Keeping up with cancer treatments for the busy GP

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 60, No. 5, June 2018, Page 268 College Library
By: Niki Baumann

For a well-researched topic such as cancer, it’s hard to keep up with the proliferation of new treatments and their effects on prognosis. For many cancers, the rate of change is such that one wants to check for the latest information whenever the topic comes up, but where can this information be found quickly?

In BC, we’re lucky to have the BC Cancer Agency’s Cancer Management Guidelines, where you can quickly find information on diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up/survivorship care. The guidelines are available at www.bccancer.bc.ca/health-professionals/clinical-resources/cancer-management-guidelines. 

The BC Cancer Agency also provides information written for the patient, available at www.bccancer.bc.ca/health-info/types-of-cancer. Patients and their loved ones can use this site to learn more about their specific cancer and to find resources for support and advice on coping and life after cancer. Additional high-quality resources for patients may be found at MedlinePlus (http://medlineplus.gov), a consumer health website. The patient handouts found on this site are all vetted by the (US) National Library of Medicine.

Recently, the College Library began including more articles about cancer treatments and survivorship care in Cites & Bytes (www.cpsbc.ca/library/cites-bytes). These articles are grouped under the Cancer & Survivors heading in the Cites & Bytes highlights section. 

College registrants with library services may also request literature searches to locate the latest on cancer research and recommendations on our website (www.cpsbc.ca/literature-search-requests), via email (medlib@cpsbc.ca), or by phone (604 733-6671).
—Niki Baumann
Librarian
Library Services
College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC

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This article is the opinion of the Library of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC and has not been peer reviewed by the BCMJ Editorial Board.

Niki Baumann. Keeping up with cancer treatments for the busy GP. BCMJ, Vol. 60, No. 5, June, 2018, Page(s) 268 - College Library.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
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For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

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