No Comments on Review Update: F.A. Davis PT Collection 113
Hal Bright, MLS, AHIP
University Library Director, ASDOH Liaison Librarian
A.T. Still Memorial Library
A.T. Still University of the Health Sciences
This is an update of my review from August 2019 of the F.A. Davis Physical Therapy Collection hosted on McGraw Hill’s AccessMedicine platform.
The F.A. Davis collection is an add-on to the AccessPhysiotherapy collection with a subscription to the latter required in order to subscribe to the former. This can be a large cost barrier to smaller institutions, but once the cost barrier is overcome, the two collections together form the basis of an almost complete curriculum support for any physical therapy (PT) program. For institutions that have accompanying occupational therapy, kinesiology, sports medicine, and athletic training programs (as is the case for A.T. Still University), the two collections also provide several key textbooks that support those programs as well.
Since my last review, a textbook on musculoskeletal imaging was added to the collection, while textbooks on pediatric PT, musculoskeletal imaging, sports nutrition, and orthopedic taping and wrapping have been updated. Also, the popular Foundations of Clinical Research: Applications to Evidence-Based Practice, Portney (F.A. Davis) used by several health sciences and health professions programs at our university was updated to the fourth edition in 2020. Ten topical sections of PT cases are contained under the Cases section of the database. Additionally, the useful Q&A feature from the Access-branded platforms was introduced in 2021 providing thematic questions from three new titles, allowing students to quickly review and track their progress in mastering subjects. Faculty can also draw review questions from the Q&A section for assessments.
A brief review of the features of the F.A. Davis collection shows that all the popular features used on the AccessMedicine-branded platforms are available. Content is arranged by subject on the left menu bar and content type is selectable from the top menu bar (books, reference, drugs, multimedia, cases, and review questions). Searches can be performed at the site level, the book level, and across all subscribed McGraw Hill Access-branded sites. Content is available via text and audio and chapter sections can be downloaded via PDF (popular with students for annotation purposes). McGraw Hill also maintains its relationship with the Hypothesis annotation company, allowing online annotation by students (this function can be used at the class or group level as well as on the Hypothesis platform).
As far as content goes, F.A. Davis is an amazing source of PT literature. Davis’s Drug Guide for Rehabilitation Professionals, Ciccone (F.A. Davis, 2013) provides the content for the Drugs section of this database. Davis Notes and The Rehabilitation Specialist’s Handbook, 4th edition, Roy et al. (F.A. Davis, 2013) are the Quick Reference section. The Cases from the many textbooks in the collection are provided in a separate Cases section. And, the three aforementioned Q&A titles provide the beginning of a Review questions section. Finally, over 800 videos provide great visual support for teaching each of the PT subjects offered in the collection.
As a collection, the price per use is very low at my university due to heavy usage and we see lots of value in the F.A. Davis PT collection. Additionally, McGraw Hill has provided faculty tutorial videos addressing moving content into university courses, using F.A. Davis for virtual case-based learning, and easily linking to content in their librarian-created Access Center. In sum, the PT program at A.T. Still University and the A.T. Still Memorial Library are very pleased with the results of this investment in conjunction with AccessPhysiotherapy.
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