UpToDate: The New Gold Standard

There are almost as many medical references out there as there are medicines. No one is photocopying the most recent review article on anything anymore. The information now comes fast and furious via ultra-condensed pocket reference books, online medical references (e..g MDConsult, e-Medicine, WebMD, etc), PDAs, or at the very least, an online journal. Medical students and residents now walk the floors with a virtual library in their white coat. But which ones are the best? Some are super pricey and we want to help you choose where your money is best spent.

Pay attention to our rating system in which we judge the price ($-cheap, $$$$-expensive); the Cost-benefit ratio, Resale potential, and finally, Portability of each resource.

If you have a medical resource that you would like to rate, please follow our example by providing a brief description followed by the numerical values and send it to webmaster@stoppagingme.com!

UpToDate – This is really the gold standard, and has been for some time. The hefty dent it will put in your residency-level bank account is worth every penny as the superbly crafted resource comes with quarterly updated CD-ROMs, PDA compatibility, and most importantly, a website that you can access from any computer with internet access.

What makes it so good? Firstly, it is profoundly easy to use: type in a topic and the closest related items comes up – and they are usually very close to what your topic of interest. Secondly, each topic is written for the specific goal of helping you manage patients and uses the latest evidence-based medicine and guidelines to assist you in the care of inpatients. It also sites each and every journal article from which it derives its information so you can go and pull the actual articles of you want to see more. Not enough? It is untouched by the annoying ads that plague lesser medical reference sites, making UpToDate feel like the Professionals’ choice for research. This lack of ad dollars probably contributes to their high price but in the end it’s worth it. There is an abundance of graphs, tables and images that assist with your understanding of each topic and make excellent additions to any PowerPoint presentation. Finding faults with this resource is difficult but if your topic is not related to internal medicine or one if its related specialties, you might not be so lucky, i.e. if you’re looking for surgical techniques for open long bone fractures UpToDate may not do the trick.

Price: $$$$ - You get what you pay for!

User Friendliness: 4.5/5 - If it’s related to medicine at all, it’s here.

Cost-Benefit: 4/5 - If you can get some others to also buy, they’ll discount the price significantly. There’s also a significant price cut if you prove to them that you are a resident, fellow or medical student.

Resale value: 1/5 - You cannnot really sell UTD since you would essentailly be selling a username and passsword or an old DVD-ROM. Not worth the trouble and they take great pains to preserve the membership for the real members.

Portablility: 5/5 - You can get it online at www.uptodate.com, on your PDA, or from DVDs. Any questions?