Reference Material
Reference materials are an excellent starting point for acquiring a broad overview of your topic. Items with REF call numbers are reserved for in-library use only. Those with links are available online to registered Portage College Library users.
If off-campus, contact Public Services Librarian for username/password.
The Alternative Medicine Encyclopedia REF 615.5303 MAR
Compendium of pharmaceuticals and specialties (e-CPS)
REF 615.1171 COM 2009
Encyclopedia of Drugs and Alcohol REF 362.29 ENC 1995 Volumes 1-4
Fundamentals of Nursing: Caring and Clinical Judgment REF 610.73 FUN 2004
The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine - overview of many topics, with good listing of resources and organizations REF 616 GAL 1999 Volumes 1-5 Newer, abbreviated edition also available online.
Guidelines for air medical crew education REF 616.980213 GUI 2004
The Human Body Book: An Illustrated Guide to Its Structure, Function and Disorders
Revealing and detailing all aspects of the body, from the secrets of DNA to the functions of every major body system, this all-in-one encyclopedic guide is packed with accessible health and medical information that is ideal for students.
Inside, you'll find brand new-terms encompassing the latest acronyms and abbreviations from every front in healthcare and the latest virus nomenclature, plus the newest terms in computer technology, medical informatics, and molecular biology.
Magill's medical guide covers diseases, disorders, treatments, procedures, specialties, anatomy, biology, and issues in an A-Z format, with sidebars addressing recent developments in medicine and concise information boxes for all diseases and disorders. [5 volumes]
REF 610.3MAG 2008
Martindale: The Complete Drug Reference REF 615.1 MAR 2007 Volumes 1 & 2
The Merck Index: an Encyclopedia of Chemicals, Drugs, and Biologicals REF 615.1 MER 2006
The Merck Manual of diagnosis and therapy
The authoritative manual on most illnesses and diseases, including information on etiology, symptoms, diagnosis, etc. REF 615.58 MER 2006
Mosby's 2005 Drug Consult for Nurses REF 615.1 MOS 2005
Mosby’s Dictionary of Complementary & Alternative Medicine
The terms and definitions cover the five major areas of complementary and alternative medicine: alternative health care systems; mind-body interventions; biologically based therapies; manipulative and body-based healing methods; and energy therapies.
REF 615.5 MOS 2004
Mosby's Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, & Health Professions
This full-color dictionary of health care terminology is known for its combination of relevant, thorough definitions and vibrant color illustrations and line drawings that illuminate all subject areas. More than just Mr. Bones, you'll find detailed illustrations of the muscular, circulatory, endocrine, lymphatic, nervous, respiratory, digestive, reproductive, urinary systems and other features.
REF 610.3 MOS 2006
Mosby’s Emergency Nursing Reference REF 610.7361 MOS 2005
Mosby's handbook of herb & natural supplements provides detailed information for approximately 300 commonly used herbal products and natural supplements. This resource incorporates authoritative information on common names, pronunciations, scientific names, origins, uses, forms, dosages, contraindications, side effects and adverse reactions, interactions with herbs, drugs, foods, and lab tests, client considerations, pharmacology and references for every drug.
REF 615.321 SKI 2006
Mosby’s Survival Guide to Medical Abbreviations & Acronyms, Prefixes & Suffixes, Symbols, Greek Alphabet REF 610.148 CAM 1995
National Academy Press provides access to over 3,000 free books. Choose from the topics in the left-hand column, then select a release. See "Full text" under Free Resources.
Oxford English Dictionary [20 volumes] REF 423 OXF 1989
PDR nurse's drug handbook REF 615.1 PDR 2008
Pharmacology for the EMS Provider REF 615.1 BEC 2003
Prehospital Emergency Pharmacology REF 616.025 BLE 2005
The Royal Society of Medicine: Medicines includes 700 new drug entries, over-the-counter and prescription drugs and extensive information on side-effects.
Stedman’s Medical Dictionary REF 610.3 STE 2006
If off-campus, contact Public Services Librarian for username/password.
