Consumer Health Resources:
I began this week with Health Source: Consumer Ed. I searched for "Shingles" and got peridicals ranging from AHFS Consumer Medication Information to Women's Day, and also reports from CRS: Adult Health Advisor. I noticed there were over 80 full text consumer magazines and reports available. The article I read was very easy to understand. I did notice there was a dictionary feature, but I didn't need it.

Next I decided to try Health Source: Nursing/ Academic Edition, which we use here at the college. This included over 550 full text scholarly journals. My search for shingles retrieved all academic journals and also the AHFS. I looked at an article from the Mayo Clinic Proceedings and found that it was most certainly not for the consumer, but our medical students would be able to use it for their research.

Next I compared Medline Plus with PubMed Central, which we also use here at SMCC. Again, Medline was fun to use, very consumer friendly with colorful graphics. I found links for the latest issue of the magazine, announcements for Get Smart About antibiotics Week and COPD Awareness Month. My shingles search led me to links to images and videos. The video I watched was informative and easy to understand. A search for Black Cohosh under herbal medicine led me to a branch site calledd the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. I found info about the science behind use of this herb, side effects, a good list of ources and links to clinical trials. All great stuff, I'm sure our students will be able to use this. And me too.

Pubmed is a free full text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal lit at NIH/NLM. This is much more academic-friendly, and my search for shingles led to an article from the Journal of the American Geriatric Society. For this, I needed a dictionary!