LIBRARY BULLETIN

April 1999 
 

Harvard Health Newsletters in the Library's Consumer Health Room
By Donald Dederick

The Library is receiving both "Harvard Men's Health Watch" and
"Harvard Women's Health Watch". These monthly newsletters, indexed in Medline, are written for the general reader by the Harvard Medical School.

Topics covered in the March Issue of HMHW include: "Testicular
Cancer","Cigars and Health, The National Cancer Institute Reports", "It Works, Good Nutrition Prolongs Health", "In-Line Skating: As Good as Running, as Bad as Biking", "Body Size and Prostate Cancer" and a section devoted to questions from the readers entitled "On Call". Although not intended to provide personal medical advice, the goal of this newsletter is to interpret medical information for the general reader in a timely and accurate fashion.

The HWHW is a similar publication pertaining to women's health
offering information for enlightened choices from Harvard Medical School. Topics covered in the March Issue include: "More Evidence for Exercise", "Alzheimer's Disease", "Advances in Women's Health", "Estrogen's Long-Term Influence", "Supplements for PMS", "Evista and the Brain", and a section devoted to questions and answers entitled "By the Way Doctor".

The Consumer Health Room is open by appointment only, during the
hours of  9:00 A.M. until 4:00 P.M. For an appointment, call Donald Dederick, at extension 7452. Materials from the CHR can be obtained at other times by the staff of the Access Services Desk.

HealthSTAR - A database for Health         Planning and Administration
by Mary Doherty

The library's OVID  searching utility (found on the Library Grid
under "Literature Searching") contains a number of useful databases in addition to
the heavily used Medline. In this article we would
like to spotlight HealthSTAR, a database containing literature in health planning and administration, which includes such topics as health insurance, health care policy, delivery and economics, quality assurance, as well as personnel, licensure and accreditation issues in health care facilities.

Although HealthSTAR is produced by the National Library of
Medicine in cooperation with the American Hospital Association, it includes literature that does not appear in other NLM databases such as Medline. This is important to remember when doing a literature search related to any of the aforementioned topics. A Medline search alone often will not retrieve all the relevant literature on these administrative topics, since HealthSTAR indexes journals, government documents, book chapters and meeting abstracts not found in Medline. However, it uses the same MESH indexing terminology as Medline, so the "Change Database" feature on top of the Ovid search screen will allow the user to duplicate a Medline search in HealthSTAR without typing it in again.

Journal Clubs: How to
By Julie Semkow  (Special thanks to librarian, Mary Doherty, for assistance with this article.)

Slightly over 100 articles about journal clubs have appeared in the
databases MEDLINE, HealthSTAR, and CINAHL, during the last six years. Many of these are very brief reports, editorials, letters or comments. The purpose of this highly selective bibliography is to assist those considering establishing a journal club, by identifying articles that are substantive, preferably reviews, that focus on formation, maintenance and efficacy and that contain representative citations found across a broad spectrum of health-related disciplines. Also included are two citations about online and media-based journal clubs. All citations, arranged by year of publication, may be found in journals here in the library except where noted.

1. Alguire PC. A review of journal clubs in postgraduate medical education. [Review] [50 refs]. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 13(5):347-53, 1998 May.
2. Valentini RP. Daniels SR. The journal club. [Review] [19 refs]. Postgraduate Medical Journal. 73(856):81-5, 1997 Feb.
3. Kuppersmith RB. Stewart MG. Ohlms LA. Coker NJ. Use of an Internet-based journal club. Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery. 116(4):497-8, 1997 Apr.
4. McMahon A. Library access: journal clubs. Nursing Standard. 12(13-15):40-1, 1997 Dec.
5. Sandifer QD. Lo SV. Crompton PG. Evaluation of a journal club as a forum to practice critical appraisal skills. Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London. 30(6):520-2, 1996 Nov-Dec.
6. Ziemer K. Evaluation of a continuing professional education opportunity via an on-line service. Proceedings of the AMIA Annual Fall Symposium. 1996:51-4. (Request through interlibrary loan)
7. Moberg-Wolff EA. Kosasih JB. Journal clubs. Prevalence, format, efficacy in PM&R. American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. 74(3):224-9, 1995 May-Jun.
8. Sidorov J. How are internal medicine residency journal clubs organized, and what makes them successful? Archives of Internal Medicine. 155(11):1193-7, 1995 Jun 12.
9. Seago BL. Turman LU. Horne AS. Croom P. Cary K. Journal club with a mission. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association. 82(1):73-4, 1994 Jan.
10. Sheehan J. A journal club as a teaching and learning strategy in nurse teacher education. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 19(3):572-8, 1994 Mar.
11. Bearon LB. Hickman DH. Amara AH. Video journal club: combining video evaluation and continuing education. Gerontologist. 33(3):415-8, 1993 Jun.
12. Flarey DL. Journal club: a tool for health care management and development. Health Care Supervisor. 11(3):53-8, 1993 Mar.

TIP
by Anita Ondrusek

For those of you contemplating joining (or founding) a journal
club, check out the ACP Journal Club(ACPJC), a bi-monthly publication received by the HSCB Library.  In each issue, medical experts critique recently published research articles from their fields.  You will find information on ACPJC review criteria and the credentials of its expert reviewers at http://hiru.mcmaster.ca/acpjc/ default.htm.  The full text of featured abstracts and commentaries from both current and past issues of ACPJC are archived at:http://www.acponline.org/ journals/acpjc/jcmenu.htm

Website of the Month: CancerNet

CancerNet is the website of the National Cancer Institute's Office of Cancer Information, Communication, and Education (OCICE). It includes CANCERLIT Topic Searches providing citations and abstracts from NCI's bibliographical database and PDO, NCI's comprehensive cancer database. The site has sections for the patient, for the healthcare professional, and for the researcher. It can be found on the Web at: http://cancernet.nci.nih.gov