Murphy Library News

It’s hard to get through college without having some kind of a health-related issue at some time. When that happens, it’s easy to find medical advice on the Internet, but what if you want to ramp it up a bit and get the same information your health care provider is reading? You can be sure your doctor is not surfing the web to get professional medical information. Fortunately, Murphy Library – often through group licenses with UW-Madison or the UW System – provides access to professional medical information databases. These are the exact same research tools your doctors, nurses, and other providers are using to stay current with medical research. Where are these professional medical research tools? Find them in the Health Professions Subject Guide at http://libguides.uwlax.edu/healthprofessions. What will you find there? A few examples include:

• Medline with Full Text – the primary repository of published scholarly and professional articles in the field of medicine. Murphy Library’s version of this – unlike the free version on the Internet – includes the full text of many articles.

• ClinicalKey - a point-of-care resource for healthcare professionals designed to provide clinicians with answers quickly.

• Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews – for healthcare professionals, rigorous and up-to-date analysis of research on the effectiveness of healthcare treatments and interventions.
• Encyclopedia of Human Nutrition, Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine, and other scholarly reference works in the health fields.

The library’s Health Professions Subject Guide provides links to these and dozens of similar resources, including online databases and journals, print and online specialized medical encyclopedias, and other books. As always, let us know if you have any questions - librarians are always available to help!