Now available: Online Search Clinic Recording for PubMed Update on Automatic Term Mapping, Citation Sensor, and Advanced Search

A 30 minute online search clinic was presented by the NLM® and the National Training Center and Clearinghouse (NTCC) via Adobe® Connect™ on Thursday, July 17th (2pm ET). The presentation  covered changes to PubMed including changes to how PubMed handles your search (the new automatic term mapping process), the citation sensor, and the beta Advanced Search page.

View the Clinic recording

Responses to questions that were not addressed during the Clinic time will be posted to this Web site in the near future.

Comments and suggestions regarding the new PubMed features and the search clinic are welcome.

For more training opportunities, see the National Training Center and Clearinghouse Web site and the NLM Distance Education page. Watch for announcements of new training resources in the NLM Technical Bulletin.

We hope you find the Search Clinic: PubMed Update useful and enjoyable.

The History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine is pleased to announce our newest website, AIDS Ephemera, based on an exhibit of that name at the NLM from November 2002 to June 2003.AIDS was first identified in 1981 and the initial response to the disease generated ephemeral public health materials, such as buttons, posters, cards, comic books, and even lunch boxes.  Since AIDS was both incurable and invariably fatal, these messages of prevention were the only effective steps public health officials could take.

Produced by government health departments as well as private organizations, these ephemeral objects became an important medium for messages of awareness, prevention, compassion, and responsibility.  Buttons and posters provided information on disease symptoms and safe practices, while comic books spun tales of the consequences of risky sex and needle sharing.

The materials for this website are drawn from the NLM’s Prints & Photographs collection.  Many donors contributed these materials—we wish to take special note of the contributions of William H. Helfand, who, as a consultant to the Library, organized and carried out a project to secure AIDS posters from the many agencies and organizations that were producing and distributing them in the 1980s and ’90s.

Please visit the site at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/aidsephemera

The July issue of NIH News in Health, the monthly newsletter bringing you practical health news and tips based on the latest NIH research, is now online at http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/.  In this issue of NIH News in Health:

Medical Imaging
Changing Health Care, Saving Lives
If you or someone you know has had a mammogram to check for breast cancer, an X-ray to detect a broken bone, or an ultrasound to examine an internal organ, then you’ve seen the benefits of medical imaging firsthand.
full story

Are Your Wrists at Risk?
Learn About Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
You’re working at your desk, but you’re distracted by a tingling or numbness in your hand and wrist. Then a sharp, piercing pain shoots from your palm through your arm. If you’ve had symptoms like these for several days—or worse, weeks—or if they keep you up at night, you may have carpal tunnel syndrome.
full story

Health Capsules:

·   Social Ties Affect Smoking Behavior

·   Eating Well as You Get Older

·   Featured Web Site: Time to Talk

Click here to download a PDF version for printing.

Subscribe to receive email alerts when new issues of NIH News in Health are posted by going to https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=nihnewsinhealth-l&A=1.

The June issue of NIH News in Health, the monthly newsletter bringing you practical health news and tips based on the latest NIH research, is now online at http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/.  In this issue of NIH News in Health:

More than a Feeling
How the Arts Affect Your Health
For thousands of years, people have searched for the meaning and beauty of life in music, painting, poetry and other arts. Now scientists are finding that the arts can benefit both your mental and physical health.
full story

What Makes Your Head Hurt?
Tension is the Most Common Culprit
If you suffer from headaches, you’re not alone. Headaches are one of the most common health complaints. But only rarely do they warn of a serious illness.
full story

Health Capsules:

·   Fat Cell Numbers Stay Constant in Adults

·   Blood Pressure Control and Kidney Disease

·   Featured Web Site: Asian American Health

Click here to download a PDF version for printing.

Subscribe to receive email alerts when new issues of NIH News in Health are posted by going to https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=nihnewsinhealth-l&A=1.

