Information Technology in Conventional & Complementary Veterinary Medicine
[Web version: http://homepage.eircom.net/~progers/itupdate.htm]

World Small Animal Veterinary Association Congress, Vancouver, Canada, 8-11 August 2001

Phil Rogers MVB, MRCVS <philrogers@eircom.net>
1 Esker Lawns, Lucan, Dublin, Ireland

Summary | Introduction | New Meta Engines | Holistic & General Vet Links | Other Online Databases | Web advances in holistic & conventional data | AP Events | Software for Cookbook AP | Email Discussion Lists | Discussion & Conclusions | References

Summary: Communications, information technology (IT) & areas of professional interest (review articles, clinical papers, research findings, etc) are changing fast. We need continuing professional development (CPD) to keep our expertise up-to-date. Ongoing CPD can be formal, informal, or both. Computer-aided learning is available. Intelligent use of modern IT gives the best prospects for rapid communication between professionals interested in all aspects of Vet Med, & Complementary / Alternative Med (CAVM) - acupuncture (AP), traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), herbal med & homeopathy, etc. IT also is the best way to influence sceptical & uncommitted scientific & academic professionals to take our clinical & research findings seriously.

An earlier paper (3) discussed practical uses of modern IT as aids to research, study & clinical practice in TCM & AP in five areas of IT. These were (a) Distance-Learning; (b) Expert Software Databases, CD-ROMS & Diskettes; (c) Professional email Discussion Groups; (d) A new concept of peer review, & (e) A new concept to assess clinical therapies: the International Therapeutic Forum. Because many important topics discussed there must be omitted here, readers are referred to that paper for background information. However, the past year has brought many new developments. This paper will discuss:

Introduction

The Law of Change is fundamental in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) & acupuncture (AP). Adaptation to change in the interior & exterior environment is the key to healthy growth; inability to cope with change is a warning sign of extinction.

Communications, information technology (IT) & areas of professional interest (review articles, clinical papers, new research findings, etc) are changing very fast. The list of life-science journals is extensive & growing. Parallel with developments in allopathic medicine, research & clinical publications on holistic medical areas are becoming more numerous. These complementary or alternative medical areas include physiotherapy, homeopathy, biofeedback, meditation techniques, hypnosis, etc. They also include AP, moxibustion & allied methods. The latter include trigger-point therapy, neural-therapy, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), low level laser therapy (LLLT), phytotherapy & TCM.

Medline indexes > 8000 journals. Their abstracts are available online free from the Medline Journal Browser. To remain technically competent, skilled professionals in medical & paramedical areas need to keep up to date with current knowledge in our areas of expertise. We live in an age of Information Overload. No one person could hope to master all these areas. Therefore we must be selective in our reading, & use efficient ways to locate the articles of interest to our expertise.

On July 27th 1999, Medline had indexed 10,120,573 articles. On that date, it had 7031 articles on AP or moxibustion. For such a large database, this is a very low proportion of AP-moxa articles, representing a rate of only 0.695/1000 Medline hits.

Keeping up-to-date, even in narrow areas, is very difficult. If one were to do nothing else but speed-read from morning to night, no one person, no matter how talented, could hope to read a fraction of the annual output in the total medical area. Then, having located & studied the material of interest, the major problem of human memory is accurate recall of the stored information, & making appropriate conceptual linkages between different "packages of memory-stored data". Most people have poor to only partial recall of data; only those with photographic memories can recall (and link) most of what they have read.

In contrast, computer-memories do not "forget", unless there is disk-failure, or power-failure. Digital data on modern media (CD-ROMS, floppy disks, zip disks, etc) usually are retrievable. Modern technology offers fast, easy & total retrieval of stored data. In contrast to human memory, if the data are coded correctly, & if correct search terms are used, every reference to a particular data-string can be recalled.

In the age of "information overload", we need a quick & easy way to filter out the data that we need. For example, the monumental work "A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine" (5) has 945 pages of dense text on all aspects of TCM terminology, classical TCM Syndromes, AP points, herbal formulas etc. Assuming a rapid reading rate of 25 pages/h, & a study time of 2h/d, it would take >18 days to "skim" the book once. To absorb its contents would take dozens of readings. Having absorbed them, what would our recall of specific details be 12 or 18 months later? On the other hand, suppose that a CD-ROM, with a proper index/thesaurus, contained the total detail of this work. If one had access to that via a fast computer, one could query any term at any time & locate every bit of detail about that term in minutes.

The GIGO Law: Note that, in computer jargon, GIGO means "garbage in, garbage out!" Keyboards do not refuse keystrokes. If incorrect, misleading or false data are accepted for publication, the reader is exposed to (and may be misled by) those incorrect data.

1. New Meta Engines on the Web: One must use a Web Search Engine to do a general Web Search, say to locate the Internet Address for the Homepage of Acupuncture Supply Houses. Many people know some of the standard Web Search Engines, such as AltaVista or Excite. There are advanced versions of these - AltaVista Advanced Search & Excite Power Search. These allow users to impose restrictions on the search; this can return more specific hits. However, there are new, more powerful engines that search multiple basic engines simultaneously. These are called Meta Search Engines. Good examples are: AskJeeves, DogPile, Google, Mamma, ProFusion & SavvySearch. See the Biological Search Options Page for the addresses of these & other Web Engines.

The main trouble with Web Surfing, even with a powerful Meta Search Engine, is that one must wade through mounds of hits to find the one Page, or few Pages, of direct interest. Also, most Web Pages have vested commercial interest, & can not be regarded with the same degree of trust as the expert scientific databases.

2. Holistic & General Vet Links on the Web

2a. International TCM, Herbal Medicine & Acupuncture Links Page has Search Options to find HOLISTIC Data as well as CONVENTIONAL Data on Med, Vet Med, Animal Health & Welfare. It also links to IVAD (see 2b). It has extensive Medical, Med & Vet, & Veterinary Links, some of which are:

Medical Links
See also: Medical & Veterinary Links

Veterinary AND Medical Links
See also: Medical Links | Veterinary Links

Veterinary Links
See also: Medical & Veterinary Links

2a.1. Databases for Holistic Med & Vet Med (Conventional & CAVM): This page accesses powerful databases, such as

2a.2. Holistic Med & Vet Med: Links has Links to other CAVM Sites:

 Holistic-, Complementary- & Alternative- Medicine Links
See Databases for Holistic Medicine

2a.3. Online Study of AP & TCM (3) is the most important page for those interested in online study of CAM (especially AP, TCM, Herbal Med & laser therapy) in humans & animals. It has volumes of practical material: search options, lectures, acupoint details & charts, manuals, monographs, bibliographies, etc: For example,

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