Need help finding medical information?

If it exists, Paul Howard will probably find it

Do you need to stay at the cutting edge of your medical specialty? In 2018 alone, more than 900,000 articles were added to Medline, the main database of biomedical and clinical research.

Also, about 2.5 million scientific papers are published each year.

Salem Health Medical Librarian Paul Howard can find what you need, usually within 48 hours. His service is free through our Community Health Education Center.

Medical library services include:

• Document delivery
• Literature searches
• Remote database access
• Teaching you search tips
• Attending meetings if you need help

“Paul is very helpful. He goes the extra mile to track down even the most esoteric articles,” said Raj Nair, MD, bariatric surgeon. “During the two years I was the chief of the general surgery section, he helped me cull articles for evidence-based performance improvement initiatives we worked on.”

Paul will also do a comprehensive literature search on any clinical topic, yielding the relevant, authoritative information you need. He can find articles for papers and research projects, including obscure articles not always available as full-text articles online.

He can also create an OpenAthens account for you for access to any database — like info you had access to during your residency.

More data on the importance of staying current:

• According to the editor of JAMA in 1992, if a physician were to read everything of biomedical relevance, he or she would have to read 6,000 articles per day. That number has surely increased over time!
• In 2009, we passed the 50 million mark for total number of science papers published since 1665.
• As of 2014, there were 28,100 active scholarly peer-reviewed journals (although an increasing number of them are fake or influenced by corporations and special interests.)

The CHEC is on campus in Building D, open Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Email Paul at paul.howard@salemhealth.org or call him at 503-814-1573.