Need to calculate a dose, interpret an abbreviation, apply an equation, or use a decision tree with some test results?  MedCalc 3000 is for you.

You’ll find numerous evidence-based calculations, calculators, decison trees and more when you visit STAT!Ref and select MedCalc from the Resources tab.   If you do a search on any STAT!Ref page, any relevant MedCalc resource will be included in the side bar of the results:

Try the MedCalc 3000 Tutorial (uses Flash Player)

MedCalc 3000 is just one of the dozens of resources available in STAT!Ref, via JEFFLINE. All Jeffersonians may access STAT!Ref from home, office, or mobile — all it takes is your campus key. Look for STAT!Ref in the Quick Links on JEFFLINE.

Scott Memorial Library is preparing to withdraw almost 50 years of the print version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and over 100 years of the Annals of Surgery:

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
volume 43, 1957  – volume 103, 2006

Annals of Surgery
volume 3, 1886 – volume 246, 2007

The Library provides access to an electronic copy of each title for use by all Jeffersonians.  We plan to withdraw the print copies  since the electronic version complies with the quality standards outlined in our Print Withdrawal Policy.

If you are interested in obtaining the print version of one or more years of these titles, please contact Diana Ryan (Diana.Ryan@jefferson.edu) before Friday, November 13, 2009.

Note that in the process of converting print to electronic in the case of PNAS, the Library has been able to double its years of coverage, extending our subscription back to the very first issue (1915), in addition to making the content much more accessible for all Jeffersonians.  In the case of the Annals of Surgery, the electronic version spans the entire life of the journal from volume 1 to present. 

Electronic articles are now available 24 x 7 for all Jeffersonians, whether or not they are on campus, and no matter how many want to it concurrently.  The Library’s databases such as PubMed and Scopus link their results to the online article, for greater ease of retrieval.

From the BioMed Central blog:

BioMed Central has recently launched the Stem Cell Gateway, providing easy access to all the latest stem cell related research published across BioMed Central’s journals.  The Gateway complements the new journal  Stem Cell Research & Therapy – the major forum for translational research into stem cell therapies – which is now accepting submissions.

The Stem Cell Gateway includes research highlights, as well as profiles of authors in the field and an interactive map, AuthorMapper, which enables you to explore based on author locations and to discover wider relationships and find experts in your field.

Due for launch in early 2010, Stem Cell Research & Therapy is an international peer-reviewed research journal. Visit the Stem Cell Research & Therapy website to receive regular updates, and to  submit original research articles.

The next Jefferson Book Club meeting will discuss the book “Purple Hibiscus: A Novel” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.   About the book:

Fifteen-year-old Kambili’s world is circumscribed by the high walls and frangipani trees of her family compound. Her wealthy Catholic father, under whose shadow Kambili lives, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home.

When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili’s father sends her and her brother away to stay with their aunt, a University professor, whose house is noisy and full of laughter. There, Kambili and her brother discover a life and love beyond the confines of their father’s authority. The visit will lift the silence from their world and, in time, give rise to devotion and defiance that reveal themselves in profound and unexpected ways. This is a book about the promise of freedom; about the blurred lines between childhood and adulthood; between love and hatred, between the old gods and the new. (description from the author’s website)

As a further resource, listen to the  “The Danger of a Single Story,” a TED Talk by author Adichie.    Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories.  Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. 

Please join us:
Thursday, November 19th
Noon – 1:00 p.m.
Room 200B Scott (behind the fish tank)

If you have not yet picked up a copy of the book, the University Bookstore offers it at a discounted rate and the Library has a copy for loan.

Please feel free to bring your lunch to the meeting, and please let Joanne Gotto know if you plan on attending:

Joanne L. Gotto, EdM
215-955-8769
joanne.gotto@jefferson.edu  

Did you miss Scott Library’s exhibit of artworks by Trudy Kraft?

Though the physical exhibit is gone, the online exhibit is now OPEN for all to view, at http://jeffline.jefferson.edu/SML/Art/Kraft/. 

Visit the Garden of Delights any time of day or night – the garden gates never close.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), publisher of  Science, has launched a pair of online social networking sites to accompany the journal:

• CTSciNet is a community for people pursuing careers in clinical and translational research.
• MySciNet supports aspiring scientists from diverse backgrounds.

From the news release:

Both sites are expected to help scientists and students network, find other scientists with similar or complementary interests, form partnerships and collaborations, and discuss career-related and scientific issues.   The new social networks offer free, secure virtual communities for scientists at all career stages. After registering, users can post and respond to questions on career-related, academic, scientific, or social subjects; join virtual groups on specific topics or for specific organizations; read articles on navigating a career path; and pass along articles and hyperlinks from outside resources.

