New training dates for March & April

How time flies - it's March already, and spring is in the air!

What better time to brush up on your searching skills in order to get the evidence you need for clinical practice, CPD etc.

Full details are available from http://www.medschl.cam.ac.uk/library/trainingdates.html

The main highlights are:

• extended sessions: each session now lasts 1.5 hours to give plenty time for practice and experimentation
• "how to find e-journals" - back by popular demand!
• regular sessions on Pubmed, Cochrane Library, searching NHS databases, Scopus & Web of Knowledge
• keeping up to date - keep control of the torrent of information!

Contact Isla if you'd like to book a session.
As always, individual sessions are available if you've got specific questions, and group sessions can be tailored to the needs of your team - call (01223 336750) or email to discuss how best we can help.

New Journals now available in the Medical Library

British journal of medical and surgical urology 2008 vol.1(1)-
Clinical Respiratory journal 2007 vol. 1(1)-
Clinical and translational science 2008 vol.1 (1)-
Hematology 2008 vol. 13(1)-
International journal of rheumatic diseases 2008 vol. 11 (2)-
Journal of communication in healthcare 2008 vol. 1(1)-
Mucosal immunology 2008 vol.1 (1)-
Therapeutic advances in gastroenterology 2008 vol.1 (1)-

BMJ Best Practice

"Healthcare professionals need fast and easy access to reliable, up-to-date information when making diagnosis and treatment decisions. This is precisely what Best Practice provides.

Best Practice is a completely new concept for information delivered at the point of care. In a single source we have combined the latest research evidence, guidelines and expert opinion – presented in a step-by-step approach, covering prevention, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.

Best Practice provides a second opinion in an instant, without the need for checking multiple resources. Its unique patient-focused approach represents a major new advancement in information delivery at the point of care

Best Practice is brought to you by the BMJ Evidence Centre – a division of the BMJ Group that is working to provide healthcare professionals with innovative new products and tools that make evidence useful in practice."

Available without passwords on University computers (ie in the Medical Library) and also available anywhere using your Addenbrooke's NHS ATHENS login.

http://bestpractice.bmj.com/best-practice/

updates to Clinical Knowledge Summaries

The Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS) are a reliable on-line source of evidence-based information and practical ‘know how’ about the common conditions managed in primary and first-contact care.

Eight new and updated topics were issued onto the website in January 2009:

New CKS topics

• depression in children


• MRSA in primary care


• sleep_apnoea


• tuberculosis


• vaginal_discharge

Updated CKS topics

• neck_pain_acute_torticollis


• neck_pain_cervical_radiculopathy


• neck_pain_non_specific


• neck_pain_whiplash_injury

turning unknown unknowns into known unknowns.....

The UK Database of Uncertainties about the Effects of Treatment (UK DUETs) becomes a Specialist Library within the National Library for Health.

http://www.library.nhs.uk/duets/

DUETs has been established in the UK to publish uncertainties about the effects of treatments that cannot currently be answered by referring to reliable, up-to-date systematic reviews of existing research evidence. Systematic reviews are based on worldwide searches for reliable, relevant evidence, analysed using methods to reduce biases and the play of chance. More detailed information about systematic reviews and fair tests of the effects of medical treatments is available in The James Lind Library at: (http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/)

Identifying uncertainties relevant to patients and clinicians

There are many important uncertainties about the effects of treatments. To help ensure that treatments are likely to do more good than harm, these gaps in knowledge must be identified and those deemed sufficiently important must be addressed in research, either by systematic assessment of what can be known from existing evidence, or by extending the evidence base. Research on the effects of treatments too often fails to address questions that matter to patients,
and to the clinicians to whom they turn for help.

For this reason, the UK DUETs identifies and publishes unanswered questions about the effects of treatments which have been asked by patients and clinicians, while also noting therapeutic uncertainties identified through systematic reviews, clinical guidelines, and other formal mechanisms.