Using PubMed

I. INTRODUCTION

The Medline database is produced by the National Library of Medicine. It includes citations to journal articles published in nearly 4,800 medical journals from around the world, with abstracts when available. It covers articles back to the mid-1960s, and is updated daily. PubMed is a web-based interface for searching Medline and related databases on the Web at no cost. Two million searches are performed each day on PubMed.

This is a summary of the most useful features of PubMed. A complete tutorial is available at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/pubmed_tutorial/m1001.html

II. HOW TO BEGIN

• From any PC at The Michener Institute, click on the LRC Journals icon on the Novell-delivered applications menu.
• From elsewhere, go directly to PubMed at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?dr=citation&holding=oncimalib_fft or go to The Michener Institute LRC website at www.michener.ca/lrc and select e-journals.

III. SIMPLE SEARCH, AUTOMATIC TERM MAPPING

Type a word or phrase

In the query box, type a word or phrase to be searched, e.g. emergency trauma. PubMed automatically combines the terms, and searches for them in various fields including MeSH, journals, phrase list, author index, and as a text word.
To search for an author's name, type the last name (space) initials e.g. smith ja

Start the search

Click on the Go button to execute the search.

IV. VIEW RESULT LIST, VIEW ABSTRACTS

The result list will display the first 20 citations from newest to oldest. To display more results per page, use the Show pulldown menu to select a number larger than 20.

To look at a single abstract, click on the author's name.

If full-text is available, a Michener Institute icon will appear above the abstract. To display the full-text article, click on the icon.

V. DETAILS

Click on Details to see how PubMed translated the search strategy.
You may edit the search strategy, then click on Go to execute the new search.
You may also print the search strategy, or save it by clicking on URL button, then adding a bookmark.

VI. LIMITS

If too many citations result from a search, click on Limits to narrow the search by language, date, publication type, etc. Select the limits, then click on Go to execute the new search.

VII. PREVIEW/INDEX SEARCH

Click on Preview/Index to refine a search strategy with additional terms, to search from specific fields, or to preview the number of hits before displaying the results.

MeSH

To search using subject headings, click on the arrow next to All fields, drag the mouse and let go at MeSH terms. (Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is a controlled vocabulary of 17,000 terms used to categorize the subject content of the articles.) Type a word in the space provided, then click on the Index button. Select the most appropriate MeSH terms from the display. Hold down the mouse and drag to select a group of terms, or hold down the Ctrl key and click to select individual terms. Then click the AND button to add the terms to your search, and Go to execute the search.

VIII. HISTORY

Click on History to view all previous searches during this session. You may run any of these searches again, or run them in combination.

IX. SELECT, DISPLAY AND PRINT

Select each citation to be printed by clicking on the tickbox next to the author's name. A checkmark will appear for each selected citation. To display the selected citations, click on the Display pulldown menu and change "summary" to any other format, e.g. abstract or citation. To print the citations, click on the browser's print button.

X. JOURNAL BROWSER DATABASE

List titles and abbreviations: Click on Journals Database on the left side of the screen. This allows you to search for all journal titles indexed by Medline. Note that the Medline abbreviation is provided for each title; this abbreviation is required by the Vancouver Referencing Style which is one of the two styles used at The Michener Institute (APA style is the other).

Search for articles by journal title: Click on Links (to the right of the title), then select PubMed