Virginia Desouky, MLS 
Scholarly Engagement Librarian 
Health Sciences Library 
West Virginia University  

In today’s online education world, the need for digital access to learning content continues to grow. Digital textbook collections play an important role as keys to student academic success, whether they study on campus or remotely. One such collection, from award-winning international and science publisher Thieme Medical Publishers, is MedOne Education. 

Content 

As part of the cutting-edge MedOne medical learning platform, the MedOne Education Base Collection is a collection of 130 ebooks and multimedia resources, suitable for students, instructors, residents, and clinicians in the biomedical sciences. Designed for research and clinical education, MedOne Education currently covers subject areas in neurosurgery, plastic surgery, radiology, medical education, communication science (audiology and speech-language pathology), otolaryngology, and ophthalmology. This powerful learning tool combines access to Thieme’s collection of full-color medical textbooks with quality video content into a user-friendly learning, teaching, and research tool. Coverage of USMLE Steps 1, 2, and 3 and board review titles is included (1). 

Along with ebooks and media, MedOne Education includes an interactive bank of multiple-choice questions and answers that allow users to assess knowledge with customizable review sessions and practice exams. Users can create quizzes and track their progress for the session (2). All institutional subscribers have access to the Q&A bank. Users are required to create a username/password account within the IP-range of the institution to activate the personalized Q&A bank (1). 
 

Features / Functionality  

Customization 

One of MedOne Education’s major strengths is its outstanding customization features. Faculty can create teaching materials using images and videos, or they can upload their own content to design suitable class content. All MedOne Education’s images and videos can be used for PowerPoint slideshows and shared with other MedOne users (1). On-screen notetaking is possible by selecting text within an ebook, which brings up a bar with choices of colored highlighting, creating notes, copying the text, and searching, which takes one back to the main search screen. 

Another major strength of MedOne Education is the ability to create customized playlists of content for studying or teaching. Users can upload study notes, files, and other saved items and share viewing of them with other MedOne users at the institution. Steady links are generated to enable playlist use in course materials or learning management systems. Alternatively, playlists can be set to private. Entire ebooks or ebook chapters can also be downloaded onto playlists (3). With the release of the latest edition of Thieme Atlas of Anatomy, Gilroy et al. (Thieme, 2021), an embedded image-editing tool was added to this suite of titles. This tool allows for customizing select anatomical illustrations and downloading the edited versions to be used in a variety of ways such as teaching materials in online courses, learning management systems, and virtual presentations.   

The image editing tool is launched by clicking on the “Customize Image” button located on the left near the bottom of the window. A new browser window then opens, and the image can be expanded or repositioned. The “Zoom” function allows the image to be reduced by 50% or enlarged by up to 50%. Labels and leader lines can be removed by using the toggle switch in the bottom left corner. The image can then be downloaded as a JPG file and saved to the desktop, ready to be used with other teaching materials (3). 

Thieme Dissector 

Another outstanding component of this resource is access to the second edition of Thieme Dissector, a three-volume manual of 600+ human anatomy illustrations for use by teachers and students in the dissection lab. All anatomical regions of the body are shown in dissection view to constitute a complete gross anatomy dissection. Chapters of the manual’s illustrations include text sections on learning objectives, surface anatomy, step-by-step directions for dissection and identifications with embedded videos, and clinical notes. Accompanying the illustrations are more than 200 cadaver dissections, lecture-style videos, and dissection screenshots from the videos, placed throughout the text for more detailed study (4). The Dissector volumes have been compiled by distinguished and celebrated medical experts and practitioners in the field (4). The excellent illustrations, along with the dissection videos, make these volumes an indispensable tool for those studying and teaching anatomy. 

Searching and Filtering 

Searching in MedOne Education is easy due to its intuitive search engine that auto-fills suggested terms and filters the results. To search MedOne Education, users can enter search terms in the home screen search box. The content menu for user searches appears on the left of the screen. The content can be filtered by type of content such as ebooks, images, playlists, etc. Searching on the main ebooks page can be further refined by subtopic, author/editor, and title. 

MedOne Education Mobile/Home Access 

Legitimate users can register for MedOne Education access from home. To access it from outside one’s institution, users must first set up a Home Access profile with a username and password on a device within their institution’s VPN or IP range so they are recognized as a legitimate user (1). 

Mobile access to MedOne Education is available via institutional access. In order to activate the app for the first time and be authenticated, users must register for a username/password account from within their institution’s IP range. To maintain access, users are required to periodically log in. The MedOne app is available to download free of charge from the Apple and Android app stores. With access via an institutional license, users can download full books onto the app for offline use. Downloaded books will be stored in the app for a one-year period and will no longer be available after the patron is no longer affiliated with the institution (1). 

Business Model 

A license for the MedOne Education platform is available directly from Thieme on an annual license fee model. This annual fee is based on the size of the medical school or health sciences program’s enrollments. Pricing is available upon request. Access for an unlimited number of concurrent users institution-wide is provided on this annual license fee model. The content is not available from aggregator platforms or third-party vendors but only from Thieme, and individual subscriptions are not available. End users access the web-based platform with an institutional license via the internet. This resource is best suited for teaching and research hospitals, medical schools, and academic institutions with programs in the health sciences, including physician assistant studies, physical therapy, nursing, sports medicine, kinesiology, and graduate research in the biomedical sciences. The Thieme administration portal provides customers with access to COUNTER-compliant usage statistics (1). 

 
Recommendations 
 

MedOne Education is a versatile medical learning platform that can also serve as an effective teaching tool. The ebook collection provides access to highly respected reference titles known in the fields covered. Its high-quality images can be used by students, residents, and instructors for both studying and teaching. The Home Access capability and mobile app make learning anywhere possible, which is a must today with the current emphasis on flexibility of learning environments. The versatility of its functions, such as the image enhancement, playlist creation, note-taking function, and mobile access, all make MedOne Education an invaluable educational resource for libraries at any higher learning institutions with health sciences degree programs. 
 

References 

1. Williams, Alexandra. (2022). What’s New with the Thieme MedOne-Education Platform?  

2. MedOne Questions and Answers, n.d. https://medone.thieme.com/p/pages/help-qa.htm 

3. What is a MedOne Playlist?, n.d. https://medone.thieme.com/p/pages/help-playlist.htm  

4. [Description of Thieme Dissector]. (n.d.). Thieme Medical Publishers.  https://www.thieme.in/thieme-dissector-upper-limb-and-thorax