4 registered
(AnnR, mtforpt, 2 invisible)
and 7 anonymous users online.
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#7482 - 10/12/04 12:12 PM
Re: How do you research?
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J. Rose
Member
Registered: 07/10/01
Posts: 1837
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Meri ~ thanks for posting this question. I'm chuckling because I'm far from a "New MT" but I am printing this out to use as a reference. Learn somthing new every day. 
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#7483 - 10/12/04 01:41 PM
Re: How do you research?
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meri
Member
Registered: 09/08/01
Posts: 8728
Loc: Murrieta, California
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 to everyone!
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#7484 - 10/12/04 02:54 PM
Re: How do you research?
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ExMT
Member
Registered: 07/11/04
Posts: 358
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I've probably put more than my share in this thread, but there is an online research tutorial at:
http://www.clicknwork.com/tute.asp
This is business oriented but explains a great deal about how search engines, etc. work and how best to use them.
_________________________
Be prepared.
That's the Boy Scouts' marching song.
Be prepared
As through life you go along.
-- Thanks to Tom Lehrer
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#7485 - 10/13/04 01:53 PM
Re: How do you research?
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mptang
Member
Registered: 10/24/99
Posts: 3137
Loc: Freedonia
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Tenaciously dig. That's the key to research. Never give up. Try new search terms, new engines, and let the tilde work for you in the synonym department.
If you're doing a basic search, put the problem snippets of dictation surrounded by quotes or insert a + in the Google seach box. Throw in everything from the report that might seem relevant. It's not just a single word you're after but how that word fits in a larger context.
Sometimes words/phrases like "algorithm," "novel treatment," "experimental," "investigational," and "pipeline drugs" will bring up something cutting edge. Also add "2004" as a search parameter if you're looking for something new to the market or not in your references.
One I had recently was LVAS and something-26 (s/l conduction) and it had to do with hearing. I didn't know what the expansion for LVAS was either so I needed that also. I entered LVAS + * 26 + hearing since it was an ENT report. Up pops "large vestibular aqueduct syndrome" and "connexion 26." If I'd just put in LVAS, I'd get "left ventricular assist system" and nothing on my -26 companion item, so try to incorporate all your search items to cast your widest efficiency net.
You can also add the diagnosis as part of your search strategy. Experiment with your terms; add and subtract like you're making "search soup" and stir like a maniac.
Google Guide: (if you step yourself through even half of this tutorial, you'll know more about searching than 98% of the people here)
http://www.googleguide.com
Fagan Finder:
http://www.faganfinder.com/google.html
Drug Development/Approval:
http://www.drugdevelopment-technology.com/projects/index.html
http://www.pharmalive.com//News/Category.cfm?categoryid=51
http://www.fda.gov/cder/rdmt/ndaaps04cy.htm
Doc/Hospital Finder:
http://www.checkmydoctor.com
http://locum-tenens.com/Hospitals/A.asp
CMT-9: (lots of oddities contained; highly recommended)
http://www.hpisum.com/merchant.ihtml?pid=81&lastcatid=:id&step=4&cid=none
Links to Specialties:
http://www.nyerrn.com/2index.htm
Search by Subject:
http://bubl.ac.uk/link/index.html
American Indian Tribes: (try finding some of these spellings on a Google seach!)
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/race/indian/cp-3-7/appenG.pdf
Please try some of these techniques/tutorials mentioned. I promise you won't be dipping at the help desk nearly as often.
Edited by mptang (10/13/04 02:07 PM)
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#7486 - 10/13/04 02:55 PM
Re: How do you research?
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meri
Member
Registered: 09/08/01
Posts: 8728
Loc: Murrieta, California
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Wow--what wonderful suggestions from everyone. I am so glad you are all taking the time to give pointers on how you research. I have learned a lot from all of you!
Meri
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#7487 - 10/13/04 03:25 PM
Re: How do you research?
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ExMT
Member
Registered: 07/11/04
Posts: 358
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Quote:
... and let the tilde work for you in the synonym department.
Can you give an example of making the tilde work? There may be some very newbies who are not even sure what the tilde is but even as a oldbie, I am not sure what it does.
_________________________
Be prepared.
That's the Boy Scouts' marching song.
Be prepared
As through life you go along.
