what is the best medical resource available?

[turquoiseblue]

i was wondering what the best medical resource is? is it uptodate? i was reading uptodate and it completely differs in what medscape's emedicine has. i trust uptodate because it is evidence based and i noticed that emedicine was stating things that uptodate said were not worthy to use (e.g. emedicine recommended a TENS device for back pain while uptodate states that studies show it doesn't benefit patients). also, i have no clue about other resources, and would like to know about them if they exist.

so which resource out there has the absolute truth?

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[Rendar5]

Interesting question. If you were going into my field, could tell you dozens of emergency medicine resources since there's ridiculously enough stuff out there that could last a lifetime, but I honeslty can't speak for other fields. For example, I'm not sure if you guys have a regular EBM journal watch.

For general practice, uptodate is a good general source since it's regularly edited and offers you the references, but don't take it witha grain of salt that it's EBM. It's an interpretation of EBM. I'd also make sure you pay attention to all the major society guidelines out there (most are accessible by internet). They will give you the most up to date guidelines and sticking with them will let you stay within standards of care.

But honestly, if you're going into general outpatient medicine, I'd ask in the FM boards or the IM boards for their CME and EBM sources.

 

[Law2Doc]

i was wondering what the best medical resource is? is it uptodate? i was reading uptodate and it completely differs in what medscape's emedicine has. i trust uptodate because it is evidence based and i noticed that emedicine was stating things that uptodate said were not worthy to use (e.g. emedicine recommended a TENS device for back pain while uptodate states that studies show it doesn't benefit patients). also, i have no clue about other resources, and would like to know about them if they exist.

so which resource out there has the absolute truth?

emedicine is a decent free resource. It is written by clinicians at major academic institutions. It does represent those clinicians views as to what should be done in practice sometimes, which may not always be the consensus view seen in something like uptodate. Also emedicine articles are not constantly updated, so there may be one article written in 2001 which is the most recent emedicine article on a subject, while uptodate may contain the major changes over the subsequent decade. I note that since emedicine is written by clinicians in various multiple fields, it is not even always internally consistent, as it represents differing views of different specialties. I seem to recall that there are articles, for instance, on approaches to hernias written on the one hand by emergency room practitioners and on the other by surgeons, which contain differing positions on how certain things are to be handled. But taken with these limitations, it's a pretty decent free resource. Certainly a good starting point.

As long as you stay away from resources like wikipedia, you will be fine.

 

[HCE]

i was wondering what the best medical resource is?

so which resource out there has the absolute truth?

The patient.

 

[eforest]

As long as you stay away from resources like wikipedia, you will be fine.

Don't underestimate wikipedia!

 

[Buzz Me]

I'm a big fan of eMedicine.

NOT Wikipedia.

 

[Rendar5]

if u use wikipedia, make sure that no one put up some false crazy info

 

[TexasPhysician]

Up to Date!

 

[GreatSaphenous]

The patient.

As long as they're an empowered patient.

 

[gutonc]

The patient.

Which ones? The ones that flat out lie to you or the ones that don't know their a$&hole from their elbow?

 

[deuist]

For free general resource stuff, I like eMedicine and drugs.com. There are also free medical journals that you can find through pubmed and freemedicaljournals.com. For textbooks, there are fee-based websites such as MD Consult, Access Medicine, Access Emergency Medicine, and Access Surgery.

 

[TexasPhysician]

Which ones? The ones that flat out lie to you or the ones that don't know their a$&hole from their elbow?

I prefer the ones that always lie, because then I know the truth 100% of the time.

 

[PMPMD]

Sdn

 

[gutonc]

I prefer the ones that always lie, because then I know the truth 100% of the time.

Word. I just assume that anything a patient tells me is wrong. It doesn't really matter if they're wrong by accident or on purpose.

It really hit home to me how completely unreliable even well intentioned, intelligent people are when I had a college educated small business owner ask me what I meant by "short of breath."