Week 7 Consumer Health Resources

Health Source - Consumer Edition

I looked at the publication list and was surprised by the number of books that were included.  Many of the books were several years old.  I searched for "calcifications" found during a mammogram.  The most recent article was in a 2003 Prevention magazine.  The article was easy to understand but in the 346 words it was more about breast cancer in general than calcifications.  I listened to the Early Cancer Clue section and found that to be very interesting.  I checked out the British and Australian accents for fun.

Medline Plus

I have used Medline before but not Medline Plus.  I really liked this site and will use it as the first place to send patrons.  The format is easy to use and the home page gives you all kinds of options including a medical dictionary which will answer the majority of the questions we get.  On November 23rd the Health News articles were on kids with diabeties, soy-rich diets and hot flashes, and teen smoking.  Popular searches were aspirin, colera, hypertension, shingles, and tuberculosis.  I followed the shingles link and found a great deal of information.  The shigles article was very infomative and easy to understand.  There were 339 articles but by refining my search with the suggeated keyword I found 41 articles on the vaccine.

Simvastatin is a medication taken to lower cholesterol.  I do not think you could come up with a question that could not be answered using this resource.  Besides the basic information of why it is perscribed , how it should be used and side effects if answers the questions of what to do if you miss a dose and storage conditions.

I seached breast calcifications and found an excellent article from the Mayo Clinic.  Another article had some very good information on when further testing is needed beyond a mammogram.  It had a connection to stereotactic core biopsy that was very informative and easy to understand.  I learned a great deal more than I did in the Health Source.

I watched two videos.  They were both very good.  The first one on breast reconstruction was very technical and over my head.  The second one about putting tubes in childrens ears was easy to understand and very reassuring for parents of children that are about to have this surgery.