Author: Margaret Dreker

Feel like you’re drowning in a never-ending stream of new studies and articles? What if we told you that there is a free service that can notify you about newly published studies in self-selected key research areas, and that these articles are rated by practicing physicians for relevancy.

EvidenceAlerts, a product of McMaster University and DynaMed, is a continuously updated repository of current best evidence, drawing from 121 core clinical journals. It is pre-rated by trained research staff and then rated for clinical relevance by practicing physicians. Use this free service to set up email search alerts, review the most often read articles in all disciplines from the last 30 days, and run searches across the EvidenceAlerts database.

Sign up for a free account with EvidenceAlerts today! https://www.evidencealerts.com/

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Combining  pictures and words, infographics provide a powerful visual tool for explaining complex topics and reinforcing learning.

AccessMedicine recently introduced The Infographic Guide to Medicine, a collection of over 600 one-page, high-yield graphic summaries covering multiple specialties and body systems.  These summaries are meant to serve as a point of entry into core foundational topics/concepts for students. The infographics are indexed by system of the body.

AccessMedicine infographics can be downloaded in PDF format. Direct links to specific infographics are also available.  AccessMedicine and the Infographics can be accessed through the IHS Library.

The state of the digital Covid vaccine card — the bar code that we store on our phones and present to businesses and venues as proof of inoculation — is chaotic.

While some states, like New Jersey and New York, accept digital records as proof of vaccination to allow entry into restaurants and other businesses, states like Alabama and Florida have banned their use. That means anyone who plans to travel in the United States this holiday season has to research the policies at the destination.

Companies like Apple and Google have come up with convenient ways to store and retrieve our vaccine credentials. Apple Support on this topic can be located here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212752

The best method: Apple and Google wallet apps

First things first. To find your state’s policies on digital vaccine credentials, look up its health department website. Some states, including New Jersey and New York, offer so-called SMART Health Cards. These are digital credentials linked to an official database containing your records of vaccination or test results. They come in the form of QR codes, which are essentially bar codes that look like a bunch of black-and-white squares and contain information about your inoculations or test results.

States that work with SMART Health Cards (a full list can be found online) let you visit a web portal to add your credentials directly to the official wallet apps on iPhones and Android phones. These wallet apps are a default place to store the data and can immediately be opened by pressing the phone’s power button for quick access to your health document.

If your health providers use MyChart (EPIC) (a full list can be found here) a QR code can also be generated and added to the official wallet app on the iPhone.

Here’s an example of how to do this on an iPhone in New Jersey:

• Check to see that you have installed the latest software update for iOS (version 15.1.1). To do that, open the Settings app, tap General and then tap Software Update.

• Now retrieve your digital vaccine card from your health department. These steps vary by state. New Jersey can download the Docket app to get their vaccine records and the QR code.

1. 1. Open the Health app
   2. Tap Summary in the bottom-left
   3. Under Vaccination Record, tap Add to Wallet

If you received a QR code

• • You can scan a QR code given to you by your COVID-19 vaccination or test provider or in Docket  to add your verifiable health records to the Health app.
  • Open the Camera app from the Home Screen, Control Center, or Lock Screen on your iPhone or iPod touch.
  • Select the rear-facing camera
  • Hold your device so that the QR code appears in the viewfinder in the Camera app. Your device recognizes the QR code and shows a Health app notification.
  • Tap the Health app notification
  • For verifiable vaccination records, tap Add to Wallet & Health to add the record to the Health app and Wallet app.
  • Tap Done

If you received a downloadable file

• • You can download a verifiable health record given to you by your COVID-19 vaccination or test provider to add the records to the Health app.
  • Tap the download link on your iPhone or iPod touch.
  • For verifiable vaccination records, tap Add to Wallet & Health to add the record to the Health app and Wallet app.
  • Tap Done.

Once you receive the vaccine card, tap on the button labeled “Add to Apple Wallet & Health.” Now you have access to your vaccine card by opening the Wallet app or double pressing the power button.

For Covid test results, you similarly add the document to your mobile wallet using a digital bar code from the state’s health department or your health care provider.

The most basic method: Save a photo

• • Those living in states that don’t provide digital vaccine credentials can carry a digital copy of their Covid vaccine or test record by snapping a photo of it. The next step is to make the photo easy to find. The best way is to save the photo inside a note-taking app, which lets you label the note so it can be easily surfaced using a keyword search.

On an iPhone, here’s how you can store the record in the Notes app:

• • Open your photo. Tap the button in the lower-left corner that looks like a square with an arrow pointing upward. In the row of apps, swipe to the Notes app and select it. Here, save the image to a new note.
  • Now open the Notes app and select the note you just created. Rename the note “Vaccination Record” or “Covid test results.”

About vaccination cards in Wallet

Once you add your vaccination card in the Wallet app, you can view and present it at any time. The front of the card shows your name, the vaccine type, the dates of the doses administered, the issuer, and the QR code.

The full details of your vaccination card won’t be visible until you’ve authenticated with Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode.

Your vaccination card can’t be shared with other iPhone, iPod touch, or Apple Watch users.

Chen, BX. (December 1, 2021) How to Carry Your Covid Health Data on a Smartphone. New York Times. Technology Section.

Apple Instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212752

 

 

 

 

 

Think. Check. Submit.

This organization helps researchers identify trusted journals and publishers for their research. Through a range of tools and practical resources, this international, cross-sector initiative aims to educate researchers, promote integrity, and build trust in credible research and publications. “Think. Check. Submit.”  checklist has been developed by a coalition of scholarly publishing organizations. These criteria are useful for authors considering where to submit their work, but as with the other initiatives are not a failsafe to identify all legitimate scholarly journals.

