Just thought I'd alert everyone to a great resource I've discovered on the internet. It's on the Monash Medical Centre's radiology registrar website and provides great alogorithms for determining whether patients' require imaging for various clinical presentations. Check it out at:
Radiology: January 2008 Archives
Dr. Elliot Fishman, director of diagnostic radiology and body CT, and colleagues designed a test to determine which web resources best delivered accurate information to medical students most efficiently. Efficiency was based on the number of links one had to view. Students were randomized to complete the exam by using either Google or any other web resource. Participants repeated the exam with the alternative arm in two weeks. An analysis of the results from 86 medical students who completed the protocol showed that Google was more efficient compared with all alternatives (mean links 1.50 versus 1.94, p = 0.002). Following a Google search, 89% of end-sites identified that provided correct answers were medical websites. The most frequent alternatives used to initiate a search were the search engines Yahoo and Ask, and the encyclopedia Wikipedia. Yahoo yielded comparable correctness to Google (96% versus 97%) but was less efficient (mean links 1.90 versus 1.54, p<0.001).
From: http://www.dimag.com/showNews.jhtml?articleID=205901754