Both sites were developed by AAAS along with contributions from several scientific societies and with corporate and foundation funding. CTSciNet was funded by a grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund while MySciNet was sponsored by Genentech and Pfizer.

The networks contain features similar to those offered by Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social networks. But since it is monitored by Science Careers staff and populated exclusively by scientists, science trainees and science career experts, science professionals are projected to find CTSciNet and MySciNet considerably more focused.

 Read the full news release.

Arthritis Research and Therapy (AR&T) is celebrating 10 years of publishing with a new collection of reviews.  The collection of 38 articles provides an in-depth overview of the current status of basic and clinical research in rheumatology, and focuses particularly on developments in the past decade, during which there has been an explosion of new information in the field.

Spanning more than 400 pages, the reviews are freely available to all Internet users.  Written by an internationally recognised group of experts, the collection is expected to become an essential educational tool for students,  clinicians and researchers.

View the reviews at http://arthritis-research.com/series/sbr2008 

Open access publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS) has introduced 3D molecular animation technology in its flagship journal, PLoS ONE.   Starting with a kernel of 5 articles in structural biology, this represents a new collection within PLoS ONE:   “Structural Biology and Human Health: Medically Relevant Proteins from the SGC” (Structural Genomics Consortium).

The SGC is an international public-private partnership that determines three dimensional structures of medically important proteins from both humans and human parasites and places this information into the public domain, free from restrictions on use. The peer-reviewed articles, which include some of the research highlights from the SGC, describe new protein structures. These include a protein involved in the survival and proliferation of cancer cells, a protein associated with hereditary paraplegia, and a protein involved in degrading foreign compounds and pollutants in the body.

Readers need to download a free browser plug-in to view the animations. They can then click on hyperlinked text within the article to ‘spot’ the relevant position within the molecule, and interact with it at will, by zooming, rotating and exploring as desired. Knowing the 3D shape of a protein is considered crucial to understanding how it functions in the body.

The SGC at the University of Oxford and its sister programs at the University of Toronto, Canada, and the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, are dedicated to finding the structures of human proteins of medical relevance which could be targets for new drugs. The SGC has over 500 datapacks already available over the web and plans to publish a significant number of academic papers incorporating these datapacks over the next four years with PLoS ONE.

Visit Structural Biology and Human Health: Medically Relevant Proteins from the SGC

The health care reform debate has been grabbing headlines – here is a opportunity for Jeffersonians to participate in the debate!

FUNCTIONAL (Free UNiversal Care In Our Nation At Last),  AMSA and BLHO present:

“Health Care Reform 2009: The System is Sick, How Do We Fix It?”  –  A Panel Discussion
Thursday, November 5th
6:00 p.m.
Foerderer Hall, College Building

Featuring:

Dr. Walter Tsou, former Philadelphia Health Commissioner
Dr. Theodore Christopher, Chair of Philadelphia Medical Society
And others!!

Free & open to the public – non-pizza dinner will be served.

From the press release:

BioMed Central is once again publishing the Journal of Medical Case Reports (JMCR) and Cases Journal.   Since their inception both these journals, which currently provide over 2000 freely accessible case reports, have received widespread recognition and high quality submissions from across the medical community.  Through their innovative approach, both these journals make each individual patient’s case a valuable addition to medical literature.

Journal of Medical Case Reports, edited by Professor Michael Kidd, has published many landmark clinical cases across all areas of medicine including cancer, ophthalmology, gastroenterology, infectious diseases and musculoskeletal disorders. These cases can often serve as early warning signals for the adverse effects of new medications, or the presentations of new and emerging diseases.

Cases Journal, which is edited by former BMJ Editor (and regular Guardian columnist) Richard Smith, will look to complete the scientific record for future generations by publishing any report that is understandable, ethical, authentic, and includes all information essential to its interpretation.

Over the past few years, authors have submitted case reports to these journals from countries as far afield as Nepal and Iran. This once again signifies the inherent value that case reports have to improving clinical practice globally and also the increasing power of the Internet to allow for the widespread sharing of knowledge and thus the advancement of the understanding and treatment of diseases.

Both journals are open for submission to medical professionals on case reports of medicine, and will undergo rapid peer review. To find out more on how to submit a case report, please take a look at our instructions for authors and our peer review policies. We also encourage patients to contribute to the case report by adding a ‘Patient’s perspective’.

Registration is now open for the Medical Film Symposium, a four day event that will take place in Philadelphia, PA from January 20th-23rd, 2010.

The symposium will examine the history, aesthetics, ethics and preservation of medical film production and exhibition, with one full day of presentations at the Mutter Museum and four evenings of film screenings at venues around Philadelphia, including the historic surgical amphitheater at the Pennsylvania Hospital.