Definition of Predatory Publishing

Predatory publishers or journals are those which charge authors a fee for publication with no intention of providing the expected services – such as editorial or peer review – in return. Charging a fee is a legitimate business model, but the publisher should be providing a good publishing service in return.  Authors, realizing that they have submitted their paper to a questionable publisher, can find they are charged a large fee if they want to withdraw their article.

Known synonyms for “predatory journals”

The concept of ‘predatory’ journals has many names: fake journals, questionable journals, illegitimate journals, deceptive journals, dark journals, and journals “operating in bad faith”.

Predatory or not?

There are many journals which do not have the best editorial or technical standards, but which are applying reasonable basic processes to their articles and operating in good faith. Some caution is therefore advised when considering a journal: defects in a publisher’s processes may lead to it being labelled as predatory but the journal may simply lack resources – there may not be an intention to deceive.

Things to watch out for

A predatory journal/publisher may display one or more of these characteristics:

• A journal title which can be easily confused with another journal or that might mislead potential authors and readers about the journal’s origin, scope or association with other journals
• Very wide scope
• Displays of unofficial impact factors
• False claims of being indexed in major services like PubMed or DOAJ
• No publisher address or contact information
• Unclear ownership of the journal
• Spams researchers with many emails inviting submissions, often unrelated to expertise
• Advertises very fast times from submission to publication
• Publishes out-of-scope articles
• Publishes nonsense articles
• Poor or non-existent editing of articles (many spelling mistakes or very poor grammar)
• Hides information on charges
• No editorial board is listed, or the editorial board comprises dead or retired scholars or scholars who are not specialized in the topic
• Lack of information on the policies of the journal, such as peer review, licensing and copyright

For further information please see: Think.Check.Submit.

Literature reviews are important resources for researchers. They provide historical context for a field while offering opinions on its future trajectory. Creating them can provide inspiration for one’s own research, as well as some practice in writing. But few researchers are trained in how to write a review — or in what constitutes an excellent one. Even picking the appropriate software to use can be an involved decision (see ‘Tools and techniques’). So Nature asked editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews for their tips. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03422-x

Tay, Andy. (December 4, 2020) How to write a superb literature review. Nature News . December 4, 2020   doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x

In an attempt to advance equity in healthcare, the American Medical Association has developed a health equity guide, released Oct 28, 2021. The guidebook addresses language use best practices and critical thinking about health narratives, and provides a glossary of terms. 

The playbook, titled “Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative and Concepts,” was developed in partnership with the Association of American Medical Colleges Center for Health Justice.

The guide was created to give physicians a common tongue with which to discuss issues pertaining to systemic inequality and educate them as to how these issues translate into a medical setting. It acknowledges the power of language and the potentially harmful underlying assumptions many common phrases and words hold. 

“We hope that this guide will stimulate critical thinking about language, narrative and concepts — helping readers to identify harmful phrasing in their own work and providing alternatives that move us toward racial justice and health equity,” the guide states. 

The guide covers three major focus areas: health equity language, why narratives matter and a glossary of key terms. Together, knowledge of the three areas can enable medical professionals to be intentional when discussing and thinking about inequity and reframe traditional narratives. For instance, the guide suggests alternatives for commonly used phrases, such as using “formerly incarcerated” instead of “felon” and “white” over “Caucasian,” and provides in-depth explanations for the change. It also provides definitions and historical context of words and phrases like “colorism,” “queer” and “critical race theory.” 

“The COVID-19 pandemic and the disproportionate impact of the virus on Black, Latinx, Indigenous and other historically marginalized groups have brought new urgency and focus to addressing long-standing inequities in health and health care,” said Gerald Harmon, MD, president of AMA. “In recognizing the power in our words, it is our hope that this guide will stimulate conversation and understanding about language, narrative, and concepts”

Ready to test your medical diagnostic skills with visual clues (photos, radiographs, EKG, pathology slide, etc)? By using Harrison’s Visual Case Challenge via AccessMedicine, this just got easier!

Each challenge presents a case that includes two conditions for each patient. You can make a diagnosis based soley on the visual information provided or you can request more information on the patient before making your diagnosis. To ensure you understand the content, there are nearly 70 Clinical Pearls currently provided covering a variety of general internal medicine topics, with more coming!

Here’s how you can get started:

• Go to AccessMedicine
• Click on the Cases drop down menu at the top of the page
• Click on the link for Harrison’s Visual Case Challenge
• Pick a case and start diagnosing!

Have you noticed some of the new features of ClinicalKey?

In case you are unfamiliar, Elsevier’s ClinicalKey is a medical search engine that gives you access to:

• Full-text reference books (over a 1000!) and journals including top titles such as Gray’s Anatomy, Goldman’s Cecil Medicine, Braunwald’s Heart Disease, The Lancet and Mayo Clinic Proceedings
• Clinical Overviews that provide succinct, easy-to-navigate summaries for quick answers
• Drug monographs
• Clinical calculators
• Practice guidelines
• Customizable patient education handouts
• Drug indications, do not crush list, identifier, and adverse reactions
• Medical and procedure videos, images, and more

The redesigned homepages features a new search bar with improved auto-suggest delivering more relevant results.

The cards displayed below the search box help you to quickly see available resources. Now you can browse more quickly for specific clinical topics, drug information, tools, books, and journals.

The Clinical Overview provides a nice summary for PPPC presentations!

To take advantage of all the features of ClinicalKey, create an account by going to ClinicalKey and click Register in the top right corner. Be sure to use your SHU email address when registering.

Once you register for a personal account, you’ll have the ability to earn, track and claim CME credits, use the Presentation Maker tool, save content (like chapter PDFs), and more!

Take a deep dive into ClinicalKey and let us know if you have any questions!