WinkingSkull.com is a free, interactive anatomy resource for medical students. The site is organised by body region and is designed to let you study anatomy and test yourself on must-know concepts. You can gauge your proficiency against a handy timer and see your test results instantly. To take full advantage of all the features of the website you need to register for a free account. Other anatomy resources include:

Musculoskeletal radiology

Get Body Smart

ARRS GoldMiner

Resuscitation Guidelines

In the interest of public awareness, the Australian Resuscitation Council has made the decision to make the ARC Guidelines freely available. This page is worth bookmarking.

Easy as tick and click - DIY Journal Tables of Contents

The ticTOCs Journal Tables of Contents service makes it easy for academics, researchers, students and anyone else to keep up-to-date with newly published scholarly material. You can read the TOCs simply by clicking. If you register at the site (it’s free!) then you can also store, have them emailed to you or export TOC feeds to your reader. New titles are added regularly and the current tally is 11,896 scholarly journals from which you can search for specific titles in your area of interest.

MedEdPORTAL - Free Resources for Medical and Dental Education

MedEdPORTAL is The Association of American Medical Colleges' website that is filled with free resources regarding medical and dental education. The goal of the website is to offer "peer-reviewed teaching resources such as tutorials, virtual patients, simulation cases, lab guides, videos, podcasts, assessment tools, etc." On the homepage, visitors will find Featured Collections, Partner Collections, and Featured Publications.


At the bottom of each list is a link to "Browse all Collections" and "Browse all Publications". When browsing the publications, visitors can "Browse by Discipline" or by "Hot Topics". The collections are divided up by Collection and Content Area Organization. Both the collections and publications are very well cross- referenced, so despite the vast amount of information available on this site, finding what's needed is not as daunting as one might think. Visitors who are familiar with the rising importance of cultural competence education in the healthcare setting will be interested in the exercise, "The Cultural Self-Awareness Workshop", which is under the Featured Publications heading on the homepage. In the exercises' abstracts visitors can find the intended learner and faculty audience, lessons learned, and educational objectives. You will need to register so they can track who is using their resources, but it is free. (Scout Report 24th April 2009)

Swine Flu in Mexico

At least 20 are dead and hundreds are ill in a Swine Flu Outbreak in Mexico.
Officials find links between the Mexican virus and the strain that sickened 8 people in California, Texas.

Swine flu (click for more information on the CDC site) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza. Swine flu does not normally infect humans. However, human infections do occur, usually after exposure to pigs. Symptoms resemble those of the regular flu, including sore throat, coughing and fever.

Competencies for Allied Health professionals

A project in Western Australia has aimed to develop a competency framework for senior level AHPs across a core of allied health professions in remote and rural areas. The team has recently published their work in the Journal of Rural and Remote Health under the title: Developing competencies for remote and rural senior allied health professionals in Western Australia.
The disciplines of audiology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech pathology, social work, podiatry and dietetics were examined and a competency tool was developed, designed to support a range of life-long learning strategies.

Aboriginal health workforce

The AIHW has just released a report called Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health labour force statistics and data quality assessment. It provides comprehensive data on the Indigenous health labour force, drawn from censuses, surveys and administrative data sources. The report presents information on Indigenous medical practitioners, nurses, Aboriginal health workers and those studying health. The report also assesses the quality of Indigenous labour force data.
In most cases, the increase in the number of health professionals over time was larger than the indigenous population increase over the same period, but there were problems with the data in terms of undercounting and a low response rate.

World Health Organization Global Malaria Programme

The World Health Organization (WHO) created the Global Malaria Programme to craft malaria policy and strategy formulation, along with creating guidelines for malaria prevention and control across the world. On their homepage, visitors can learn about their work through their annual reports and their specific prevention efforts targeted towards pregnant woman and infants. A good way to get started on the site is by looking at the list of themes on the left-hand side of the homepage. One area that's worth perusing is the "Diagnosis and Treatment". Here visitors can learn about the most effective way to treat malaria and how the disease can be managed over time.

Those persons travelling to malarial areas will want to click on the "Malaria and travelers" section. This area provides a section of tips for those entering such regions, along with information about areas currently dealing with malarial outbreaks. [From The Scout Report 17th April]

Dermatology Update on ETG Electronic Therapeutic Guidelines

The latest eTG complete release includes completely revised Dermatology content.
Key chapters include Acne, Contact dermatitis, Cosmetic dermatology, Cutaneous drug reactions, Dermatitis, Genital skin diseases, Hair disorders, Infectious skin diseases, Infestations and bites, Paediatric dermatology, Psoriasis, Solar damage and skin cancer, and Urticaria and angioedema.
There are new tables and boxes on Dosing of oral antihistamines, Important considerations when using topical corticosteroids in adults and in children, and Indications for lasers and their relative efficacy. Patient information leaflets on Practical measures to minimise solar damage and Care of areas treated with liquid nitrogen are available in print-friendly format. Web links to useful dermatology atlases and patient information and support groups are provided in the Sources of information appendix. Getting to know your dermatology drugs Includes new monographs on azelaic acid, biological antipsoriatic drugs (adalimumab, etanercept, infliximab, efalizumab), botulinum toxin type A, eflornithine and tazarotene.

Access via CIAP: www.ciap.health.nsw.gov.au and click on Clinical guidelines to find the complete range of ETG Electronic Therapeutic Guidelines

Cervical screening in Australia 2006-2007 Report

Cervical screening in Australia 2006-2007
The major objective of the National Cervical Screening Program is to reduce incidence and mortality from cervical cancer. Over 3.5 million women (61.5%) aged 20-69 years participated in the Program in 2006-2007, up from the last report. Incidence and mortality remain low at 9 new cases in 2005 and 2 deaths in 2006 per 100,000 women aged 20-69 years.
To access the full report from AIHW:Cervical screening in Australia 2006-2007 Report

What constitutes evidence-based medicine?

