Internet juggernaut Google has customized its search functions for images, blogs, podcasts, mail-order catalogs, maps, and, controversially, books and academic research. So why not evidence-based medicine?
That is what Dean Giustini, biomedical branch librarian at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) wants to know. "Doctors around the world spend a great deal of time talking about evidence," says Giustini. "But they can't find it."
Similarly, Giustini sees medical students at UBC finding information faster with Google Scholar, Google's new search service for academic and peer-reviewed literature, than with medical journal indexes like PubMed or Medline. "We're moving away from some of the traditional 'gold standard' tools," according to Giustini, who writes a blog on Google Scholar.
Giustini brought the issue to the forefront in an editorial in the Dec. 24-31 issue of the British Medical Journal, in which he calls a medical portal the "logical next step" for search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, or MSN Search.
Writes Giustini: "Google should consider creating a medical portal. Call it Google Medicine; design an interface with medical filters and better algorithms; lead to the best evidence (just don't forget to consult with librarians about where the evidence is located). This kind of all-purpose tool is badly needed in medicine, particularly for developing countries."
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