The Shaare Zedek Cancer Pain and Palliative Medicine Reference Database is a project of Dr. Nathan Cherny, Director of the Cancer Pain and Palliative Care Service in the Oncology Department at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. He has maintained the database since 1989 and has made the database available to the general community in "EndNote" format. The original version of the database can be downloaded here.

The "EndNote" format is, however, a proprietary file structure and the generated files can only be read by the "EndNote" programme. Available for download at St Basillisa's are the The Shaare Zedek Cancer Pain and Palliative Medicine Reference Database (Cherny) files in "EndNote - refer" format which can be read by a number of other bibliographic database programmes.

It is very nice to be able to access this sort of resource, the Cherny database, but you need somewhere to put it so that you can make use of it; you need a bibliographic database manager. EndNote is widely available in the academic world but it is relatively expensive. A trial copy can be downloaded from their site.

Less expensive alternatives are available. In addition to "EndNote 4" St B's has been using "Biblioscape" which has an integrated web browser although we have had problems with stability. A number of free, "Open Source", bibliographic database managers are also available. A sampling is available here. St B's has been trying bibus and has found that it has done what has been asked of it and imported the "EndNote refer" files without difficulty. We have not delved any further into its workings but if we do we will let you know.

There are a couple of interesting aspects to this database. Dr Cherny does not publish his search strategy, keywords are thin on the ground and the database continues to post citations dating back to the 1970's... where does he get this stuff?

If you have any problems opening these files please let St B's know by email using the link at the foot of the page.