Tropical Medicine: April 2009

Kamis, 30 April 2009

Learning tools and search engine ranking for Medicos

Recently read the Latest edition of Journal of Health informatics in developing countries. Specifically, Search engines : a study of nine search engines in four categories by Dallas Knight (Health Informatics Programme University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand). This study’s objective was to determine how search engines within different categories compare, and to look at features and trends of search engines that are commonly used for queries by both health consumers and professionals.

The query terms used for this study are

Ulcerative colitis
Benign positional vertigo
Pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcoma
“online tool” for help with depression
exercise after bowel cancer operation

Evaluation of the first ten sites for each scenario in each search engine included relevance, usefulness, usability of sites, and quality of health information evaluation.

Search engines within the general category (Google, SearchYahoo!) performed best overall. Meta search engines (Dogpile, Jux2) also performed well with vertical search engines (Healia, Kosmix, Healthline) next. Health portals (Revolution Health, WebMD) produced relevant useful results for common terms, but not for unusual query terms.

Other important medical education and learning tools the study talks about include

Custom built Search engines (eg Google, Rollyo and EureksterSwiki )
Blog sites, wikis and podcasts
social bookmarking with Del.icio.us and Digg.com
RSS site feeds read by aggregators or emails
Yahoo Pipes! for channelizing information

The few services and tools it missed include,

Zotero firefox extension and Evernote web clipper - for online research notes
Ning for community building
Youtube(eg.youtube.com/medicaleducation) and Medicalvideos.us for videos.
Twitter for sharing updates
Docstoc and Scribd for document search
Freemind for brain mapping

I think i shall now close this list or i shall be spending hours trying to compile a complete list. Anyways, most of the useful tools for medical education and learning have been mentioned here. If you can think of any more study tools or services, kindly add them in the comments.

Read the complete study Here

Related articles-

Yahoo Pipes (toolsforjournalists.blogspot.com)
Dogpile Search Engine: Lighting A Fire Under Your Keyword Research (marketersdaily.com)
Scienceroll Medical Search: Preview the results! (scienceroll.com)
Three Points about Medical Informatics in India. (neeleshbhandari.blogspot.com)

Learning tools and search engine ranking for Medicos

Ulcerative colitis
Benign positional vertigo
Pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcoma
“online tool” for help with depression
exercise after bowel cancer operation

Evaluation of the first ten sites for each scenario in each search engine included relevance, usefulness, usability of sites, and quality of health information evaluation.

Other important medical education and learning tools the study talks about include

Custom built Search engines ( eg Google, Rollyo and EureksterSwiki )
Blog sites, wikis and podcasts
social bookmarking with Del.icio.us and Digg.com
RSS site feeds read by aggregators or emails
Yahoo Pipes! for channelizing information

The few services and tools it missed include,

Zotero firefox extension and Evernote web clipper - for online research notes
Ning for community building
Youtube(eg.youtube.com/medicaleducation) and Medicalvideos.us for videos.
Twitter for sharing updates
Docstoc and Scribd for document search
Freemind for brain mapping

Minggu, 26 April 2009

Health care reforms in the US.

Health care reform is a hot topic these days. What is health care reform? The President, Congress and people like you are talking about it. The simple answer is well, there is no simple answer.

Most Americans i know are not even sure if Healthcare is a fundamental human right?! So talking about "Health care for all" seems too far fetched for them.The argument i hear commonly says that only taxpayers should be given health care assistance and the 46 million or so people without Health insurance can go to Hell ! It seems like a weeding out plan for poverty. " You don't have money to buy insurance? Too bad, go sit there and die".

All of us shall soon have to come to the conclusion that health rights are equal to Right to life and inability to pay for it cannot be a hurdle. The real problem is not the poor, it is the absurdly rising COST of health care!

A few ways to reduce healthcare costs include

More Use of Technology
Empower people with More information
Payment to care providers to be based on Quality rather than the number of investigations performed. ( This is very basic actually)
Promote healthier Lifestyle.

Health care reforms in the US.

Health care reform is a hot topic these days. What is health care reform? The President, Congress and people like you are talking about it. The simple answer is well, there is no simple answer.

Most Americans i know are not even sure if Healthcare is a fundamental human right?! So talking about "Health care for all" seems too far fetched for them.The argument i hear commonly says that only taxpayers should be given health care assistance and the 46 million or so people without Health insurance can go to Hell ! It seems like a weeding out plan for poverty. " You don't have money to buy insurance? Too bad, go sit there and die".

