As you enter or continue your clinical education through inpatient and outpatient rotations, you will likely notice that there are an overwhelming number of resources at your disposal. Clinical references are not only convenient, but they help you solidify the connection between didactic knowledge and clinical experience. Below are some clinical references that I have found helpful in my rotations as a third-year student.
Preventive Medicine
United States Preventive Services Taskforce (USPSTF)
The USPSTF is an “independent volunteer panel of experts in disease prevention and evidence-based medicine.” This group provides evidence-based recommendations about preventive health measures in primary care settings. The recommendations are tiered based on a letter grading system that correlates to the strength of evidence and the balance of benefits and harms of a preventive service. This reference source is available online and in a free mobile application. The mobile app also allows you to search for recommendations based on demographic data such as age, weight, height, sex, pregnancy status, tobacco use, or sexual activity.
Price: FREE
Mobile App: YES
Comprehensive Medical Reference
This free clinical reference resource has information on drugs, interactions, decision trees, calculators, and guidelines that are updated as information is available. The site also has continuing medical education topics and information on current medical news. There is a mobile app available for download, free of charge.
Price: FREE
Mobile App: YES
This resource provides healthcare professionals with point-of-care drug and disease information, a drug interaction checker, updated treatment guidelines, medical news, and continuing medical education credits. Some other tools available are a pill identifier, calculators, procedure guides, anatomy refreshers, and cases for review. This website and mobile app are completely free to use.
Price: FREE
Mobile App: YES
This medical reference includes evidence-based recommendations for clinical practice that helps to support point-of-care decision making. This resource has readily accessible information that is kept up to date, pardon the pun. The site also has an app available for download so that you can access information from your mobile device.
Price: Up to $499/yr. Many organizations provide access--check with your home institution first! You are also eligible for up to a 70% discount as an ACOFP member.
Mobile App: YES
Calculators
This free online medical reference provides medical calculators, scoring systems, and treatment algorithms for clinical practice. The reference has a mobile application that can be used to calculate pregnancy due dates, NIH Stroke Scale, Child-Pugh score, Well’s score, morphine milligram equivalents, ASCVD, PHQ-9, Centor score, SOFA, anion gap, and hundreds of other tools for clinical use. You can create an account and favorite your most frequently used tools for easy access.
Price: FREE
Mobile App: YES
Drugs
This website and mobile app tracks prescription drug prices within the US and provide discount cards for medications to reduce cost for patients. As a clinician, you can look up specific medications, doses, and quantities to evaluate for cost before selecting an agent to manage your patient’s health. Both the website and mobile services are free to use. You can create a free account as a healthcare professional to see coupons by specialty, see prices by pharmacy in specific zip codes, see price differences between branded and generic drugs, and allow you to share coupons with your patients.
Price: FREE
Mobile App: YES
Free website containing in-depth information about drugs, pill identification, interaction checker, dosage guidelines, and side effects for patients and healthcare professionals. Also includes information about pricing, classes, pregnancy cautions, and OTC medications.
Price: FREE
Mobile App: YES – Medication Guide (Free) and Pill Identifier ($0.99)
Miscellaneous
The Palliative Care Network of Wisconsin provides a directory of concise, peer-reviewed, and evidence-based summaries on palliative care topics for clinicians caring for those facing life-limiting illnesses. This site has quick references for cultural considerations, management of terminal illnesses, behavioral management, and so many other aspects of palliative care. These entries are not only helpful to physicians in palliative care settings, but they are useful to anyone who will contact a patient that has a life-limiting illness (which is likely most clinicians).
Price: FREE
Mobile App: Not available
This is a free resource from UCSF of geriatric prognostic indices for clinicians to see evidence-based information on patient prognosis. It can be utilized by any physician who has questions about their patient’s prognosis, functional limitations, or general impact on morbidity/mortality. These indices are designed for patients who are older adults without a dominant terminal illness. Clinicians who can benefit from these resources are not limited to geriatrics, hospice, or palliative care, as there are tools that healthcare professionals of all specialties can use to estimate patient prognosis.
Price: FREE
Mobile App: Not available
This website provides current recommendations for cervical cancer screening. The web application has guidelines for management based on age, clinical situation, HPV status, cytology results, and prior pap results. To access, create a free account and then bookmark the page sent to your email! There is an app available, but it is only available with a paid subscription.
Price: FREE
Mobile App: YES (paid subscription required)
The bottom line? Pick one to three resources that YOU like and become comfortable with using those in your clinical rotations. There are TONS of medical references available that were not discussed above for the sake of space, but the ones above are some of the most recommended by physicians in clinical practice. My personal recommendation is to choose one comprehensive medical reference, GoodRx, and the USPSTF guidelines. I hope this helps you in your medical education!
