BMA members have access to ClinicalKey via the access links in this blog post and those on the ClinicalKey page of the BMA website: https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-library/clinicalkey
ClinicalKey is a clinical search engine produced by Elsevier, the world’s largest medical publisher, and contains an extensive range of resources for doctors in clinical practice, including:
- E-Books
- E-Journals
- Procedure Videos
- Multimedia
- Clinical Overviews
- Drug Monographs
- Calculators
- Guidelines
- Patient Education resources
In addition to this, we also offer access to ClinicalKey Student, an interactive education platform built to help medical students review study progress and pass their exams. It includes:
- E-Books
- Disease Summaries
- Videos
All BMA members have full access to both of these extremely valuable resources.
For further details on both, including how to access them, please visit our dedicated ClinicalKey page on the BMA website: https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-library/clinicalkey
If you have any queries about accessing ClinicalKey or ClinicalKey Student please get in touch with us by sending an email to: bma-library@bma.org.uk
The easy-to-use Ovid interface for searching Medline and Embase has been refreshed, from Thursday 3 November you will find a more modern on-screen environment in which to conduct your searches.
All the great features are still there and over time some new features will be released to aid you with your search.
Explore the new look today, you can switch between the new and classic version while you become comfortable with the new design. Simply click on “Switch back to the classic Ovid interface” at the top of the screen to select. We’re sure that the new version will quickly become your favourite.

Log in here to gain access.

We have a large selection of e-books that are of particular relevance to medical students. Here are our current most popular student e-books:
- Davidson’s Principles and Practice of Medicine (Twenty-fourth Edition)
- Essential Surgery: Problems, Diagnosis and Management (Sixth Edition)
- Illustrated Textbook of Paediatrics (Sixth Edition)
- Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine (Tenth Edition)
- Oxford Assess and Progress: Situational Judgement Test (Third Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (Tenth Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Clinical Specialties (Eleventh Edition)
- Pass the PSA (Second Edition)
- Rang & Dale’s Pharmacology (Ninth Edition)
- The Top 100 Drugs (Second Edition)
All of our e-books are accessible via our online catalogue.
In addition, we provide access to ClinicalKey Student which contains hundreds of medical student e-books published by Elsevier. It also provides access to large collections of images and videos.
(Full details of how to access ClinicalKey Student.)
If you have any queries about any of our e-books, or ClinicalKey Student, please get in touch with us at: e-books@bma.org.uk
The Library’s Online Catalogue offers a range of options for accessing content in our e-journals collection.
We still offer an A to Z browse list of titles, but you will notice that there is now also the facility to search by category using the expandable lists of medical specialties available on the left hand side of the screen. There is also the facility to search for keywords in the title of a journal using the search box at the top of the page which as you type presents a google-like auto-complete list of suggestions based on the titles available in our collection:

You can now also search directly for journal articles from the main search page of the online catalogue. Just enter a few keywords or phrases, run the search and then limit to just journal article results using the Resource Type > Articles limiter on the left hand side navigation:

It is also possible to conduct a keyword search of articles within a particular journal. First search for and open the full record entry of the particular journal you wish to search within and then use the search box labelled Search Inside:

If you have the citation details of a particular article, in particular the DOI or PMID for it, you can use our Search by Citation facility to very quickly and easily see if it is available in our collection:

You don’t need to fill in all of the elements on the form, just enough to identify the particular article you are looking for. If you have either the DOI or the PMID of the article then just entering one of these alone should be sufficient.
If you have any comments or queries about accessing our e-journals please email: e-journals@bma.org.uk

Below is a list of the new titles that we have added to our E-Books Collection this month:
- Assessment and staging of care of dementia : the ideal schedule and its user manual
- Assessment of communication disorders in adults : resources and protocols
- Cancer-related breakthrough pain
- Cannabis As Medicine
- Case studies in pediatric surgery
- Clinical Cases : A Step-by-Step Approach
- Clinical manual for assessment and treatment of suicidal patients
- Clinician’s guide to LGBTQIA+ care : cultural safety and social justice in primary, sexual and reproductive healthcare
- Community health workers in action : the efforts of “Promotores de Salud” in bringing health care to marginalized communities
- Cultural Diversity in Neuropsychological Assessment: Developing Understanding Through Global Case Studies
- Dermatological emergencies
- Early detection and early intervention in developmental motor disorders : from neuroscience to participation
- Effective treatments for PTSD : practice guidelines from the international society for traumatic stress studies
- Essentials for health protection : four key components
- Essentials of Cancer Survivorship: A Guide for Medical Professionals
- Foundations in Neonatal and Pediatric Respiratory Care
- Handbook of refugee health : for healthcare professionals and humanitarians providing care to forced migrants
- Helping couples and families navigate illness and disability : an integrated approach
- MCQs in paediatrics for MRCPCH. Part 1
- Medical conditions affecting pregnancy and childbirth
- Medical evaluation of child sexual abuse : a practical guide
- Medicine for MRCP
- Oxford Handbook of Anaesthesia (5th Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Clinical Dentistry (7th Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Gastroenterology & Hepatology (3rd Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Medical Sciences (3rd Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Nutrition and Dietetics (3rd Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Paediatrics (3rd Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Pre-hospital Care (2nd Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Respiratory Medicine (4th Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine (5th Edition)
- Play, Physical Activity and Public Health : The Reframing of Children’s Leisure Lives
- Prescribing mental health medication : the practitioner’s guide
- Promoting Self-Management of Chronic Health Conditions : Theories and Practice
- Pulmonary rehabilitation
- Tobacco cessation : a practice manual for primary care physicians
If you have any queries about any of these e-books, or any of the other titles in our E-Books Collection, please get in touch with us at: e-books@bma.org.uk

