Just wanted to say thank you for your help pulling dozens of old, out of print articles for a meta-analysis I am doing. The turnover was less than 24 hours in most cases! MCW Libraries' help has been invaluable.
Comment: It would be nice to see a wider variety of USMLE Step 1 resources beyond the First Aid series. There are several great question bank books and review books, but most are dated prior to 1999 and do not reflect this decade’s questions.
MCW Libraries:
Thank you very much for sharing your concerns with us. Providing board preparation resources has been a priority for MCW Libraries for many years. This year, we will spend over $1500 on print board review materials. So, actually, the library does have print resources that are quite recent for Step 1 (2008-2010). But since we support USMLE Steps 1 through 3 as well as specialty certification board exams, we cannot purchase all books that are available for a particular type of board exam. Suggestions for helpful titles are greatly appreciated. We will purchase your suggestion for Case Files: Biochemistry for the collection.
In November 2009 we had a display in the case outside of the Todd Wehr Library that highlighted some of our board review resources. Shown below is the text from a document that we created for the display. We hope this is helpful and please keep your suggestions coming.
Print Board Review Book Collection
Includes books covering USMLE Steps 1-3 and board certification exams. Search our library catalog using keywords such as USMLE, board, questions, review, and subjects such as anatomy or pediatrics. Many of the board review books use examination questions or outlines as a subheading. For example, do a keyword search using biochemistry and questions. Then sort the list by date to see the most current titles first.
EXAM MASTER OnLine
(Link on MCW Libraries All E-Resources Page)
Includes over 19,000 questions and explanations for preparing for the USMLE Steps 1-3 and Family Medicine, General Pediatrics, General Surgery, Internal Medicine, SPEX, Pharmacy, and Physician Assistant Certification Exams. Registration required.
AccessMedicine (Link on MCW Libraries All E-Resources Page)
Self-Assessment: access to tests and cases from books in the Clinical Library and Lange Educational Library.
USMLEasy Lite: access to 500 questions for Step 1, 1,000 questions for Step 2 CK, and 200 questions for Step 3. Registration required.
Case Files: access to > 50 clinical cases from the LANGE Case Files books by Dr. Eugene Toy for anatomy, emergency medicine, microbiology, pathology, pharmacology, and physiology. Includes Q&A, clinical correlations, pearls, and references for each case.
Other Online Resources:
AccessSurgery and PsychiatryOnline provide self-assessment tools for review.
Comment: I would greatly appreciate it if you could increase the temperature in the library. It is often very cold in here regardless of whether it is summer or winter. Being uncomfortable while studying makes medical school even harder!
MCW Libraries: The environment being cold is a consistent problem in the library. We do report problems with the library being too cold to the Facilities department. However, the publicly accessible areas of the library are very big and Facilities can’t really help unless we give them a location. So, we need to pinpoint exactly which areas are excessively cold. When you notice that an area is consistently cold, please report the exact area to us. We will request that the Facilities department work on it if needed.
Comment: How can I get a logon to UpToDate from my MCW computer?
MCW Libraries: UpToDate should be accessible from all MCW, CHW, and Froedtert networked computers. You can double-check if you are on the MCW network by going to http://whatismyipaddress.com. If your IP address begins with 141.106, then your computer should be on the MCW network. The best way to connect to UpToDate would be from one of the libraries’ resource listings at: http://www.mcw.edu/mcwlibraries/clinicalresources.htm or http://www.mcw.edu/mcwlibraries/eresources.htm
UpToDate is only available from computers on campus. Our contract with UpToDate’s producer does not allow us remote access from off-campus locations.
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