MedOne Otolaryngology

Review by L Flood
Middlesborough, UK

I am a dinosaur and simply love to open a freshly printed book, but I have to admit that my Kindle is useful when travelling, or when the bookshelves are filled to overflowing (as indeed is also my attic now).

Thieme have just announced this online platform, which basically gives access to everything they publish, which is quite some resource of course. It is simple enough to sign up for a 14-day trial access to the full content. The content is listed as: (1) E-books – over 150 of their ENT books, with full text and flawless illustrations; (2) Cases and Procedures – the former are taken from their publication Otolaryngology Cases; The University of Cincinnati Clinical Portfolio (Pensak), and the latter are from ENT Head and Neck Surgery; Essential Procedures (Theissing et al.); (3) E-journals – Thieme publish 4 E-journals, most notably for us The International Archives of Otolaryngology; (4) Instructions on how to create a playlist; which even I could understand; (5) A recommended reading list for trainees, with 6 selected introductory books identified as good primers; and (6) Media. Now, this is impressive. There seem to be no fewer than 70 000 images, from Thieme publications, available to download into a Powerpoint presentation. Again, Media is very simple to navigate and the Search facility is excellent.

For those on the go, or with limited internet connection, the MedOne application, available for Android or Apple devices, offers the ability to browse the platform while online, and download full books and journals for offline reading.

I spent a day working through the various features offered and it rapidly dawned on me that this is a very worthwhile expenditure, especially if compared with the price of 150 textbooks, from what is probably the leading publisher in our specialty. Listed alphabetically, these do include their most recent releases, and reading off a personal computer monitor is possible, I do admit, even at my age.

I did enjoy the Cases and Procedures especially, recalling how good the parent books were. There are multiple-choice questions, for self-assessment, at the end of each section, and both sections are very comprehensive. The Search function is particularly good. I searched in Media for ‘otosclerosis’, which returned 215 images from various publications. I searched the whole content of the platform for ‘cholesteatoma’ and was rewarded with: every book content, 13 results from Cases and Procedures, 1430 images from Media and 33 results from the E-journals. Finally, there was a direct link to PubMed.

Do at least take a look and register for the free trial. Quite what the Pound Sterling cost will prove to be after next March I dread to think, but, in terms of Euros, right now this seems a very good investment.

Available at https://medone-otolaryngology.thieme.com