This week all of the e-books that we hold from Oxford University Press have migrated to a new platform, Oxford Academic.
All of these e-books remain accessible to you via our online catalogue, but now have a much more intuituve and feature rich interface. In particular, it is now far easier to download the PDF of a chapter:

All of these e-books are DRM-free which means that there are no restrictions on accessing them or the length of time that the downloads last for.
Some of our most popular OUP titles are:
- Oxford Handbook of General Practice (5th Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Emergency Medicine (5th Edition)
- Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (10th Edition)
- Oxford Handbook for the Foundation Programme (5th Edition)
- The Pocketbook for PACES
If you have any queries about our OUP e-books, or any other e-book queries, please get in touch with us at: e-books@bma.org.uk
UPDATED 20/12/2023: all of the access links and content in this blog post checked and updated accordingly.
This post is a first in our “From the Archives” series highlighting some of the less well-known items held in the BMA Library and Archives collection.

Born in 1697, Bernhard Siegfried Albinus was a German-born Dutch anatomist.
Working with Hermann Boerhaave, Albinus published works on Andreas Vesalius and William Harvey, but is probably best known for his Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani, first published in Leiden in 1747. Working with the engraver Jan Wandelaar this publication contains numerous beautiful, anatomically accurate depictions of the human body showcased in natural, pastoral landscapes. It took over eight years to complete.
An unauthorised English translation of the book was published in London in 1749. Titled Tables of the skeleton and muscles of the human body, this is the edition held by the BMA library. As you can see from the picture, it is an impressive sized volume compared to other books in the library!


This first table, Tab I, contains chiefly a front view or figure of the Human Skeleton; with some added ligaments and cartilages.
The foundation for Albinus’s illustrations is the human skeleton. Many anatomical drawings begin with the outside of the human body, but Albinus removed all the muscles and ligaments so that the illustrations begin with the skeleton.


This second table, Tab II, contains a rear view of the Human Skeleton. Table III is the sideways view.
Tab I, [Human body with muscles] Albinus preserved the soft tissue and then added it to the skeleton to make his “muscleman”.


Tab IV [Skeleton with Rhinoceros, Front View]
These show a standing human skeleton with partial musculature posed in front of a rhinoceros, one view from the front and one from the back. These anatomical illustrations are renowned not only as the first of their kind that influenced generations of anatomists and artists, but for incorporating the first accurately drawn depictions of a living rhinoceros. Wandelaar drew the exotic animal from life at the Amsterdam Zoo, where the first living specimen to arrive in Europe, nicknamed Clara, was brought in 1741.

Tab VIII, [Skeleton with Rhinoceros, Back View]
References:
“Bernhard Siegfried Albinus.’ University of Virginia, Historical Collections at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library. 2007. http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/treasures/bernhard-siegfried-albinus-1697-1770/
UPDATED 20/12/2023: all of the access links and content in this blog post checked and updated accordingly.
All of our electronic resources (e-books, e-journals and databases) are accessible via our online catalogue.
In order to unlock your access to all of this content you just need to Sign in with your BMA username and password. Just click on the Sign in button on the top right hand side of the home page of our catalogue:
If you encounter an error message when attempting to sign into our online catalogue you may find that resetting your password will remedy this issue. To reset your BMA password please use the following link: https://authgateway.bma.org.uk/Account/ForgotPassword
After resetting your password if you find that you are still encountering an issue with signing in to our online catalogue please get in touch with us by sending an email to bma-library@bma.org.uk including your BMA membership number and the email address you are using to sign in with. Also, if possible, please include a screen shot of the error message you are seeing. This inbox is monitored – Monday to Friday; 9am to 5pm – and we will work to get the issue with your sign in resolved as quickly as possible.
The e-books, e-journals and databases that we provide access to via our online catalogue are hosted on dozens of different publisher/supplier platforms. We strive as far as possible to ensure that all of the tens of thousands of access links provided within our online catalogue to them are kept up to date and working.
On occasion, you may find an access link that is no longer working. When this occurs, please contact us by sending an email to bma-library@bma.org.uk:
- Please write your email clearly and concisely with enough spacing
- Please make sure the problem is written in the main body of the email and not just the subject line
- Please include the details of the item you were looking at/for and what platform it is hosted on
(Using the Permalink of the item is the best way to do this, please see below the details for how to do this.) - Please also include your BMA membership number
The Permalink button for an item is the quickest and easiest way to let us know exactly which electronic resource you are contacting us about:
When you click on the Permalink button you will be presented with a link:
Simply click on the Copy the permalink to clipboard link and then paste the link into the email you send to us.
If you have any comments or queries about accessing any of our electronic resources, please email:
bma-library@bma.org.uk





