Computer Applications in Medicine Elective
Computer Applications in Medicine Elective
2000 April
Due Apr 6.
Choose an article related to computers in medicine. E-mail me the title, author, source, year and page numbers of the article, by Apr 4.
The article must be at least four full pages long, and must have been published in the scientific literature within the past two years. It should discuss a specific medical application of computers, and not be just a general review of how to use the Web.
Prepare a summary (double spaced, about two pages long) using a word processor (preferably either WordPerfect or Word). The summary should include
Your document must contain
E-mail the word-processing document to me as an attachment, with a message stating what word processor was used.
Change your passwords on Mystic and on WebCT. In both cases your username is the same as your Medcor username, in lower case.
passwd command to change your password.
Password.
Change your password to one that only you know, using the
passwd command. Your initial password will be
explained to you in class. Remember that your initial password on Mystic
will be at least 5 characters long, and will have had x
appended if necessary to make it that long.
Due Apr 17.
Choose an e-mail discussion list related to health care. Subscribe to the list, and post a description of the list to the Camel bulletin board on WebCT by Apr 6. If, within a day or two, the list appears to be inactive or not what you expected, unsubscribe and choose another one.
Monitor the list for one week and post a brief report about it to the bulletin board. The report should include discussion of items like how busy the list was, the ratio of useful messages to junk messages, how useful the list was, and what audience it might be most useful for.
Due Apr 13.
Choose a newsgroup related to health care. Check the current messages and make sure there are at least a few messages per day. Post the name of the newsgroup and a brief description to the Camel bulletin board on WebCT by Apr 6.
Review the existing messages, and monitor the group for a few days, then post a brief report about it to the bulletin board. The report should include discussion of items like how busy the group was, the ratio of useful messages to junk messages, how useful the group was, and what audience it might be most useful for.
Due: on-going
Contribute to class discussions via the Camel bulletin board on WebCT; e.g., comment on the reports about e-mail discussion lists and newsgroups.
Due Apr 10.
Do a Medline search related to the topic of the book chapter you're reading, indentifying a small number of recent and particularly relevant articles. Use the MeSH subject headings, at least to start with. The final search itself should produce no more than ten articles, from which you should select the two or three most relevant.
E-mail me a concise description of your search strategy and the results. Append the actual search output from Peruse to your e-mail message.
Pick an old reference related to the same topic, and do a search for recent articles which cite it. Compare the results with the results of your Medline search.
Due Apr 11.
Read one of the Applications chapters from either Osheroff or Shortliffe & Perreault. Prepare a short summary and e-mail it to me as an attachment. The summary should contain a couple of sentences summarizing the chapter, and some comments about the chapter's relevance and usefulness.
Due Apr 12.
Do a Web search to find two or three Web pages particularly relevant to the chapter you're reading. Do the search using all three of Alta Vista (search engine, not subject directory), Yahoo!, and one of the specialized medical resources, in that order. E-mail me a brief narrative description of your search strategy, and the best two or three links found.
Due Apr 17.
Choose a topic for a second article. The topic should be different from that of the article that you read for Assignment 1. As before, the article must be at least four full pages long; must have been published in the scientific literature within the past two years; and should discuss a specific medical application of computers, and not be just a general review of how to use the Web.
E-mail me a description of the topic by Apr 11.
Prepare a summary and include it in your Web site. The requirements for the length and nature of the summary are the same as for your first article summary. The only formatting requirement is that you should include headings, subheadings, emphasized text and strongly emphasized text, using appropriate HTML tags.
Due Apr 19.
Prepare Web pages and install on
Create a patient case presentation for display on your Web site. Include a relevant multiple-choice question, with links to pages explaining why each answer is right or wrong. If you bring me an illustration relevant to the case, I'll scan it and give you a GIF file which you can include on your Web page. The material can be either colour or black-and-white. You can bring it to class, and I'll return it after scanning. Note that we can't include copyrighted material on Web pages without permission from the copyright holder.
Due Apr 19.
Read a second Applications chapter from either Osheroff or Shortliffe & Perreault. Prepare a short summary with comments and include it in your Web site.
Due Apr 13.
Send me an e-mail message containing your birth date with both decimal and binary numbers for the year, month and day. (You only need to include the last two digits of the year, e.g., 96.)
Due Apr 17.
Do the Camel software quiz on WebCT.