A couple of weeks ago, ABC Radio National's Health Report featured a fascinating discussion with Professor Victor Montori from the Mayo Clinic. He says there are two principles of evidence-based medicine: "One is that the better the research, the more confident the decisions will be. So how do we bring the qualities of the research to bear when people are making decisions? And the second issue was how do we incorporate patient values and preferences in decision making? Without that you're not practicing evidence based medicine."
The emphasis on the patient is vital considering that Prof Montori estimates that only one in five prescriptions in the United States actually get filled, while countless other medications are left in cupboards or disposed of without being taken. Actually involving the patient in medication decisions should, he says, save this incredible waste and expense and lead to better treatment outcomes.
Click here for the transcript, or download or podcast the audio.

US Department of Health & Human Services Health Promotion Website

This health promotion website healthfinder.gov is coordinated by the US Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) and its health information referral service, the National Health Information Center. It is supported solely by U.S. government funds and does not accept paid advertisements, content, or links in any form.

It contains information and tools "to help you and those you care about stay healthy". It includes resources on a wide range of health topics selected from over 1,600 government and non-profit organizations to "promote the best, most reliable health information on the Internet". The website content guidelines can be evaluated to learn more about how resources on healthfinder.gov are reviewed and selected.

Cancer survival and mental health

In the latest MJA Supplement, Allison Boyes has published a paper entitled, Anxiety and depression among long-term survivors of cancer in Australia: results of a population-based survey. MJA 2009; 190 (7): S94-S98.
"The psychological morbidity associated with cancer is significant, with evidence suggesting that 15%–23% of cancer patients experience clinically significant anxiety and 20%–35% experience depression. ...With the overall rate of death from cancer declining, the number of people living with or beyond cancer is growing; it is estimated that there are about 340 000 cancer survivors in Australia, representing about 2% of the population. For many, cancer becomes a chronic disease, yet relatively little is known about the psychological wellbeing of long-term cancer survivors (those surviving more than 5 years)."
The results of the study are quite optimistic, with long-term survivors seeming to have a similar rate of depression or anxiety to the general population. There is a small group, however, who continue to suffer adverse psychological effects and do need ongoing support.

Wondering about Nanotechnology?

National Institutes of Health: Nanotechnology [pdf, Real Player]
Anyone wondering what nanotechnology is and what it can be used for, will find this website from the National Institutes of Health very helpful. If visitors have wondered what a nano looks like they can check out the video on the right side of the homepage for a 30-second animated view comparing the size of a nano to everyday objects. To learn more about the use of nanotechnology in the area of medical research, visitors should click on the link to the pdf "Innovative Medical Research at the Molecular Scale", which is located near the middle of the page. The twelve-page document briefly highlights some of the areas of research being conducted around the country, and page eight has a list of online Nanotechnology Resources that address the regulations and potential concerns of the use of nanotechnology. If, after a thorough examination, a deeper understanding of nanotechnology is desired, visitors are provided with links to further research by clicking on "Learn more about Nanotechnology at NIH". (Taken from the Scout Report)

Government intervention in Medical Training

Medical training: first farce then tragedy is the title of a paper by Steven Shwartz, Vice Chancellor of Macquarie University.
Schwartz criticises the idea of central planning for the education of doctors. In the early 1990's the Government decreed that there were too many medical places in Australian universities, so they 'paid' the universities for less places. Five years later there was a chronic shortage of doctors and medical graduates were brought in from overseas. Today, medical undergraduates are concerned that there are too many doctors being trained again, and that there will not be enough postgraduate training places for them all. Schwartz prescribes a dose of market forces for Australia's medical workforce training, as opposed to the very inexact science of governments predicting future needs. He also suggests such ideas as universities and private hospitals being allowed to have a place in postgraduate specialist training.

Social Media and Health Care

Take Two Aspirin And Tweet Me In The Morning: How Twitter, Facebook, And Other Social Media Are Reshaping Health Care. This is the intriguing title of Carleen Hawn's article in Health Affairs, 28, no. 2 (2009): 361-368. Hawn writes, "... across the health care industry, from large hospital networks to patient support groups, new media tools like weblogs, instant messaging platforms, video chat, and social networks are reengineering the way doctors and patients interact."
The article includes examples of where this is already working, and a good description of what all those terms actually mean. If you're still confused, and feel you should be Digging or Twittering, try Wikipedia's explanation at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media. Wikipedia is itself a form of social media of course, as is this Blog - so you are already doing it.

Causes of Death in Australia 2007

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has just released this report. The leading cause of death in 2007 was still Ischaemic heart diseases, but at 16% this is now a lower proportion than in 1998 when it accounted for 22% of deaths. Strokes have remained the second leading cause since 1998 and trachea and lung cancers have remained the third. Deaths due to Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease have risen from seventh place in 1998 to fourth place in 2007, with a 126% increase in the number of deaths from this cause over that period of time.
Click here for the full report.

Cancer website for health professionals

Cancer Learning is a website set up on the initiative of Cancer Australia Its aims are to:

• consolidate the enormous variety of evidence-based learning activities, resources and information in cancer care available across Australia and overseas
  
• provide a first port of call for health professionals, organisations and cancer networks who wish to undertake, build or plan professional development programs and activities in cancer care
  
• enable resources and information to be shared by cancer care providers across Australia.

This really useful site provides access to over 400 resources to help professionals learn about cancer, palliative care and related topics. Career planning pathways and cancer resources for allied health professions are also included.

Thanks to GWAHS Libraries Blog for this post idea.