Australian Association of Practice Managers Ltd

24 Chermside St, Newstead Qld 4006
PO Box 2477, Fortitude Valley BC Qld 4006
Phone: (07) 3257 7855
Fax: (07) 3257 7899
Email: national@aapm.com.au
Website: www.aapm.org.au

Australian Medical Association

Member benefits include:
- Free subscription to The Medical Journal of Australia, The New South Wales Doctor and AMA List of Medical Services and Fees.
- Free WebMail email service with 20Mb mailbox per user, accessible from any Internet-capable PC.
- Free duty solicitor scheme with Tress Cox.
- Free professional advice on Awards, Court Representation, Mediation, Legal and Financial Services, Superannuation and Human Resource Consulting.
- Exclusive discounts off standard variable home loan and investment home rates with fee-free personal AMA Affinity cards, linked to an attractive rewards points program.
- One year's free AMA Membership with AMA Member Home Loans.
- Obligation free advice and low Finance & Leasing rates on motor vehicles, medical equipment and computers with Medfin.
- Special discounts with Caltex and Telstra.

PO Box 121, St Leonards NSW 1590
Phone: (02) 9439 8822, or 1800 813 423
Fax: (02) 9438 3760, or 1300 889 017
Email: enquiries@nswama.com.au
Website: www.nswama.com.au

Centre for Genetics Education

PO Box 317 St Leonards NSW 1590
Phone: (02) 9926 7324
Fax: (02) 9906 7529
Email: genetics@usyd.edu.au
Website: www.genetics.com.au

Cochrane Library

What is the Cochrane Library?
The Cochrane Library is recognised as the best single source of reliable evidence about health and medical treatments. It is a regularly updated collection of evidence-based practice databases intended to provide high quality information to people providing and receiving care.

The library contains three clinical databases arranged in a hierarchy of evidence:
- Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) - a rapidly expanding collection of full text summaries of the evidence (currently 1500)
- Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE) - structured abstracts of 3000 quality-assessed systematic reviews published in journals
- Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) - a register of 350,000 reports of controlled trialls in areas not yet covered by Cochrane reviews

What are the Cochrane Reviews?
Cochrane reviews summarise the research evidence and focus on a specific question. They are intended to support informed decision making, rather that to replace consultations between practitioners and patients.

There isn't currently a Cochrane review to answer every clinical question. Although the number of reviews is growing by about 300 each year, Cochrane reviews still only cover about 10% of health care questions.

Since Cochrane reviews focus on treatment and prevention, you won't find information on evidence relating to studies of diagnosis, aetiology or prognosis.

How Do I Access the Cochrane Library?
1. Go to www.update-software.com/cochrane
2. Select Log on from the left hand menu
3. Click the Log on anonymously button
4. The opening screen of the Cochrane Library will appear

How Do I Search the Cochrane Library?
The opening screen has a single search window at the top left where you can enter your search term(s) to search all databases.

When you select the Go button, records containing that word or phrase are retrieved.

Below this, you will find a list of the databases (including how many items each contains), with the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews at the top.

The Cochrane Library can be frustrating for first-time users, but after a little practice and an understanding of how the information is organised, most people are able to navigate their way around quite happily.

How Do I Find What I Want Quickly in a Cochrane Review?
Titles of reviews retrieved by a search appear on the left. To see the review simply click on the title and the text will load on the right hand side of the screen. Cochrane reviews can be very long, but they all follow a standard structure.

The Outline button on the menu bar at the top helps you find the section you want quickly. For a quick overview of the evidence, check out these sections:
- The Abstract summarises the objectives, methods, results and conclusions
- The Synopsis is a 100 word plain-language summary found towards the end of the review (currently in two-thirds of the reviews)
- Reviewer' Conclusions gives an overview of the most important findings and discusses the implications for practice and research

For More Help and Information
NICS Guide to the Cochrane Library: www.nicsl.com.au
Cochrane Library log on page: www.update-software.com/cochrane
Cochrane Collaboration: www.cochrane.de
Further website: www.cochraneconsumer.com

Department of General Practice, Fairfield

School of Public Health & Community Medicine, University of New South Wales
Director: Prof Nick Zwar
Phone: (02) 9616 8520
Fax: (02) 9616 8400
Email: Nicholas.Zwar@swsahs.nsw.gov.au

General Practice Statistics and Classification Unit
University of Sydney

BEACH is Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health, an ongoing collection of statistics from general practice, conducted by the Family Medicine Research Centre.

