Health & Anatomy
The PDR Family Guide to Prescription Drugs, Third Edition
A poor drug reference is The PDR Family Guide to Prescription Drugs, Third Edition (Medical Economics Company), which displays a stunning lack of effort at just about every level. The Physician’s Desk Reference did all the work before anybody ever thought about making it into a CD-ROM; hence, you have a disc that offers no multimedia, very little ease of searching, and not even many pretty pictures. Load the Acrobat Reader onto your machine, then dive into the database. The list of drugs is less comprehensive than the one in The Corner Drug Store, and there’s no friendly pharmacist to repeat things aloud. Least heartening of all is the disclaimer that starts off the program: “Publisher does not warrant [the information's] accuracy, guarantee the products, or advocate their use.” The sentiment is old, but stating it this clearly is new. We’ll look elsewhere, thanks very much.
- May 1996
