The April 2009 edition of the Plains to Peaks Post Newsletter is now available at: http://nnlm.gov/mcr/services/comm/newsletter/PTPP_April_2009.pdf

In This Issue:
Three Projects Awarded!
Whooo Says
Orienting Nursing Students to the Medical Library
Easily Publish RSS News Feeds on Your Web Page with Grazr
NN/LM MCR at MLA
Offer a Health Information Literacy Session
Upcoming Online Events
Wyoming Symposium
Historical Collections

MedlinePlus Health Topic on Swine Flu
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/swineflu.html

Environmental Health and Toxicology Links on Swine Flu
http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/swineflu.html
The National Library of Medicine Division of Specialized Information Services has released an Enviro-Health Links page on Swine Flu. This page contains links to resources about the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak, including transmission, prevention, treatment, and the genetic makeup of the influenza virus. [scb]

Follow this URL for up-to-date information from the Centers for Disease Control about the recent outbreak of Swine Flu. http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/

[rb]

MedlinePlus Search Cloud: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/cloud.html
MedlinePlus en espanol Search Cloud: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/cloud.html

The MedlinePlus search cloud displays the top 100 English searches, and the MedlinePlus en espanol search cloud displays the top 100 Spanish searches. The search clouds are linked from the MedlinePlus and MedlinePlus en espanol homepages. The search clouds are usually updated every week day. The search terms appear in alphabetical order, and their size represents their relative frequency. The bigger the term, the more often it is searched by people who visit MedlinePlus. A term’s exact ranking is found by placing your cursor over the term, and you can click on any term in the search cloud to conduct a search for that term in MedlinePlus. [scb]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=7391207&page=1
Should Medical Studies Be Posted Free for All to See and Learn From?
By BRIAN BLANK
April 22, 2009

This article has been making the rounds in listservs. Its a good summary of the open access debate. [scb]

Check out the training and workshops by the The Homeland Defense Journal Training Workshops

For details on these and all training and workshops, visit www.HomelandDefenseJournal.net

Upcoming Emergency Management Workshops for June and July 2009

Incident Management for First Responders in Different Cultures - A two day workshop on implementing Cultural Competence in Dangerous Situations Jun 16-17, 2009 | Arlington, VA
Exercise Design and Evaluation Workshop Jun 17-18, 2009 Arlington, VA
Emergency Capability Analysis Workshop Jun 19, 2009 | Arlington, VA
Emergency Preparedness for Libraries Jun 18-19, 2009 | Arlington, VA
All-Hazards Regional Evacuation Plans - An Interactive Two-Day Workshop on Developing an All-Hazards Regional Evacuation Plan Jun 23-24, 2009 | Arlington, VA
How to Develop a Business Continuity Plan/Continuity of Operations Plan That Really Works Workshop Jul 14, 2009 | Arlington, VA
Best Practices for Disaster Communications Jul 15, 2009 | Arlington, VA
Search and Rescue Certification Standards Jul 16, 2009 | Arlington, VA

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) announced the release of the first version of a free online toolkit aimed at standardizing measurements of research subjects’ physical characteristics and environmental exposures.

The tools will give researchers more power to compare data from multiple studies, accelerating efforts to understand the complex genetic and environmental factors that cause cancer, heart disease, depression and other common diseases. The toolkit, which is available at https://www.phenxtoolkit.org/, is the first product of the Consensus Measures for Phenotypes and eXposures (PhenX) initiative. Read the complete TNIH News Release is online at: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/apr2009/nhgri-20.htm [scb]

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) offers Applied Informatics grants to health-related and scientific organizations that wish to optimize the utility and use of clinical and research information. These grants are for organizations that wish to exploit the capabilities of information technology to bring usable, useful biomedical knowledge to end users by translating the findings of informatics and information science research into practice through novel or enhanced systems and services. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-LM-09-001.html [scb]

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, today unveiled its first comprehensive Physicians’ Outreach Initiative, NIDAMED, which gives medical professionals tools and resources to screen their patients for tobacco, alcohol, illicit, and nonmedical prescription drug use. The NIDAMED resources include an online screening tool, a companion quick reference guide, and a comprehensive resource guide for clinicians.

The initiative stresses the importance of the patient-doctor relationship in identifying unhealthy behaviors before they evolve into life threatening conditions. NIDA-modified ASSIST tools are specifically designed to fit into today’s busy clinical practices. Doctors can access the new tools at http://www.drugabuse.gov by clicking on the NIDAMED icon.

Also included in the NIDAMED physician toolkit is a patient-tested postcard that encourages patients to “Tell Your Doctors About All the Drugs You Use” and offers Web links for further information. Doctors are encouraged to put the cards in their waiting rooms to be read by patients before their appointments.
[read the complete NIH News Release is online at: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/apr2009/nida-20.htm] scb