Biomedical & Engineering Resources for Summer Scholars: PubMed Tips

What can PubMed do for me?

PubMed is the premier biomedical database and is free for anyone to use. You could think of it like a search engine specifically for articles about health and medicine.  Use the link from this guide or Biomed's home page to make sure you can get to the full text using UC-eLinks.  Bookmark or favorite this link for easy access. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?tool=cdl&otool=cdlotool

(It can also be used from off-campus.)

Did you know that in PubMed you can:

Use Filters 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

5 Search Strategy Tips

1. Be Specific - use the most specific terms you have.
2. Browse - when you are uncertain of the right topic or terms, look online, browse through books, talk with friends and mentors.
3. Have expectations and assumption about what you want or anticipate finding.
4. Think & Plan - think like an author and plan best resource(s) to use.
5. Learn to work the tools - From advanced search to filters & limits, learn how to work the tools and resources because a little finesse can save you lots of time.