ePocrates deal

Lo and behold, I look in my e-mail box today, and ePocrates has a 20% off deal at www.epocrates.com until October 4 on its Essentials product.

Use DLXPROMO in the discount code box.

NOEdb

I found this link recently.

http://noedb.org/ NOEdb - Nursing Online Education Database has links to nursing education programs and a library with links to various sites of interest 100 Web Resources for Medical Professionals.

Nursing Central deal

If you've tried Nursing Central by Unbound Medicine and you'd like to buy it, put Nurse20 in the promotions code section of your order form to get 20% of the list price until October for this handy Palm software or any software in the Unbound Medicine collection.

Handling the information in your life - newsletters, listservs

I get a lot of e-mail. Sometimes, I think I get too much e-mail, but I find, in some ways, it's a convenient way to keep abreast of a lot of topics, without getting too involved unless I'd like to do so.

One way I do this is to use newsletters and listservs (also known as mailing lists) to keep up with information on various topics. Many web sites offer e-mail newsletters on a weekly or monthly to quarterly basis.

Here are some sites with these features I use and what I like about them.

1. http://www.nursezone.com/
NurseZone has several newsletters available that will link you to the latest stories on their web site. This is very helpful, since I don't always have a lot of time to surf to each one individually. It's very simple--they send out the newsletter with the latest topics and if one piques your interest, simply click on the link in the e-mail.

2. http://dir.yahoo.com/Health/Nursing/
This site has a good compilation of information in two pages for newsletters, nursing sites and links to mailing lists.

3. http://consortiumlibrary.org/hsis/find/internet/mailing_lists.php
This page, from the University of Alaska at Anchorage has links to nursing mailing lists and other information on finding nursing mailing lists of your choice.

4. Your friendly, neighborhood nursing association.
I live in Missouri, and our organization MONA (the Missouri Nurses Association) has newsletters and other information on its web site. For more information and web site links to your state nursing association, check out ANA Nursing World.

Where to look -- information on the web

My first inclination when looking for technology articles of interest to me as a nurse is to turn the web and poke around in the search engines. My personal favorite is Google (also the parent company of blogger.com) Google, like many other search engines, uses proprietary algorithms to find articles based on your searches. This is quick and easy, but depending on the search term, it can be a bit overwhelming. The University of Berkeley offers this page called Googling to the Max with information on how to get the most out of your Google searches.


From my university days not so long ago, we learned about the subscription databases, such as Medline and the greatest nursing database ever, CINAHL. These tend to be very expensive, and unless you're enrolled in a class with library access or your facility provides this access to you, you may have to seek alternative resources.


Searching the web for cogent articles for you as a nurse can be challenging, but there are a variety of free resources that are decent and referenced to quality research. Here are some of my favorites below:

Medscape Nursing
This section of the http://www.medscape.com/ site discusses news, industry information and has sections on specialty areas of nursing, as well as opportunities for continuing education.



eMedicine
This site's entry paragraph says it all:


The original open access comprehensive medical textbook for all clinical fields
10,000 Contributors 6,500 Articles


I have found it to be very useful for a quick study on a disease process and its treatments. It was invaluable for me as a student because it allowed me to learn information quickly about a disease or disorder. I still use it today. I found it most helpful recently when I had a patient with Fournier's gangrene.



Finally, the National Institutes of Health also has a wide variety of information for both nurses and patients, as well as links to research topics, grant information, and links to specialty centers of the NIH such as National Cancer Institute and other centers.

Drug information abounds on the web. It is available from specific manufacturers or from sites such as NIH at MedlinePlus drug information, http://www.rxlist.com/, or at http://www.drugs.com/. Please note that some sites may require purchasing a subscription to access further data.