NIH Launches Undiagnosed Diseases Program

Clinical Researchers to Tackle the Most Puzzling Medical Cases

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced a new clinical research program that will aim to provide answers to patients with mysterious conditions that have long eluded diagnosis. Called the Undiagnosed Diseases Program, the trans-NIH initiative will focus on the most puzzling medical cases referred to the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., by physicians across the nation.

“A small number of patients suffer from symptoms that do not correspond to known conditions, making their care and treatment extraordinarily difficult. However, the history of biomedical research has taught us that careful study of baffling cases can provide new insights into the mechanisms of disease — both rare and common,” said NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., who has made a point during his six-year tenure at NIH of encouraging trans-NIH initiatives. “The goal of NIH’s Undiagnosed Diseases Program is two-pronged: to improve disease management for individual patients and to advance medical knowledge in general.”

The new program, which got under way over the past month, is the culmination of efforts by William A. Gahl, M.D., Ph.D., clinical director at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the NIH; John I. Gallin, M.D., director of the NIH Clinical Center; and Stephen Groft, Pharm.D., director of the NIH Office of Rare Diseases (ORD). With the program infrastructure now in place, the program is ready to accept patients, the first of which is expected to be seen in July 2008.

“The NIH Clinical Center, the nation’s clinical research hospital, provides an extraordinary environment for excellence in both patient care and collaborative clinical investigation,” said Dr. Gallin. “This new program will capitalize on a rich set of skills already at the Clinical Center to help patients with unusual medical conditions. These patients partner with us in clinical research to identify new diseases or new treatment.”

To evaluate each patient enrolled in the new program, NIH will enlist the expertise of more than 25 of its senior attending physicians, whose specialties include endocrinology, immunology, oncology, dermatology, dentistry, cardiology and genetics. Dr. Gahl, who is an expert on rare genetic diseases, will serve as director of the new program.

“We have developed a stringent referral process to ensure this program deals with those cases that have truly confounded medical experts,” Dr. Gahl said. “We will be very selective when it comes to patient eligibility. Our focus is strictly on conditions that have not been diagnosed.”

To be considered for this NIH pilot program, a patient must be referred by a physician and provide all medical records and diagnostic test results requested by NIH. Patients who meet the program’s criteria — as many as 100 each year — will then be asked to undergo additional evaluation during a visit to the NIH Clinical Center that may take up to a week.

Two nurse practitioners will manage patient recruitment and logistics for the new program, which will utilize existing facilities and staff already at the NIH Clinical Center, NHGRI and ORD. Funding for the program includes $280,000 per year from the ORD.

In organizing the Undiagnosed Diseases Program, NIH has reached out to patient advocacy groups that often serve as a source of information and support for people struggling with mysterious ailments. “We hope to build upon our strong working relationships with many patient advocacy groups. These organizations provide a crucial link in our nation’s efforts to improve human health through biomedical research,” said Dr. Groft. “We hope that this new partnership of NIH researchers, advocacy groups and patients will give hope for many Americans who now face troubling medical symptoms with no clear diagnosis.”

For more information about the Undiagnosed Diseases Program, go to: http://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/Undiagnosed. Physicians and patients with specific inquiries may call the NIH Clinical Center clinical information research line, at 1-866-444-8806.

MedlinePlus has released a multilingual feature, providing access to high quality health information in languages other than English and Spanish. This new service, linked from the MedlinePlus homepage and available directly at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/languages/languages.html, benefits people who prefer to read consumer health information in their native language. It also helps the information professionals and health care providers who serve them.

The new collection contains over 2,500 links to information in more than 40 languages and covers nearly 250 Health Topics.

Users can navigate the new collection of health information in multiple languages either by language or by topic. In addition, a languages box with a list of language names displays on the English Health Topic pages. The language names link to information on MedlinePlus in multiple languages for that topic

You can also use the MedlinePlus search tool to find these pages. A new collection called Multiple Languages appears in the MedlinePlus search results.  Look for an update to the MedlinePlus Search Tips in the near future.

In addition, an interactive world map teaches users about the number of people who speak nine of the languages in the MedlinePlus collection.

