A FAMILY-PRACTICE ARTICLE FILING SYSTEM

An organized article filing system can be a timesaver for the busy clinician. A comprehensive, specialty-based filing system for the family physician is presented. The full system uses about 700 three-tab manila folders. Each major medical specialty heading is placed on an empty center-tab folder. Subfolders within each major heading are all right- or left-tab folders, alternating for each successive major heading. Topics that overlap specialty are cross-referenced. Additional major headings are included for presenting symptoms, procedures, practice management topics, society membership, licensure, etc. The resulting filing system is intuitive to use since articles are filed by the specialty to which the the topic is most closely related. Journal articles and associated patient education materials may be filed in the same folder for quick retrieval.