-- Thanks to Tom Lehrer
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#7490 - 10/13/04 06:35 PM
Re: How do you research?
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Elgee
Member
Registered: 08/16/99
Posts: 2760
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Let's assume your searching turns up something promising on google. You click on that page, only to find that it's a huge article. Time is short, and you need to verify the term you're looking for. Use Ctrl+F, or Find In This Page.
Example: Here is a document describing complications occurring in cataract surgery.
http://www.ascrs.org/publications/jcrs/csoct8.html
I am looking specifically for the phrase "vitreous prolapse". Hit Ctrl+F and open the Find In This Page dialogue box. Enter your word or phrase, and the rest is easy. In seconds I find four instances of "vitreous prolapse" without having to wade through the entire document. This saves a heap o' time.
I believe the credit goes to CarolT for this tip, posted many, many moons ago.
_________________________
And what manner of jackassery must we put up with today?
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#7491 - 10/13/04 09:05 PM
Re: How do you research?
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Jabberwocky
Member
Registered: 08/10/03
Posts: 375
Loc: Mumbai, India
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I would love to regularly visit these sites but don't find the time:
Tripichik's MT Productivity Forum
Productivity Talk
AAMT's Tips/Tricks Forum
Working in an office setting has the advantage that you can learn from others all the time. A couple of weeks ago, I saw this girl doing a spellcheck with her keyboard. After the F7 in the document, she was using Alt+I to "ignore," and I was terribly impressed. Wow!! and how stupid was I to have been using the mouse to "ignore" all my life!  Sharing what you know is therefore not strictly altruistic as you ultimately benefit from it too.
Okay - after that little nugget of (dubious?) "Eastern Wisdom" I'm off my soapbox. 
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#7492 - 10/14/04 03:25 PM
Re: How do you research?
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carolT
Member
Registered: 07/06/99
Posts: 1625
Loc: Canada
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Then there are some tricks to searching in your books.
I think most medical dictionaries list things like, for example, polycystic ovarian syndrome, under the main noun, syndrome. If you have an adjective-noun phrase of any sort, look under the noun first.
Then, docs often call things syndromes that are actually in the dictionaries as diseases. If it's not in the first one, it may be in the second. The same applies to tests and signs (and others that I can't think of right now, alas)
_________________________
carolT
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#7493 - 10/14/04 05:01 PM
Re: How do you research?
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JRTlover
Member
Registered: 03/16/04
Posts: 899
Loc: Maryland
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These are all so great!!!
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know how all of you have found out so much, but this is goung to incredibly up my search knowledge! I never would have thought to have Google in the toolbar, or how to do a * search! And the links! WOW! I'm going to wait another day or so to see how many more people post and then print this baby out! Have a great weekend everyone!! Jen
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#7494 - 10/20/04 07:30 AM
Re: How do you research?
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J. Rose
Member
Registered: 07/10/01
Posts: 1837
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Thanks to Lvgonadream for posting Healthgrades.com for looking up MD names! That is so helpful. I used to google the phone book of the state I assumed the doc lives in (and I wasn't always correct), then go from there. There have been so many good searching tips here - thanks all!!
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#7495 - 10/20/04 06:40 PM
Re: How do you research?
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girllimberlost
Member
Registered: 02/22/01
Posts: 2409
Loc: spanish fork, ut, usa
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I have a couple of sites that I just love. One is MedlinePlus
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mplusdictionary.html
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginformation.html
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/encyclopedia.html
You can do a search in the dictionary page using * and find words, even with the suffix. Today a doc muttered out something in the PE about auto---sia. I put aut*sia into the search box and found automnesia... which was exactly the right word.
I also like
www.m-w.com
for regular words... And, my favorite site is
http://www.searchsystems.net/list.php?nid=11
This site links you to all kinds of lists of facilities, licensed people (including nurses and social workers), schools and even banks and mortuaries. They are organized by state and link to the individual state or entity, so some sites are better than others and they are not consistent in the way they are set up. Vermont's is particularly good and I absolutely hate Virginia's, but all in all, it is a good reference.
Also a hint on Google. I have been known to put in the sentence the word is located in absent the word I can't hear. I have struck gold more than once!
_________________________
People first, then money, then things. ~~ First Law of Money, Suze Orman
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#7496 - 10/22/04 11:12 AM
Re: How do you research?
