Dentistry: Clinical Placement

As a student in the Faculty of Biology Medicine and Health,  you may spend a proportion of your time in a clinical setting away from the University campus. This page collects together information on resources and services for students on placement.

The following checklist will help you to remember the things you need to do before you go on your placement:

• Return or renew all existing items on loan and clear any existing fines.  You can do this via the My Library tab and the e-payments service in the MyManchester student portal respectively.
• Make a note of your central username and password - you will need it to access resources remotely
• Remember to check your University emails for any library reminders
• Before you go on placement or while you are on placement you can join the SCONUL Access scheme (Society of College, National and University Libraries). SCONUL Access is a scheme which allows many university library users, including placement students, to borrow or use books and journals at other libraries throughout the UK and Ireland. You will be able to apply for borrowing rights at other university libraries geographically nearer to your placement location.

Electronic Resources

• You will have access to the full range of University of Manchester Library electronic resources while you are on placement. Please read the search resources pages for full details. You can access services remotely by using the VPN service provided by the IT Services Division of the University.
• Check out My Learning Essentials tab for online tutorials and further tips.

Getting the books you want

• Physical access can often be difficult when out on placement.  The University of Manchester library can help you by posting books and photocopies of journal articles or book chapters to your home address while you are on placement.  https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/using-the-library/students/books-and-resources/
• If you do plan to visit one of our libraries, most University of Manchester Library sites are open in the evening and at weekends, please check the opening hours before you make a special trip.
• Academic Libraries North is a consortium of 33 higher education libraries in the north of England and a subgroup of SCONUL. Through collaborative activities and mutual support, we provide opportunities for our members in the exchange of knowledge and experience.. For borrowing rights from these libraries please see SCONUL access information.

NHS placement organisations will often be supported by a physical library service. Listed below are several local hospital libraries which may take students on placement. For specific information about the library at the hospital you are located at, please click on a link below:

Greater Manchester

• The Christie NHS Foundation Trust - Library and Knowledge Service
• Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust – Library and Knowledge Services
• Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust - Library Services
• Northern Care Alliance
• Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust - Pennine Acute Health Library Service
• Stockport NHS Foundation Trust - Library Services
• Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - Knowledge & Library Services

North West Region

• Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust -  Library and Information Service
• Cumbria NHS locations - North Cumbria Library and Knowledge Services

While you are on placement you can register for an NHS OpenAthens Account. This will enable you to access a wealth of electronic resources from wherever you're logged in. It is much quicker to register for an NHS Athens account from an NHS computer either on a hospital site or in a GP practice. If you are using a non-NHS computer or email address, your registration could be delayed for up to 15 days.

You can use your NHS Athens username and password to access an online collection of electronic resources provided by the NHS via NHS Evidence Health Information Resources. Contact your local hospital librarian for more information on using NHS electronic resources.

Sources accessed via NHS Athens include:

• Ovid (Medline, Embase, AMED, HMIC and PsycINFO)
• ProQuest (BNI)
• EBSCO full text databases (Cinahl and Health Business Elite)
• Journals from the BMJ and AMA collections
• Online access to eBooks from MyiLibrary

• Cochrane Library

• NICE Evidence Services

  NICE Evidence Services are a suite of services that provide internet access to high quality authoritative evidence and best practice. The services cover health, social care and public health evidence. Evidence Services aim to help professionals make better and quicker evidence based decisions. NICE Evidence Services consists of 6 resources:

  • Evidence Search
  • Healthcare Database Advanced Search (HDAS)
  • Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS)
  • BNF microsite
  • UK DUETS
  • Bulletins, Alerts and Evidence Awareness service
• PubMed

It is worthwhile carrying out a search on Google Scholar for articles relevant to your topic.

If you search Google Scholar while on campus, you'll find links to the full text articles on the Library databases via the Findit@MCR link.