePlus.gov

Maria may have family members that could use information in Spanish instead of English.  Let MedlinePlus help you direct them to reliable information.  Search in English and use the "Español" button to get to the Spanish-language resources.

Search MedlinePlus: