McGoogan News

NLM Spotlight: PubMed Health

Posted by Christian Minter | July 3, 2017

PubMed Health will help you answer the question of “What works?” when it comes to the prevention and treatment of diseases and health conditions. This website specializes in reviews of clinical effectiveness research, and provides easy-to-read summaries for the general public as well as full technical reports for clinicians. Categories of information include:

Health A-Z/Drugs A-Z: a list of different health and prescription drug topics. Each page includes a brief description of the topic, a glossary of relevant terms, and summaries and evidence reviews for current clinical effectiveness research.
Understanding Clinical Effectiveness: provides resources for understanding clinical effectiveness and systematic reviews, where to find systematic reviews, and free ebooks for understanding how to interpret research results.
PubMed Health Blog: receive updates on new content on PubMed Health, health news, and information about new resources relate to clinical effectiveness research.
Behind the Headlines: provides evidence-based analysis of health stories in the news.

PubMed Health is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine.

Want to learn more about PubMed health? Attend the webinar: “Understanding Systematic Reviews and More at PubMed Health.” Wednesday, July 26, 2:00 pm CT. Register for the webinar here.

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From the archives: Electricity and medicine

Posted by Heather Brown | June 12, 2017

Electrotherapy is the use of electrical energy as a medical treatment. In medicine, the term electrotherapy can apply to a variety of treatments, including the use of electrical devices such as deep brain stimulators for neurological disease. The term has also been applied specifically to the use of electric current to speed wound healing.

The first medical treatments with electricity took place in London as early as 1767 at Middlesex Hospital, using a special device. The same device was purchased for St. Bartholomew’s Hospital ten years later. The record of uses other than therapeutic is not clear; however, Guy’s Hospital in London has a published list of cases from the early 1800s.

In 1856 Guillaume Duchenne, a French neurologist, found that alternating current was superior to direct current for electrotherapeutic triggering of muscle contractions. He noted that the “warming affect” of direct currents irritated the skin, since, at voltage strengths needed for muscle contractions, they cause the skin to blister. With direct current, each contraction required the current to be stopped and restarted. Alternating current could produce strong muscle contractions regardless of the condition of the muscle, whereas direct current-induced contractions were strong if the muscle was strong and weak if the muscle was weak.

The device shown here is Barrett’s two-cell faradic battery, which is very similar to a late 19^th century electrotherapeutic device in the library’s special collections. Similar devices were used during the last decades of the 19^th century through the first few decades of the 20^th century. The image is from a book in the library’s rare book collection, Practical Electricity in Medicine and Surgery, by G. A. Liebig, Jr., Ph.D., and George H. Rohé, M.D., published in 1890.

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Welcome, SURP students

Posted by Heather Brown | June 6, 2017

The McGoogan Library of Medicine is happy to welcome Summer Undergraduate Research Program students to the UNMC campus. While on campus, you will have access to the library’s online and print collections, as well as access to the RefWorks citation management system. The library space is open for you to study, relax (check out our Reflection Room and massaging chairs), recharge (we have coffee!), and collaborate on your projects.

Librarians are available to assist you with formulating research questions, using library resources, citing references, and more. You are invited to join us for one or more classes in-person, or you may contact us with questions or to schedule a meeting.

2017 SURP Library Class Schedule

Wednesday, June 7:

10:30-11:30 am Library tour and orientation

Location: Meet at the library on the 6th floor near the AskUs Desk

1:00-2:00 pm Introduction to Citation Managers: RefWorks and EndNote

We will demonstrate RefWorks and EndNote and how to use citation managers. Bring your own device. We can help you install, connect, or troubleshoot items for either program.

Location: MSC 1005

2:00-3:00 pm Finding Experts

This session will provide a close look at finding influential authors and journals and using gray literature resources to discover research trends and news. We will use databases like Research Nebraska, ClinicalTrials.gov, JANE, and NIH RePorter to identify researchers, then trace their work and impact through Scopus via cited and citing reference searches. We will also use Journal Citation Reports to look at the influence of journals by discipline.

Location: MSC 1005

No registration is required

Thursday, June 8:

1:00-2:00 pm Using Library Search Tools to Write a Problem Statement

In this session, we will start by working with a broad (internet/Google search) and then move to a structured search for literature (or other non-Google) databases, such as Medline, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and Clinicaltrials.gov. We will look at several databases, the strengths and weakness of those databases as sources for evidence, and how to refine search strategies. We will wrap up with strategies for keeping track of searches and setting up alerts to track the literature.

Location: Wilson Training Room, Library 8th floor

No registration is required

Wednesday, June 14:

3:30-4:30 pm Getting the Most from Google

Take your Google searches to the next level. Learn to use available tools and operators to focus your Google or Google Scholar searches on your area of interest. Customize your Google Scholar settings to obtain full-text and facilitate citation export. Learn about other specialized Google search engines, including Google Images and Google Translate.

Location: MCPH 3001

Thursday, June 15:

1:00-2:00 pm Using Library Search Tools to Write a Literature Review

We will revisit search strategies, discuss sample published literature reviews, ways to avoid plagiarism, how to incorporate citations. This session will help inspire you to write with scientific writing tips and an introduction to writing resources and Grammarly.

Location: Wilson Training Room, Library 8th floor

No registration is required

Contact the McGoogan Library of Medicine

Library home page : https://www.unmc.edu/library
2017 SURP Library Class resources: http://unmc.libguides.com/SURP

askus@unmc.edu
402-559-6221
402-370-5016 (Text 8-5 M-F)
402-559-4006 (Eve/Wknd)
1-866-800-5209 (toll-free)
*Chat is available on the library site

Welcome to campus. The library wishes you a summer of research success!