TDS Health hosts a variety of resources relevant to various health care disciplines, including STAT!Ref Titles. TDS Health provides:

  • Full text access
  • A search function that can search within the full text
  • A built-in medical dictionary to help you while you read

Accessing TDS Health

From Library Services' homepage, select Search Sources in the top navigation bar. From the dropdown menu, select Databases. Select T, then TDS Health (formerly STAT!Ref).

Accessing STAT!Ref Titles

You can find a list of all the titles offered via STAT!Ref by selecting the STAT!Ref panel on the TDS Health homepage.

Searching tips

TDS Health’s search bar allows you to search within the full text of all available titles. To help you search better:

  • Use keywords rather than entering a full sentence question.
  • If you would like two or more words to be found adjacent to each other, use quotation marks (e.g. "myocardial infarction").
  • Hyphenating terms will make the search find the words in that exact order (e.g. torsades-de-pointes).

Filtering search results

On the search results page, under FILTER BY on the left, you can filter your results.

  • Custom Title Set lets you specify which titles you want to limit your search to. In the popup window, check off the titles you want to search in, then click on the floppy disk icon  in the top right.
  • DATE RANGE lets you limit the publication date range.
  • RELATED TO lets you specify the aspect of your topic you want to focus on. For example, if you searched ‘Tuberculosis’ and checked off ‘Diagnosis’, it will give you information specifically about diagnosing tuberculosis.
  • ADVANCED SEARCH provides three helpful tools:
  1. Suffixes searches for variations of your keywords (e.g. diabetes will also give you diabetic, diabetics, etc.).
  2. Related Terms looks for synonyms for your keywords (e.g. heart attack will also give myocardial infarction).
  3. Headings Only searches only within the Table of Contents.

Viewing an eBook

When viewing an ebook on TDS Health, the Table of Contents is always on the left-hand side for easy navigation between sections. In-text citations appear as superscript numbers; you can click on each number to find the full citation in the reference section.

At the top of the full text, the Tables and Figures tabs provide summaries of all the tables and figures used within the current section.

To search within the current book, click on the dropdown menu to the left of the search bar at the top of the page and select Current Title, then run your search.

TDS Health will highlight all the matching keywords within the text. To navigate between the highlighted keywords, use the Match arrows  at the top of the full text.

The Result arrows  let you navigate between all the results from the search results page.

Using Stedman’s Medical Dictionary

Stedman’s Medical Dictionary provides definitions for medical terms, abbreviations, acronyms, measurements, and more. It is offered through TDS Health and is also embedded into all the other titles on TDS Health.

To define a word within the text, simply highlight the word. A pop-up will appear with a dictionary definition as well as an audio pronunciation.

Getting the TDS Health Mobile App

If you would like to view the titles offered through TDS Health on your mobile phone, you can follow this link to the Mobile Apps and Resources subject guide for more information.

If you have questions about using STAT!Ref through TDS Health, reach out to us at AskLibrary@nshealth.ca or book a one-on-one consultation with a Library Services team member for help using this and other library resources.

Vinson Li

Librarian Educator
Yarmouth Regional Hospital, Western Zone