MD Consult - Find The Answer

Since 1989, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has conducted a survey asking thousands of physicians across multiple specialties about the journals which they consider to be “essential” for their practice. NEJM defines an “essential journal” as one “that reports medical breakthroughs and has practice-changing impact. Physicians consider it essential to their practice and make an attempt to read it.”

The 2011 Essential Journal Study is now publicly available, and we’re pleased to let you know that ten of the journals on MD Consult are considered “essential” – American Family Physician, American Journal of Cardiology, American Journal of Medicine, Chest, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Lancet Oncology, Mayo Clinic Proceedings and Neurology. In addition, MD Consult brings you summaries of the content from another five of the essential journals – NEJM, JAMA, The Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Archives of Internal Medicine – in our feature “In This Week’s Journals”.

NEJM sent out nearly 11,000 surveys to physicians selected at random from the AMA membership list. Physicians from ten specialties were chosen: Cardiology, Endocrinology, Gastroenterology, Hospitalists, ID Specialists, Internists, Neurology, Oncology and Hematology, Pulmonary Specialists and Rheumatology. A total of 1,655 surveys were completed for a very respectable response rate of 15%. The survey was an unaided recall survey, meaning that it did not include the names or photos of medical journals. It was conducted by an independent firm, the Matalia Group. The publicly available report is found at NEJM’s website.

Now that December has arrived, it is time to look back at the top searches in MD Consult during November to see what is trending in the medical topics that clinicians are researching.

Asthma was the top search term during November (diabetes was the top search term in October and September).  While the top 5 search terms have remained the same in recent months, there was some re-ordering of terms within the top 5 since September’s rankings.

MD Consult provides access to leading asthma resources, including Mason: Murray and Nadel’s Textbook of Respiratory Medicine, 5th ed. and the journal CHEST – the official publication of the American College of Chest Physicians.

We’ll be back a month from now with December’s results.

From now until the end of the year, 10% of a new MD Consult subscription purchased will go towards the construction of a hospital in Ethiopia.  MD Consult is proud to be teaming up with International Crisis Aid to bring healthcare services to Ethiopia.

Visit the Pillars of Hope information page to see pictures of the hospital under construction and to learn more about International Crisis Aid’s mission to bring medicine, food and materials to people in times of crisis around the world.

Elsevier is excited to bring to you two new Clinics review series in January 2012: Hospital Medicine Clinics and Interventional Cardiology Clinics.

Hospital Medicine Clinics

Joseph Ming Wah Li, MD, President of the Society of Hospital Medicine, will serve as the Consulting Editor of Hospital Medicine Clinics and ensure both clinical information and systems issues are addressed.  The series will incorporate a convenient question/answer format, highly visual and concisely worded content, and high-yield “check lists” of key take-aways.  This Clinics series is the first one to be produced only electronically and only for institutions.  Read a letter from the editor and a few sample articles here.

Interventional Cardiology Clinics

Interventional Cardiology Clinics will provide interventionalists with deeper coverage of interventional procedures.  Drs. Igor F. Palacios and Samin K. Sharma will oversee the series as Consulting Editors.  The series will include comprehensive reviews of core topics in articles that will be formatted to help readers find information quickly.  The series is intended be an essential aid for sharpening clinical decision-making skills!  Read a letter from the editors and a few sample articles here.

The first issue will focus on the topic of Percutaneous Approaches to Valvular Heart Disease, featuring an article on the Sapien valve, which was approved for use by the FDA just days ago as the first valve that can be placed without open heart surgery!  To read the FDA press release about this approval and the valve, click here.

For more information about clinical review articles from the Clinics and the other specialties covered, visit http://info.theclinics.com.

Up until this week, I took a multivitamin every morning with my breakfast thinking it was the healthy, right thing to do.  Then come multiple reports on the lack of benefits of multivitamins and even increased risk of taking vitamins.  MD Consult right now includes a study from the Archives of Internal Medicine on iron and other multivitamins being associated with increased mortality.  Today’s Wall Street Journal asks the question: Is This the End of Popping Vitamins?

Recent studies have shown:

• Vitamin C does not lower the risk of getting a cold
• B-6 and B-12 do not lower the risk of cardiovascular disease
• Calcium does not lower the risk of heart disease or cancer and may be increasing the risk of kidney stones

Are these studies going to make multivitamins go the way of the dodo bird?  I guess only time will tell.  I’m still taking my daily multivitamin.  But once the bottle is empty in a month or so, I am not sure if I am going to go out and buy a replacement bottle.  Without a specific nutrient deficiency or chronic illness, am I wasting my money?

Many experts are saying that it is too early to conclude that supplements don’t have health benefits.  Large clinical trials have been conducted over the past few decades in an attempt to determine multivitamin effectiveness.  Some experts, like those at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, are calling for more lab experiments and small-scale studies on how nutrients work.

The takeaways for me are:

• be patient as more studies are conducted on the benefits/risks
• exercise and eat right, in addition to taking a daily multivitamin

Have the recent study results influenced your multivitamin habits?