All of us shall soon have to come to the conclusion that health rights are equal to Right to life and inability to pay for it cannot be a hurdle. The real problem is not the poor, it is the absurdly rising COST of health care!

A few ways to reduce healthcare costs include

More Use of Technology
Empower people with More information
Payment to care providers to be based on Quality rather than the number of investigations performed. ( This is very basic actually)
Promote healthier Lifestyle.

Related Articles-
-Why American healthcare is so expensive? (neeleshbhandari.blogspot.com)
-Healthcare and emerging technologies (neeleshbhandari.blogspot.com)
-Better E.M.Rs to attain "Health Rights for All". (neeleshbhandari.blogspot.com)

Sabtu, 25 April 2009

Wake Up With Perfect Skin! The Overnight Acne Cure That Cleanses Your Skin to Freedom Instantly!

Acne can be cured overnight while you sleep. Eating the right kind of food and avoiding the wrong foods along with a few other applications help you heal your acne overnight.

1. Sleep is the best cure. Sleep is the best cure in itself. Sleep helps the body rest, thus enabling the skin to rest too and heal itself. Sometimes the physical and emotional stress and tension that one has gone through during the day gets relieved through sleep.

2. Drink sufficient water. It is best to start your day with at least two to three glasses of water. That helps flush out the toxins in the body and detoxify your system. Water is one of the best cleansers to depend on.

3. Correct your eating habit. Eat more of salads and fresh fruit. The more greens you eat the more hydrated your system remains and helps detoxify your body. Food is best eaten when simply cooked and easy to digest. Spices should be at a minimum.

4. Avoid processed foods. Strictly avoid processed foods as they contain additives and preservatives. These unbalance your system and cause the build up of toxins in the body.

5. Refrain from fried foods. Fried foods and foods with too much fat content are bad for the system. They help harbor toxins and cause candida to breed causing the eruption of acne on the face.

6. Curative applications. Strawberry leaves are known to be good applications on the acne. Tomato pulp or papaya juices too are good applications. Lemon juice mixed with rose water is a very soothing application. Tea tree oil mixed with some water makes a good application too.

7. Wash and keep face clean. Wash face and clean it when you have come from out side. Wipe your face dry taking care not to rub your towel over the face. If acne happens to be oozing take care to wipe off the ooze with fresh tissue and discard.

You can take care of the acne using these steps carefully.

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Minggu, 12 April 2009

Choose a Natural Treatment Or Alternative Therapies For an Acne Cure!

Acne, one of the most common skin disorders is a great cause of worry for millions of teenagers as well as adults. In order to get rid of it, most people rely on any treatment that comes their way. Half the job is done if you find the right acne treatment. The other half depends on factors such as diet, hygiene, personal care and the like.

Effective Natural Remedies For An Acne Free Skin

Natural treatment or alternative therapies are widely accepted methods to solve acne issues. Some of the popular natural care for acne includes washing the face daily twice with warm water, avoiding oily makeup items, drinking enough water, using natural astringents and other herbal remedies.

Herbal ingredients such as honey, cinnamon, lemon juice, orange peels and fresh mint juice can be used for treating pimples. The positive aspect of natural treatment is that it has no side effects and the treatment is also less expensive.

As honey has great antibacterial properties, applying a honey mask on the face heals small blemishes. However, you need to ensure that you do not rub your face roughly or wash your face frequently as this can worsen the pimple problem.

Alternative Remedies

For those who do not want to use topical creams or other drugs for acne, here are some alternative remedies:

Though many physicians do not see any relation between diet and acne, for an alternative medicine practitioner, this is of great importance. While sugary drinks and eatables increase the chance of acne, beta-carotene rich foods such as pumpkin, carrots, vegetables, oranges, and nuts help to fight this skin disorder.

Vitamin therapy is yet another effective way to keep pimples at bay. For a healthy skin, the body needs a number of vitamins. Though vitamins cannot cure pimples, it can definitely reduce inflammation and infection. Intake of Vitamin A is one of the best medicines for acne cure. It is found in fish oil and dairy products. This vitamin is also responsible for skin healing. Mineral zinc is also recommended for acne sufferers. Apart from helping the body to fight infection and inflammation, zinc helps in preventing scarring. Vitamin B found in eggs, nuts, leafy vegetables, fish, and whole grains can reduce stress, cholesterol levels, and inflammation. The vitamin E found in nuts, sunflower seeds, vegetable oils has many protective and healing properties.

