Lecture 4 Medical Literature Search Flashcards
Search Sites
OVID/Medline
PubMed
Internet Search Engines (Google, Google Scholar)
Others
doi
Digital Object Identifier
MeSH
Medical Subject Headings
UID/PMDI
Unique (or PubMed) Identifier
E-books/E-journals
Can be accessed through links on Library’s website or through the Library catalog.
If you need articles on specific topic, search
PubMed or OVID
SFX-E Journals
Database if electronic journals the library subscribes to and many open access journals through databases and on the internew
Board Review
Listed at Helpful Links on the Library’s website
Offer USMLEasy as only electronic review resource,
Access Medicine, Access Pediatrics and Access Surgeries
McGraw Hill databases with electronic reference books, case studies, images, drug info, and surgery videos
The Medical Letter
Summarizes vital drug facts, focusing on elements such as mechanism of action, pharmacology, clinical studies, adverse effects, and is updated biweekly.
Human Anatomy
Interactive cadaver dissection tutorial. supplement to gross lab
PubMed
The National Library of Medicine’s database that provides access to over 18 million medical citations
OVID
Searches 1200+ journals, MEDLINE and the Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews (AACP Journal Club, Cochrane, DARE, CCTR).
Clinical Key
Elsevier’s Clinical Insight Engine
Natural Standard
An international research collaboration that compiles data on complementary and alternative therapies.
UpToDate
A clinical information resource
Basic Search Techniques
Enter in search box. Can do Advanced link
Keyword Searching
Enter one or more keywords.
Automatic term mapping
PubMed automatically combines significant terms together. Matches your search terms with MeSH terms to improve your search results.
MeSH example of heart attack search
A search for heart attack retrieves articles containing heart attack in title or abstract. Also retrieves articles containing myocardial infarction (the medical term for heart attack) in the title, abstract or MeSH terms.
Author Searching
Enter author’s last name followed by initials without punctuation. If only last name, add author search field tag [au]
Journal Title Searching
- Full journal title
- use MEDLINE title abbreviation in search box
- Single word journal titles use the Journal Title [ta] search field tag
Truncation
Use an asterisk * to replace zero to many characters at the end of a word
Ex. Bacter* = bacteria, bacterium, bacteriophage, etc.
Truncation turns off automatic term mapping so not generally recommended
Combining search terms
AND, OR or NOT to combine terms or phrases. Use parentheses to specify order in which PubMed processes your search terms
Related Citations
Use this link to retrieve closely related citations, based on shared MeSH terms
Filters
Remain in effect until you uncheck or clear them. Filters other than language or date will exude records in process
Advanced Search
Can view and combine searches from the previous 8 hours in your search history.
Summary Display
Basic citation information, related citations and PMID
Single Citation Matcher
To find a specific citation, on main page go to PubMed Tools > Single Citation Matcher
MeSH terms will exclude
‘records in progress’, as they haven’t not yet been indexed with MeSH
Explode Feature
Searching on MeSH terms automatically includes all terms that are logical subsets of that term
Can turn this off with [mh:noexp]