Acacia House, Westmead Hospital, Westmead 2145
Phone: (02) 9845 8151
Fax: (02) 9845 8155
Email: janc@med.usyd.edu.au
Website: www.fmrc.org.au

GP Education Australia

Phone: 1800 AT GPEA (1800 284 732)
Email: info@gpea.com.au
Website: www.gpea.com.au

NSW Office:
PO Box 197 North Ryde NSW 1670
Phone: (02) 9878 4474
Fax: (02) 9805 1989

GP Learning

GP Learning provides RACGP members with free, comprehensive and flexible on-line continuing professional development, which you can access at your convenience 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Members have access to all gplearning Tier 2 activities, the discussion and chat board and the "Case of the Month". All activities are Group 1 or Group 2 QA&CPD accredited, with some activities recognised for women's health and mental health points.

Phone: 1800 284 789
Fax: (03) 8699 0588
Email: contactus@gplearning.com.au
Website: www.gplearning.com.au

Medical Benevolent Association of NSW

Provides self-help by the medical profession for distressed colleagues and their families.

33-35 Atchison St St leonards NSW 2065
Website: www.mbansw.org.au

NSW / ACT Faculty
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners

Macquarie Hospital
Cox's Rd North Ryde 2113
PO Box 145 North Ryde NSW 1670
Phone: (02) 9886 4700
Fax: (02) 9888 3154
Website: www.racgp.org.au

Primary Health Care Research Network: PHReNet

PHReNet is a part of the UNSW Research Capacity Building Program, funded by the Australian Government Department of Health & Ageing. A major activity of the program is the establishment of PHReNet. The network has the following features:
- An organisation for participation, research education, support and mentoring to members drawn from the primary health care workforce including: general practice, Divisions of General Practice and Community and Allied Health Services.
- Members are linked to other primary care practitioners and academics with similar research interests to undertake and/or participate in research in a practice environment.

The University of New South Wales
UNSW Coordinator, Ms Vanessa Traynor
Phone: (02) 9385 2518
Fax: (02) 9313 6185
Email: v.traynor@unsw.edu.au

PHReNet South Western Sydney
Coordinator, Ms Suzan Mehmet
Phone: (02) 9616 8520
Fax: (02) 9616 8400
Email: Suzan.Mehmet@swsahs.nsw.gov.au

RACGP Library

The Library of the RACGP has been providing a specialist service to general practitioners for over 25 years. We supply information and resources to our College members in all areas of their professional life, including patient care, research, exam preparation, CPD, preparing for talks, keeping up to date and practice management.

Distance is not a problem. With loans delivered by courier service Australia-wide and a range of online resources available via the College website, accessing us is easy.

You may not have the time or the resources to do your own literature searches so let one of our experienced librarians do the searching for you. If you would like to improve your information literacy skills, we can help you get the best out of the available resources with some one-on-one training.

Our Services Include:
- Reference and enquiry service to answer questions on a broad range of health and medical topics
- Access to ProQuest databases delivering over 700 health, medical and nursing journals in full text and full image directly to your desktop. Registration of the RACGP website is required to obtain access to this licensed database.
- Access to a customised version of PubMed which, when searched, provides links to full text articles supplied through our ProQuest databases.
- Access to a unique and specialised collection of books and other materials covering areas such as general practice, medical education and aboriginal health. Loans are sent out and returned by courier service. The online catalogue can be accessed via the website.
- Literature searches on request using a range of databases including Medline, Australian Medical Index, APAIS-Health, ATSI-Health, RURAL (the Rural and Remote Health Database), ERIC (for educational resources), the Cochrane Library and Health & Society Database.
- Current awareness service providing monthly table of contents pages by email (eTOCS). Journal titles are grouped together into subject packages and some single titles can be selected.
- The journal service provides copies of articles of interest from over 150 journal titles held by the library.
- Inter library loans service to obtain items not available in our stock.
- Training on request. Learn to do your own literature searching and information retrieval.

Contact Us
Loans, Registration & Enquiries
Phone: (03) 8699 0519
Fax: (03) 8699 0403
Email: library@racgp.org.au

Journal Articles / Current Awareness
Phone: (03) 8699 0525
Email: resource.journal@racgp.org.au

Literature Searches / Training / Library Manager
Phone: (03) 8699 0516
Email: jane.ryan@racgp.org.au

Inter-Library Loans Service
Phone: (03) 8699 0487
Email: resource.docdel@racgp.org.au

The Library
RACGP
College House
1 Palmerston Cres
South Melbourne Vic 3205
Website: www.racgp.org.au/library/resource.asp

RACGP QA&CPD Program

National Office
1 Palmerston Cres, South Melbourne Vic 3205
Phone: 1800 331 620
Fax: (03) 8699 0400
Email: qacpd@racgp.org.au

NSW & ACT
PO Box 145, North Ryde NSW 2113
Phone: (02) 9886 4700
Fax: (02) 9888 3154
Email: nsw.qacpd@racgp.org.au

Therapeutic Guidelines

Ground Floor, 23-47 Villiers St, North Melbourne Vic 3051
Phone: (03) 9326 6324
Phone (sales): (03) 9329 1566, or 1800 061 260
Fax: (03) 9326 5632
Website: www.tg.com.au