The MedlinePlus collection of health information in multiple languages is not meant to be comprehensive. Instead, as with our English and Spanish collections, MedlinePlus staff selects materials according to our quality guidelines. We also follow quality guidelines that are specific to the new collection.

NLM welcomes your comments and suggestions about MedlinePlus. A “Contact Us” link appears at the top of every MedlinePlus page.

The May issue of NIH News in Health, the monthly newsletter bringing you practical health news and tips based on the latest NIH research, is now online at http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/. In this issue of NIH News in Health:

Frightened of Food
Living with Food Allergies
Imagine what life would be like if you had to constantly check out the ingredients in your favorite foods to make sure your life wasn’t in danger after eating even a tiny bit. For some people with severe food allergies, that’s become their way of life.

Of Air and Asthma
Air Pollution’s Effects
A growing number of Americans are sniffling and suffering with allergies and asthma. If you’re 1 of the 23 million Americans who suffer from asthma, you might get some relief by taking steps to reduce indoor allergen levels and modifying your lifestyle to avoid the ill effects of air pollution.

Health Capsules:

• Keeping Off Lost Weight
• Older Corneas Can Make Good Transplants
• Featured Web Site: Gear Up!

Click here to download a PDF version for printing.

Subscribe to receive email alerts when new issues of NIH News in Health are posted by going to https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=nihnewsinhealth-l&A=1. 

The March issue of NIH News in Health, the monthly newsletter bringing you practical health news and tips based on the latest NIH research, is now online at http://newsinhealth.nih.gov/. In this issue:

Making and Maintaining Muscle
How Much Protein Do You Need?
The idea of eating more protein has gained popularity in the past few years. Some people may think the way to build body muscle is to eat high-protein diets and use protein powders, supplements and shakes.
full story

Living with Crohn’s Disease
More Options for Treatment
Even when chickenpox is gone, the virus that causes it stays with you for life, hidden and inactive in your nerve cells. As you get older, the virus may make a second, unwelcome appearance and cause a painful disease called shingles.
full story

Health Capsules:

• Supplement Use and Cancer
• Why Be Shy About Incontinence?
• Featured Web Site: NIHSeniorHealth.gov—Exercise Stories

You can also click here to download a PDF version for printing.

Women’s Health Resources from the National Library of Medicine

A new Web resource providing scientists and consumers with the latest information on significant topics in women’s health research from scientific journals and other peer-reviewed sources is now available through the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The NLM Division of Specialized Information Services, Office of Outreach and Special Populations has partnered with the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) to create this one-stop resource.

The 2008 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Priorities for Women’s Health were used to identify overarching themes, specific health topics, and research initiatives in women’s health. Within each section of the Web site are topics with links to relevant and authoritative resources and research initiatives for women’s health.

Women’s Health Resources from the NLM Web site can be found at: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/outreach/womenshealthoverview.html

Women’s Health Resources from the ORWH Web site can be found at: http://orwh.od.nih.gov/nat_lib_med.html

The National Library of Medicine has released the NLM Drug Information Portal http://druginfo.nlm.nih.gov . This resource provides the public, healthcare professionals, and researchers with a gateway to current and accurate drug information from the National Library of Medicine and to other key government agencies.

The Drug Information Portal offers a varied selection of resources and focused topics in medicine and drug-related information, with links to individual resources with drug information and summaries tailored to various audiences. General drug categories from MeSH are also included in the Drug Portal records.

More than 15,000 drugs are available for searching. The search interface requires only a drug name; a spellchecker is provided. Information buttons and balloon pop-ups guide the user by providing helpful hints or a description of the resource and links to the source website.

Search results include links to related drug information in MedlinePlus®, AIDSinfo®, Medline/PubMed®, LactMed, HSDB®, Dietary Supplements Labels Database, TOXLINE®, DailyMed®, ClinicalTrials.gov, PubChem, NIAID Anti-HIV/OI Database, ChemIDplus®, Drugs@FDA, DEA, and USA.gov .