Diagnosaurus is a source that has become new to me in the past week. I have not used this source before, but upon learning about it I find that it serves a very useful role in health care. Diagnosaurus can be accessed through the Hardin Library website via McGraw-Hill's AccessMedicine. Once there, all you have to do is click on the DDx option in the top toolbar to access this source.
Diagnosaurus is probably a more useful source for physicians than for pharmacists, but the variety of ways to find information can make it useful for any health care professional. Information can be looked up by searching based on symptoms, disease, organ systems, or all entries. If you have a patient come in and complains of an unproductive cough, all you have to do is search via symptoms, find cough, click on it, and find a list of the possible diagnoses that may be made for the patient. Once in the list of possible diagnoses, if you want more information on a particular disease, you can click on it to access multiple sources of treatment strategies as well as more information on the disease. This can also be a great source if someone is diagnosed with a disease that may not be correct. You can search by disease to look up the disease state in question and find possible differential diagnoses that can be made instead.
Although Diagnosaurus is probably a better drug/disease information source for physicians, there is also great utility in it for pharmacists and other health care professionals. It could also be a good option for a patient to look up information based on a symptom they have. From Diagnosaurus, they can find a list of possible diseases that can be associated with their symptom. This could be important because if the list contains alarming diseases, a patient may be more likely to seek medical attention rather than just ignoring the symptom. This could potentially allow health care professionals to diagnose and start to treat this disease earlier than if the patient simply ignored the complaint. I think that all of us as health care students need to recognize this source and learn how to use it for cases we may encounter as we become pharmacists in a year and a half.
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2 comments:
Diagnosaurus is definitely geared toward physicians, being that their primary role in healthcare is diagnosing. However, this medical information tool can be utilized by pharmacists in practice. Clinical pharmacists are expected to know how to diagnose disease states in order to provide optimal drug therapy suggestions. Retail pharmacists need to know how to diagnose certain ailments that patients have when they come in for OTC products, making sure that the patient gets the proper medication or medication referral.
I agree that this source is geared towards physicians but the application definately has some info that would be useful for pharmacists. Many people go to the pharmacy before going to the doctor's office for things they do not know much about or think they can take care of themselves. Having this resource would also be helpful around the house for diagnosing any family ailments.
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