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Rad_MT
Member
Registered: 07/28/04
Posts: 746
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I transcribe for a large teaching hospital where they are on the cutting edge of technology. Sometimes I get NO hits on Google or any other search sites because the procedure/product name is too new. Several times I googled the actual doctor's name and came up with hits on PubMed showing articles that he wrote or cowrote that had the exact terminology I was looking for. How I wish that the internet was around back in the days when I was frantically searching for the spelling of Ilizarov! Luckily, one of the doctors in the department had actually learned the technique from Dr. Ilizarov and she provided the spelling for me. I'm dating myself, of course. That was back in 1989-1990.
I actually asked the surgeon while he was doing my breast biopsy about the spelling of a word we couldn't figure out in medical records. That's how anal I become when searching for words! He was very surprised but couldn't help.
Also, don't always assume that you have a correct spelling for a word because you have 800 hits for it on Google. Do try to go to a second source to verify what you have seen on any search engine. I always search for the online journal of the specialty I'm working on to see how articles in the journal spell the word.
Hope this helps.
DonnaN
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#7497 - 10/24/04 09:32 AM
Re: How do you research?
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ExMT
Member
Registered: 07/11/04
Posts: 358
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Google spelling is a bit unreliable. For drugs, if a name comes up with the trademark indicator, I usually assume that is the correct spelling. For others, the correct spelling will usually have more hits than the incorrect spelling, although that is not always so: In another thread, there was a question about the raccoon eye sign with a skull fracture. Google had racoon as often as raccoon and the Encarta OnLine Dictionary lists racoon with a "See raccoon"!
_________________________
Be prepared.
That's the Boy Scouts' marching song.
Be prepared
As through life you go along.
-- Thanks to Tom Lehrer
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#7498 - 10/24/04 04:30 PM
Re: How do you research?
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elizabetta
Member
Registered: 10/08/03
Posts: 25
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I mostly use onelook.com. I wouldn’t be without it. Sorry if this was mentioned, but if you use onelook, you can set it up (at the top right under the “Customize” tab) to search medical words first. This helps with wilcards, as it will bring up the odd medical words first instead of something about architecture.
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#7499 - 12/13/04 02:09 PM
Re: How do you research?
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mptang
Member
Registered: 10/24/99
Posts: 3137
Loc: Freedonia
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just bringing this forward to add something very basic but doesn't occur to people, I guess.
if a doc dictates an address or phone number for a cc doc, the quickest way to find the spelling for that doc's name is to put the phone number (area code included or the city) and/or addy directly into Google wrapped in quotes.
"415-267-4893" "San Francisco"
"1572 California Street"
also if you have an odd spelling of a last name and the city is mentioned, you can enter a phonetic spelling -- "* Huevococcus" "Camden, NJ" or just "New Jersey." you can always work into a physician locator site later.
same works if you need a spelling for a city ... "Sawselido, CA" gives you a prompt "did you mean Sausalito, CA" suggest. also be sure you get the MapQuest "map of" icon in the corner although tiny towns won't always have that.
always go simple wherever you can to save time.
o-ku Nsu-kun no-ko
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#7500 - 12/13/04 02:20 PM
Re: How do you research?
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J. Rose
Member
Registered: 07/10/01
Posts: 1837
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Tang, I'd stay away from that doc in Camden -- just heard last week that Camden, NJ has been declared the most dangerous city in the U.S. Interesting to me, as I used to live right near there.
Thanks for the searching tips -- especially the doc names. I usually try HealthGrades, but I like your idea if you have the phone and/or address.
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#7501 - 12/13/04 02:55 PM
Re: How do you research?
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CyndiSC
Member
Registered: 06/08/01
Posts: 190
Loc: SC
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Another quick mention that I didn't see in the above material...when you get a hit on google that looks like it might have what you're searching for, down at the bottom it will have the url itself, then the size, then usually 'cached" and "similar pages." Rather than clicking on the link (the underlined part at the top), click on "cached". Then, when you get to the website, it will have the words you searched for highlighted, each in a different color. Then you can scan the article quickly, looking for the pertinent words.
And I will add my thanks to all of the above - this thread is awesome, and I have added many of the links to my favorites! 
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