The full schedule, list of presenters and registration information can be found at www.medicalfilmsymposium.com

For more information, please email info@medicalfilmsymposium.com

Well-known publisher Springer has announced the launch of a FREE, multidimensional professional networking site, at TheNeuroNetwork.com.

Open access publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS) now includes article-level online usage data on all 7 of  its scientific and medical journal articles (about 14,000 articles).

Look for the new data on the “Metrics” tab of every article.

With the latest expansion of the program initiated in March 2009, PLoS seeks to transparently provide a set of information on every published article. Such information is expected to be of value to researchers, readers, funders, administrators and anyone interested in the evaluation of scientific research.

The PLoS article metrics include HTML page views, PDF downloads and XML downloads, citation counts, comments, ratings, social bookmarks and blog coverage.  Usage data will be updated daily and currently include more than four years of statistics from all seven peer-reviewed PLoS journals.

With this growing and detailed set of metrics on every article, PLoS aims to demonstrate that individual articles can be judged on their own merits rather than on the basis of the journal in which they are published. In order to place the new usage data in context, PLoS is providing summary tables to allow users to see how an article compares with various average measures.

PLoS is still in the early stages of the article-level metrics program, but claims that this is the first attempt by a major publisher to place such a broad range of data on each article. It hopes that the provision of these data will encourage other publishers to make such data available, which will lead ultimately to broader improvements in scholarly communication and research assessment.

For more information, visit PLoS’s project description, this blog by Mark Patterson, or this user-generated video tour by Dr. Alan Cann.

Sharing knowledge is essential for the progress of science, but researchers do not always release data and research materials, even after publication of work.  Earlier this year, two research communities held meetings with a broad range of stakeholders to discuss this issue, and they reported their proposals to promote data sharing in biology in two Opinion articles in Nature.

Now, Nature Network has built a Data Sharing site that brings together the articles with on-going discussion & participation options for readers.  It offers two free forums for reader comment and discussion to address prepublication data sharing and postpublication data sharing, where the authors of the Opinion pieces can respond to readers in a free flow of ideas.

In addition, a news feature examines the technical and cultural hurdles that can keep scientists from sharing data. Exploring issues from antiquated technology to a lack of trust in other scientists, the article highlights a range of potential solutions.

Visit Nature’s Data Sharing site for access to the articles, forums, and related features.

Each month the Psychiatry Online service offers Jeffersonians a free download from the American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. (APPI) bookstore.  October’s selection is  Developmental Psychopathology and Wellness: Genetic and Environmental Influences, edited by James J. Hudziak, MD.

From the publisher’s blurb:

A major benchmark in the understanding of psychiatric illness in children and adolescents, Developmental Psychopathology and Wellness reports on progress in identifying genetic and environmental influences on emotional-behavioral disorders. A team of 22 international authorities presents work that changes the way child psychiatry and clinical psychology are conceptualized, debunking misconceptions about depression, antisocial behavior, and other conditions to enhance our understanding of the causes of child psychopathology—and improve the ways we treat these disorders.

Coverage of basic principles describes the influence of genomic medicine, as explained by trailblazers in the field who demonstrate the importance of the developmental perspective. Chapters on gene-environment interaction review the important concepts of personality and temperament, cognition, and sex—including findings from molecular genetic investigations on adolescent cognition, temperament, and brain function. Disorder-based examples show how emotional-behavioral illness and wellness attest to the interaction of genetic and environmental factors over time, providing new insight into the study of anxious depression, ADHD, autism, and antisocial personality disorders. And in considering how we can bridge the gap between research and clinical applications, Dr. Hudziak describes his family-based gene–environment approach as a means of better understanding etiopathology and treatment. Among the other significant contributions:

• Thomas Achenbach focuses on the importance of culture in understanding the genetic and environmental impact on children, with insights into measuring these sources of influence.
• Joan Kaufman reports on her seminal work on the genetic and environmental modifiers of risk and resilience in child abuse, relating maltreatment to other forms of environmental risk, genetic mediation, and reactivity.
• D. I. Boomsma describes the genetic architecture of childhood worry, presenting data from an extraordinary sample of 30,000 twin pairs.
• Frank Verhulst draws on a 14-year study to detail the advantages of the developmental perspective in understanding antisocial behavior.
• Stephen Faraone offers guidelines for moving beyond statistics to document the functional significance of DNA variants associated with psychopathology.

As the contributors ably demonstrate, these new approaches to the care and treatment of at-risk children are applicable to daily practice, teaching, and research. Developmental Psychopathology and Wellness shows that these psychopathologies are not a matter of nature versus nurture or genes versus environment, but rather an intertwining web of them all.

Read the full review, or visit Psychiatry Online to download the book. (Look in the lower left of the homepage for the Book of the Month.)