Advanced Searching In Pub Med

Advanced Searching in PubMed

Robin FeatherstoneClinical Medicine Librarianrfeathe@uwo.ca

Before we begin...

Before we begin...

Use the Advanced search to access:

- Search History- Limits

Home

Agenda – 5 Scenarios, 5 Tools

• The Comprehensive Search– Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

• The Clinical Question– Clinical Queries

• The Regular Update– E-mail updates

• The Precise Search– Single Citation Matcher

• The Rush Job– Pubget

Search Scenario #1: The Comprehensive Search*

• You have to find EVERY article on a particular topic

• You are assisting a research team or are writing a thesis

* Consider attending the research workshop, “Smart Searching for the Health Sciences” on Nov. 20th from 9:30 to 11:30 am

Comprehensive Search Strategies

• Search more databases than just PubMed• Set up a RefWorks* (or similar product)

account to manage your citations• Design a search strategy that can be

reproduced• Test your strategy to make sure you retrieve

the right articles• Use both keywords and subject headings* Consider attending the research workshop, “Advanced RefWorks” on Nov. 18th from 12:30 to 2:00 pm

Scenario

You are hired by a faculty researcher who is conducting research on hearing loss in AIDS patients. They ask you to find every article published on the subject.

Exercise

Spend about two minutes to conduct a quick search on the topic: AIDS and hearing loss

Search Scenario #2: The Clinical Question

• You need to answer a question quickly at the point-of-care

• You need to find information to answer a particular patient’s question

Clinical Question Strategy

• Use Clinical Queries to find the best studies to answer your question

Enter your keywords and select the type of question that you want to answer

Scenario

• A patient with rotator cuff tendinitis asks if you know of any new therapies that would be safe to try.

Exercise• Use Clinical Queries to find some new studies

on treatments for rotator cuff tendinitis

Search Scenario #3: The Regular Update

• You want to stay up to date on the latest publications, but don’t have time to search everyday

Regular Update Strategy

• Start an account with PubMed (MyNCBI)– Set up your search to run automatically and the

results sent to your email

Scenario

• You’ve been seeing a lot of patients recently with rotator cuff tendinitis and would like to stay up to date on the most recent publications about treatments

Exercise

• Register for an account with My NCBI

• Return to your PubMed search on rotator cuff tendinitis

• Select “Save Search”• Name your search and select “Save”• Set up your e-mail update preferences

Search Scenario #4: The Precise Search

• You just want one article• You’re searching for items from a reference

list or for a particular article that someone mentioned to you

Precise Search Strategy: Single Citation Matcher

Enter as much information as you can and PubMed will find the closest matching article(s)

Scenario• Your preceptor asks you to read an article in the journal Lung about

a respiratory syndrome affecting survivors of the World Trade Center disaster. They can’t recall anything more about the article.

Exercise• Use Single Citation Matcher to find the article

Search Scenario # 5: The Rush Job

• You need the full-text of an article RIGHT NOW!

Rush Job Strategy: Pubget

• Pubget will display full-text PDFs for Western’s subscriptions within your results sethttp://pubget.com/search

Exercise

• Search Pubget - http://pubget.com/search - to find an article about discharge instructions after cataract surgery

Recap

• The Comprehensive Search– Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

• The Clinical Question– Clinical Queries

• The Regular Update– E-mail updates

• The Precise Search– Single Citation Matcher

• The Rush Job– Pubget

Questions

Robin FeatherstoneClinical Medicine Librarianrfeathe@uwo.ca