Have you heard of aromatherapy for treating acne? Tea tree oil, which is a natural antiseptic agent, is the basis for it. You can directly apply the oil to the affected area or do a steam facial pouring some drops of tea tree oil in hot water.

Yoga can improve blood circulation, thereby reducing stress and boosting the healing property.

Natural treatment or alternative therapies also demand great commitment. You are advised to eat a balanced, nutrient rich diet and avoid processed foods, alcohol, tobacco, excess salt and foods rich in iodine. If you follow these natural ways, you can attain freedom from acne as well as from many other diseases.

As discussed, Acne Cures can branch out from Natural Acne Treatments to Alternative acne remedies. However, choosing a cure should always depend upon the intensity of your problem and the doctor's advise. To know more about acne related treatments visit Reduce Acne.

Sabtu, 04 April 2009

Personal mobile slide viewers for Pathologists.

Image via CrunchBase

We have been waiting for this,the optimum integration of communication technology and the practice of pathology to help every pathologist individually.

The InterPath concept is to provide access to a virtual microscope that can be controlled in much the same way as with traditional light microscopy. Pre-scanned frozen sections can be downloaded from designated sites on the Web and viewed in an accompanying viewer that is provided free of charge. Convenient features like selection of image areas, zooming and adjustment of light density are supplied. Using the application rapid specialist referrals can be made, without access to a computer, a microscope or the original specimen.

Interpath for iPhone from IMI on Vimeo.

The Interpath for iPhone application allows for a remote pathologist to review and navigate high quality images of diagnostic quality using either the cellular network or WIFI networks on the iPhone. Using the application rapid specialist referrals can be made, without access to a computer, a microscope or the original specimen. The image can be reviewed by the pathologist and used to provide a diagnosis used in cancer and other disease treatments
The system consists of a generic high quality microscope slide scanner, of which there are several currently on the market. A server where the images are located and the iPhone. The iPhone is used to access the large image that is stored in the server but only to retrieve relevant parts. Using the multi-touch interface that the iPhone provides, an intuitive interface is provided that allows the user to navigate and view images of interest in a similar way to that provided by Google Earth. There are plans to put this system into immediate trials prior to consideration of its integration into our patient treatment workflow.

We might not be able to use this for diagnosing any borderline cases, but the potential is enormous. It makes taking second opinions simpler than ever before. With evolving technology, we might be free of a fixed workstation for basic microscopic evaluations!

Personal mobile slide viewers for Pathologists.

Image via CrunchBase

Interpath for iPhone from IMI on Vimeo.

The Interpath for iPhone application allows for a remote pathologist to review and navigate high quality images of diagnostic quality using either the cellular network or WIFI networks on the iPhone. Using the application rapid specialist referrals can be made, without access to a computer, a microscope or the original specimen. The image can be reviewed by the pathologist and used to provide a diagnosis used in cancer and other disease treatments
The system consists of a generic high quality microscope slide scanner, of which there are several currently on the market. A server where the images are located and the iPhone. The iPhone is used to access the large image that is stored in the server but only to retrieve relevant parts. Using the multi-touch interface that the iPhone provides, an intuitive interface is provided that allows the user to navigate and view images of interest in a similar way to that provided by Google Earth. There are plans to put this system into immediate trials prior to consideration of its integration into our patient treatment workflow.

Simple Pubmed Searches

PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes over 18 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to 1948. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related resources. The search volumes at Pubmed are enormous!!

Many people i know do not derive the full benefits of that LARGE library - Pubmed. Most stop at simple article searches and then get lost in the thousands of results which pop up. The few who go for advanced search tend to stop at one or maximum two attributes. It has always been a bit hard to master the Pubmed maze. So now Pubmed has come up with a new improved design for its search Function.

Video by Melissa Rethlefsen, Librarian, LRC - Mayo Medical School

PubMed’s new Advanced Search screen is designed to replace the current tabs in PubMed (Limits, History, Index, etc.) and the Single Citation Matcher.Its more intutive and all the attributes are listed on one page to help you choose easily. I found it better than before. Take a look.