Medical images can be found in a wide variety of places. This article aims to gather several of these disparate sources into one location for ease of use.
Note: The Columbia Health Sciences Library's Archives & Special Collections also holds many photos in their collection.
Columbia-Subscribed Resources
The e-books in AccessMedicine contain medical images. Directly find these images by using the search bar and then filtering by “images” using the left-hand column. Click on an image and then select “download slide” to get a copy of the image with a caption and citation. Images can also be favorited if you are signed into your free personal account.
ClinicalKey has an image and video collection sorted by specialty and media type. Scroll down to the “deepen your knowledge” section on the home page and click “multimedia.” Then sort by specialty and images. Alternatively, use the search bar. Change “all types” to “multimedia” and then search for your topic of interest. Log in to your free personal account to favorite and download a PowerPoint slide of the image. If you are not on campus and using the CUIMC network, you will have to log in to a free personal account to use ClinicalKey.
Thieme MedOne Otolaryngology and Thieme MedOne Radiology both have collections of images. Click “images / videos / audio” on the left-hand column to see the collections. Then look for specific topics within the media using the search bar at the top. Get a PowerPoint slide with the caption and source for the image by clicking on an image and then hitting the “PowerPoint” button at the top right.
UpToDate is another point-of-care tool with images. Use the search bar and then click “graphics” to limit the results to images only. Click on an image to expand it. You can use the “export to PowerPoint” function to create a slide with the image, caption, and source. If you are off the CUIMC network, you will have to log in to a free personal account to use UpToDate.
Free Web Resources
There are a multitude of free online databases with images, some with very specific collections, while others are broader. Any search for freely available images should begin with the National Library of Medicine's Digital Collections.
One of those collections is Images from the History of Medicine. Use the search bar at the top of the page to find images. Filter by subject, language, dates, and more using the "refine" feature in the left-hand column.
The National Library of Medicine has also created MedPix, a database of medical images and cases. Use the search bar at the top for a simple keyword search or click on “advanced.” Advanced search provides options for plane, modality, and ACR pre (selectable by dropdown or by clicking on the corresponding part of an anatomical model). Finally, MedPix groups images together by topics based on location, ACR, and category.
Merck Manual started as a small reference book for physicians and pharmacists and grew to become a comprehensive medical manual for professionals, students, and consumers. There are two ways to find images. You can type in a search term and then select “images” on the results page. Alternatively, underneath the search bar are medical topics listed from A-Z. Click on the topic of interest and then select “images” under the “topic resources” label.
The Center of Disease Control has created the Public Health Image Library (PHIL) to house public health photos and illustrations. You can do a quick search at the top of the page or scroll down to see featured collections. Alternatively, click the “advanced search” link in the left-hand column to search by subject matter, organization, locations, and image types.