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PBL Information Resources and Tools for the First Year: Search Tips & Tutorials

This guide provides resources and strategies for finding background, clinical and drug information, including evidence-based medicine strategies and specific information for problem-based learning exercises.

PubMed Tools

Did you know that in PubMed you can:

Use Limits to:

  • Specify the type(s) of articles retrieved (e.g., Clinical Trials, Case Studies, Reviews)
  • Specify age groups (e.g., 6-12 year olds, 19-44 year olds, 80 & over, and more)
  • Specify human or animal studies
  • Specify the language of the article
  • Limit resources to specific topics, like Bioethics

Jump to the PubMed Tutorial about Limits.

Use Clinical Queries to:

  • Find systematic reviews
  • Use preformatted filters for evidence-based searching
  • Target articles on medical genetics

Jump to the PubMed Tutorial about using Clinical Queries

Sharpen your PubMed skills with these tutorials:

PubMed's Clinical Queries -- Prognosis

PubMed - Quick steps to using MeSH terms

Sharpen your PsycINFO skills with these tutorials:

Basic keyword searching

PsycINFO Tools

Sharpen your PsycINFO skills with these tutorials:

So, How Do I Choose a Resource

Which resources answer which questions?  The process may look something like the following, (for a background diagnostic question):

Diagnosis question - resources decision tree

 

Adapted from a 2008 UCLA School of Medicine Handout, Stevens, C., Krasne, S., Ogawa, R.   For more information on other types of searches (in a simple handout format), please see the link in the box below.

Handouts