Constructing the Medical Thesaurus as a Tool for Indexing

Abstract

There is an interest in extracting knowledge and retrieving information

automatically from the current availability of a large collection of electronic

resources and from the academic literature available on the Web. Much of

Thus, researchers may miss relevant, even critical, information in parallel

or disparate fields, which in turn may lead them to recreate information

already developed or to miss important information that could advance each

discipline. A Medical thesaurus identifies and clarifies important concepts

from these disciplines and standardizes their corresponding terms. This paper

reviews the structure, construction and use of Medical thesauri, and outlines

how Medical Thesauri may help resolve a number of common difficulties

encountered when searching these recourses. The increasing importance of

the medical online resources as information resource makes the thesaurus an

aid tool for both professionals and non-experts.