Shot 70 / 10:29–10:37Select a shot, or shift-click to select multipleSelect a shot, or double-tap to select multiple

Your Key to Medical Information

11 min 17 sec74 shots

The film explains how the National Library of Medicine uses computers, telephone connections, and library networks to deliver medical information. In one case, a librarian searches MEDLINE for an internist treating an adult with rare symptoms, helping identify a nervous-system disorder and prompting further tests and a neurosurgical referral. Other examples describe access to clinical guidelines through H-STAT and free AIDS databases used by information specialists assisting HIV-positive people and their families.

Researchers use online resources to select a sea urchin egg for laboratory work and to compare gene sequences through GenBank. At Howard University Medical School, pharmacology professor Robert Copeland searches a toxic-substances database after an unlabeled chemical bottle breaks, obtaining information that guides the response. The film also describes historical image collections and the Visible Human Project, which combines photographs of frozen human-body sections with CT and MRI data to create three-dimensional anatomical images.

A final case shows health professionals in rural West Virginia consulting remotely about a patient’s medications and X-ray. The closing message emphasizes the National Library of Medicine’s effort to make biomedical information available worldwide and displays its website address.

Provenance and rights

Original producer: National Library of Medicine
Collection: NLM History of Medicine / Internet Archive mirror
Original title: Your Key to Medical Information
Date: Unknown
Original link: Open on Internet Archive
Rights: public_domain