Searching the Portage College Library catalogue
The online catalogue is the Library's computerized catalogue. It is the listing of books, videos, and journals available in the Library. You can locate material on specific topics by performing a Subject Heading search.
Some sample headings for Medicine you can perform a search on in the online catalogue:
AIDS (Disease)
Emergency medical services
Human anatomy
Drug testing
Euthanasia
Medical emergencies
The call number on the online catalogue corresponds to the number on the label on the spine of the book (e.g. 611.7 MUS 2005).
Examples
611- Human anatomy
612 - Human body
615- Drugs, Pharmacy, Pharmacology, Pharmaceutical chemistry, (Pharmaceuticals), (Drugs - Chemistry), (Prescription drugs)
610.3 Medicine - Dictionaries, (Medical dictionaries), Medicine - Encyclopedias
An Atlas to Human Anatomy 611.0022 STR 2000
The Muscular System Manual: the Skeletal Muscles of the Human Body 611.7 MUS 2005
Periodicals: Magazines, Journals & Newspapers
Periodicals are published at regular intervals, generally more frequently than annually. Each issue is numbered and/or dated consecutively, and normally contains separate articles, stories, or other writings. Scanning current issues of periodicals in your subject area can be useful when you are trying to think of a topic.
Canadian Emergency News
JEMS. Journal of Emergency Medical Services
Finding Journal Articles
An electronic database is an index of articles in magazines, journals and newspapers. Portage Library subscribes to a number of Web-based electronic databases. The databases that you will find useful for your studies are:
AltHealthWatch focuses on alternative and complimentary medicine. Use this database for finding information on topics such as yoga, chiropractic therapy, herbal supplements, massages, acupuncture, etc Full-text articles are available.
BioMedSearch is a biomedical search engine that contains NIH/PubMed documents, a large collection of theses, dissertations, and other proprietary publications not found anywhere else for free, making it one of the most comprehensive and powerful free biomedical searches.
CINAHL Plus with Full Text, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, provides indexing for more than 3,000 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health.
Health and Wellness Resource Centre focuses on consumer health information and includes links to diet, cancer, and health assessment sites as well as government databases. Also provides “Drug Finder,” “Health Assessment Tools,” “Medical Encyclopedia,” etc. Full-text articles are available.
Health Reference Centre Academic
Use this database to find articles on topics such as fitness, pregnancy, medicine, nutrition, diseases, public health, occupational health and safety, alcohol and drug abuse, HMOs, prescription drugs, etc. Full-text articles are available.
Medscape
Requires registration, but free and well worth it. Full text articles and access to Medline (abstracts).
Access to databases is restricted to the Portage College students, faculty and staff
Web Sites
The Internet is a rich source of material. The sites listed here are just a starting point. If you are looking for a specific topic, try typing keywords into one of the basic search tools such as Yahoo, AltaVista, Google, etc.
AEGIS: Aids Education Global Information System
HIV/AIDS database with links to news headlines, organizations, general health resources, and virtual libraries.
Bioethics Resources on the Web
This page produced by the US National Institutes of Health is an effort to bring together all web-based resources at the NIH having to do with bioethics.
Health Canada
Provides facts on a variety of topics including cancer, First Nations, heart health, pregnancy, seniors, smoking, STDs, etc.
HealthNewsReview.org is a website dedicated to improving the accuracy of news stories about medical treatments, tests, products and procedures.
Interactive Body This fun, interactive site lets you build a skeleton, stretch some muscles and organize the organs in an interactive body and rates you on your knowledge of anatomy.
MedlinePlus is the National Institutes of Health's Web site for patients and their families and friends. Produced by the National Library of Medicine, it brings you information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues in language you can understand.
MedlinePlus - Emergency Medical Services
Journalists use Newswise as a source for news leads and experts from the world's leading organizations. Members are innovative, influential organizations world-wide, including top medical schools, universities, research institutions, public relations firms, government agencies, non-profit organizations, associations and advocacy groups.
