New VisualDX features and usability enhancements

VisualDx now offers several new enhancements:

  • Drug Eruptions with Drug Citations: VisualDx has expanded its disease information to include citations from the literature documenting drug-disease relationships for every diagnosis with an associated medication finding.
  • Sorting of Differential Builder Results: Rankings are now based on importance and commonality/rarity in North America.
  • Associated Medications Disease Search and Text: Drug-induced conditions can now be searched by medication name using the search function in VisualDx. Each diagnosis will now feature an associated medications table that allows users to sort the list by medication name or number of citations in literature.
  • Content Additions: VisualDx has added 35 new diagnoses and 412 new images (22,758 in total).

Ginger Roberts, Library Liaison to the Medical School, says, “Students and new residents tell me they’re glad we have VisualDx, especially because its ease makes it a quick reference, and having a ‘jillion’ images can only help. The MS1s & MS2s say the differentials are great for new learning support.”

COS introduces Pivot for funding tracking

NOTE: COS Pivot is no longer a UT Southwestern Library resource. Go to the Library’s Grants Portal for current grant resources.

You now have access to COS Pivot as part of UT Southwestern Library’s existing subscription to COS Funding Opportunities. To take advantage of all it has to offer, visit http://pivot.cos.com and use your current COS login name and password to gain access.

Don’t have a UTSW COS login name and password? Go to http://www.cos.com/utswmc.shtml to register as a new user and set up your COS Profile.

Pivot focuses on what matters most: the ability to find both appropriate funding opportunities and other collaborators in your area of interest. Pivot provides the most comprehensive, editorially maintained database of funding opportunities for research, fellowships, travel grants, and more. Plus, it integrates this with our unique database of three million pre-populated scholar profiles, which makes finding funding and collaborators quick and easy.

Find Funding Now and for the Future

Pivot provides you with your own home page to track your most important active funding opportunities or keep an eye on opportunities for future projects. In addition, you can make the most of your time by saving your searches and receiving weekly alerts that meet your criteria.

Not sure where to start? Pivot helps to jumpstart the process with the Funding Advisor, which matches funding to the profiles in Pivot. Claim or create your Pivot profile to receive funding recommendations based on your experience and expertise. (Note: Newly created profiles are editorially vetted before being visible on Pivot.) Funding matches provide a starting point for funding, and introduces opportunities, sponsors, topics, and keywords that can be used for your own searches.

Connect to Collaborators

Search for potential collaborators at your institution or beyond. Pivot provides user-friendly tools to refine your search that identify people you may not know. In addition, Pivot expedites the discovery process by presenting links from funding opportunities to find possible collaborators and makes it easy to share funding opportunities with colleagues and follow up on shared items. You will soon be able to set up your own collaborative groups within Pivot.

Ready to Support You
Support materials and webinar information can be found at http://pivot.cos.com/support. For campus support, please contact Mary Ann Huslig at maryann.huslig@utsouthwestern.edu.

SciFinder delivers new enhanced features

SciFinder includes journal articles, book chapters, patents, conference proceedings, technical reports, and dissertations. Users may search for keywords in several fields (e.g., author name, research topic, molecular formula, chemical reaction) or use SciFinder’s drawing component to search for chemical structures/substructures.

SciFinder now offers the following enhancements:

  • Sort reference answer sets by citation count to identify influential authors, research concepts, and potential collaborators
  • Create “keep me posted” alerts
  • Access to SciFinder via any UT Southwestern networked computer
  • Explore research topics from “Index Term” links

SciFinder provides access to the following Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) databases:

  • Chemical Abstracts: Provides a comprehensive indexing of chemical literature (1907-present).
  • CAS Registry: Contains over 63.3 million organic and inorganic substances and over 63 million nucleotides and proteins. Also includes calculated, predicted, & experimental properties; chemical structures; names: and synonyms.
  • CASREACT: Includes single and multistep organic reactions (1840-present).
  • CHEMLIST: Provides regulatory information on chemicals.
  • CHEMCAT: Includes commercial availability of chemicals from major suppliers.
  • MEDLINE: Contains a comprehensive database of the biomedical literature (1951-present).

UpToDate's newest feature: Graphics Search

The ability to search graphics was one of the most requested features in UpToDate‘s recent subscriber survey. With a new Graphics Search, clinicians can search graphics directly without first going to a topic. Finding the right graphic quickly will now be much easier and will save time.

UpToDate has more than 23,000 graphics, including pictures, tables, illustrations, diagrams, graphs, algorithms, and movies. These graphics can help make evidence-based medical decisions, prepare for lectures, and educate peers, students, and patients.

This new feature enables users to:

  • Search all the graphics in UpToDate
  • See search results in thumbnail format
  • See all topics that reference a particular graphic
  • View all graphics associated with a topic in thumbnail format

UpToDate’s informational flyer can assist with how to use this new function.

Art exhibit explores the healing effects of color

Artist Leanne Venier showcases her evocative and vibrant abstract oil paintings in a solo exhibition titled “Effective Color: Using Light & Color Frequencies in Medicine”, which explores the healing effects of color. The exhibition will be on display at the UT Southwestern Library from October 11, 2011, through January 29, 2012.

“Technology is finally catching up with what’s been proven in Eastern medicine and numerous other cultures for thousands of years,” remarks Venier. “The use of color and light can bring healing, wellness, and tranquility into our lives. This exhibition showcases how we can all use this knowledge to lead more productive and healthy lives.”

Venier earned her engineering degree in Michigan and then moved to California to work on submarine design for Lockheed Martin. In her spare time, she began exploring numerous aspects of holistic healing including the connection between mind and body and the healing effects of color.

“I’ve been interested in the body’s innate ability to heal itself since I was young, refusing to take even aspirin as a child,” recalls Venier. “I would tell my mother that my body would ‘fix’ itself.”

After several years in California, she decided to move to Italy. It was while she was in Italy that she began her study of the healing arts in earnest. After Italy, she moved to Austin to study acupuncture and then to British Columbia to complete her studies where she started a healing practice working with cancer patients.

Venier has dedicated almost two decades to the study and practical use of holistic healing methods and color therapy.

“I’ve always been interested in how various colors are tied into our psyche and more importantly how they affect us on a physical and emotional level,” says Venier. “We are, in fact, so influenced by color, that by simply noticing which colors we’re drawn to at any given time, we can gain insight into where and how we need to bring balance back into our lives. My goal with this exhibition is to give both lay people and medical practitioners simple tools they can use to bring both themselves and others back into a state of health, wellbeing, and balance.”

Venier, a self-taught artist, has only been practicing her craft for the last four years. She was awarded grand prize of the Jury for Outstanding Artwork in Vico del Gargano, Italy in 2008. Then in 2009, she was selected from thousands as a finalist for the prestigious Hunting Art Prize in Houston. This exhibition is the second solo show that Venier has had at a medical university.

Artist Leanne Venier in front of her artwork

Artist Leanne Venier in front of her artwork

HRSA Health Profession Workforce Development & Grants Information

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has a special program that focuses on health profession workforce development that is designed to ensure that “the U.S. has the right clinicians, with the right skills, working where they are needed.”

The “About” tab offers more about health professions and offers visitors a downloadable copy of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, along with a fact sheet. Visitors from higher education institutions and accredited medical education programs who are interested in applying for government grants should definitely check out the “Grants” link.

Here they will find a trove of information on grants and how to apply in areas from nursing to dentistry to diversity. The “Workforce Analysis” link has six downloadable studies documenting the nursing shortage in the United States, which is projected to reach one million people by the year 2020. Overall this site is a great resource for those working in the health professions, healthcare educators, and students. [KMG]