Resources and Obstacles

The sites below are linked to illustrate both the potential and obstaclesto providing useful resources to students. These links are not an endorsementor criticism of the content contained.

The Whole Brain Atlas demonstrates several obstacles to use. In part because of its popularity, access to the site is often slow. It is a powerful resource but the interface is exceeding complicated. For clinical students, there is also a workflow problem. Instead of looking for an example of specific image, student often have an image that they want to diagnose. Designing this type of access is notoriously difficult. Because students may not be proficient in creating clinical image descriptions, such an interface is especially challenging. (snapshot)
DXplain provides access to information in a way that matches workflow. Students can get a description of a condition or enter patient finding and get a description and differential. The system works backwards or forwards to provide the information the student is missing. However, because of its power and in part because of its port from stream oriented sessions to sessionless web technology, students find the interface confusing.
Merck provides a free resource that students can use to search for focused pieces of text. Observing the URL as a user works their way through the system reveals that it would be difficult to provide any kind of automatic linkage to this resource. The source of the information is also of concern when considering pharmacuetical information. (snapshot)
Clinical Pharmacology provides a useful drug information resource. It is flexible, for exmple providing search by pill description and comprehensive. The commercial nature of the product means the market place will drive the quality of the product. However, licensing issues and access can be complicated.
NCEMI provides a list of abbreviations; something particularly useful to students and rarely available. (snapshot)
ACID-BASE provides a useful calculator. How this tool could be linked to a workstation remains prolematic. (snapshot)
EMRS provides a demonstration database to introduce students to the concepts of patient confidentiality in an electronic record, unique identifiers, and controlled vocabulary. In an environment where students rotate through numerous institutions, each with different hospital information systems and different policies for student use, preparing students to use such systems is a challenge. (snapshot)
The internet is creating a flood of information and this is resulting in new types of resources. Medical Matrix is just an example of one such site that provides information about other information resources. Paradoxically, with every specialty society and publisher creating its own web site, users may have difficulty determining which of these meta-resource sites to turn to. (snapshot)