Merck
Provides free access to the Merck Manual (Home Edition) and the Merck Manual of Geriatrics. Includes Topics for Health Care Professionals. Searchable database.
Paramedic Association of Canada (PAC)
The Paramedic Association of Canada is made up of its’ member chapters in almost every province and territory in this country. Focusing on national issues is the mandate of PAC!
patientINFORM is a program that brings together the publishers of the world's leading medical journals and the U.S.'s most trusted health organizations to provide patients and their caregivers with access to some of the most up-to-date, reliable and important research available about the diagnosis and treatment of specific diseases.
Public Citizen Health Research Group - Public Citizen's work in health and safety has focused on protecting consumers by advocating for stronger physician accountability; safer, more effective drugs, medical devices and dietary supplements; equitable health care; safer streets, cars and trucks; and improvements in worker and product safety.
Public Health Agency of Canada
Excellent starting point for any medical topic in Canada.
US Food and Drug Administration
US Food and Drug Administration News for Health Professionals
Virtual Hospital is a digital health sciences library created at the University of Iowa that aims to make the Internet a useful medical reference and health promotion tool for health care providers and patients.
Virtual Library of Useful URLs Arranged by Dewey Decimal Classification
600-628 Technology, Health & Business
Medical or related healthcare consumer fraud
The National Council Against Health Fraud is a private nonprofit, voluntary health agency that focuses upon health misinformation, fraud, and quackery as public health problems. Its positions are based upon the principles of science that underlie consumer protection law.
Quackwatch is closely affiliated with the National Council Against Health Fraud, which cosponsors its free weekly newsletter, and with Bioethics Watch, which highlights issues of questionable research on humans. Their Internet Health Pilot site provides links to hundreds of reliable health sites. Their Casewatch site contains a large library of legal cases, licensing board actions, government sanctions, and regulatory actions against questionable medical products.
Who Cares: Sources of Information about Health Care Products and Services
The US Federal Trade Commission has created this website to help you find reliable sources of information on health topics. You can find links to agencies and organizations that care about topics like generic drugs, hormone therapy, caregiving, surgery to improve vision, alternative medicine, hearing aids, and medical ID theft; learn how to spot misleading and deceptive claims.
Doctors tuning in to new technology
U of A professor introduces idea of replacing stethoscopes with MP3 players.
Making All the Right Calls
This article discusses the development of the CellScope, a peripheral tool that turns the digital camera of a cellular telephone into a microscope. Developed by the bioengineer Daniel Fletcher, it is intended for use in remote diagnostic processes in the developing world. The possibility of improving the diagnostic abilities of home health aids and emergency medical personnel is also explored.
APA (American Psychological Association) Style
As a student, you will be writing research papers for a number of assignments given by your instructors during your studies. In doing so, you will be going through the following steps:
1. You will use different sources to get the information you need to write a paper on a particular topic
2. You will be including this information directly or indirectly in your paper, or, in other words, you will use various types of quotation. A quotation is a written or spoken passage that is repeated word for word in another context (your paper), usually with appropriate scholarly acknowledgment (a correct citation) of the original source.
3. You will need to give a citation for every quotation that you are using - a reference or listing of the key pieces of information about a work that make it possible to identify and locate it again. The elements of a citation normally include author, title, place of publication, publisher, and date of publication for a book; and journal title, volume, number, issue, year, and page numbers for an article.
The main goal of any citation is to credit the author and enable the reader to find the source. This guide shows how to use APA (American Psychological Association) style to cite the most common types of sources: books, brochures and book chapters, periodical articles, audio visual material, and electronic media. For more examples see the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) available in the Portage College Library [REF 808 PUB 2010]. APA style for electronic sources is evolving; therefore recent recommendations are on the APA website.
View a tutorial on APA style here.
A research paper must cite sources in two ways:
1. Citing sources in your paper through in-text parenthetical citations.
2. Creating a Reference List, which lists all the sources used in your text.
For more information, please, see the APA Style Guide from Perdue University.
