Search

MedWeaver is a web-based information exploration tool that integrates differential diagnosis (DXplain), MEDLINE, and a web search engine. We employed logs and questionnaires to study MedWeaver use by 21 Duke medical students on internal medicine and surgery rotations. Students used MedWeaver primarily for patient care and for preparing presentations and reports, and they found the differential diagnosis function particularly helpful. However, only 48% of students reported using MedWeaver, and the average user logged only 1.5 sessions. This limited use was due to time constraints, entrenched information retrieval habits, inadequate training, and MedWeaver's relative lack of information on pathophysiology and treatment.

We have developed a model of clinical knowledge and organized an electronic surgical textbook, Unbound Surgery, using this semantic framework. In this study, we designed and evaluated five interfaces for searching Unbound Surgery. In general, clinicians preferred concise templates that allowed them to construct queries using components of the information model. Although they felt that a free text interface better captured their questions, participants were skeptical about its retrieval performance. Further research is needed to create the most effective and comprehensible interfaces for searching structured information resources.