Literature search is a critical component for any evidence-based project. It helps you to understand the complexity of a clinical issue, gives you insight into the scope of a problem, and provides you with best treatment approaches and the best available evidence on the topic.

1. CONDUCTING AN EFFICIENT
LITERATURE SEARCH
Rodolfo T. Rafael, M.D.
Medical Informatics
LNU College of Medicine

11. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/index

13. https://academic.microsoft.com/

21. Medical Informatics
Knowledge
Management
Clinical Information
Management
Communication Decision Support

22. Informatics Use in Health Care
 Communication
 Telemedicine
 Tele-radiology
 Patient e-mail
 Presentations
 Knowledge management
 Journals
 Consumer Health information
 Evidence-based medical
information
 Decision Support
 Reminder systems
 Diagnostic Expert
Systems
 Drug Interaction
 Information
Management
 Electronic Medical
Records
 Billing transactions
 Ordering Systems

23. Overview
 Background and Significance of MEDLINE
 3 tools you can use to efficiently search
literature
 Types of searches
 Literature search via e-mail and via handheld

24. MEDLINE
 Began in 1966 [MEDLARS]
 13 million citations total
 4,500 journals (4,844)
 35,000 citations per month
NOW! 21 million citations
7,000 worldwide journals in 37 languages; 60 languages for
older journals

26. WHAT IS A CITATION?

27. What is Citation?
 A “citation” is the way you tell your readers that certain
material in your work came from another source. It also
gives your readers the information necessary to find that
source again, including:
 information about the author
 the title of the work
 the name and location of the company that published your copy
of the source
 the date your copy was published
 the page numbers of the material you are borrowing/ browsing

29. MEDLINE is
 Largest collection of medical knowledge
 Perfect reference for evidence-based practice
of medicine
 Free
 Increasingly becoming the measure of a
competent 21st century medical practitioner

30. HOW TO GET TO MEDLINE
http://www.nlm.nih.gov

34. 4 Tools for Efficient Literature
Search
 MEDLINE Online Tutorial
 The Cubby System
 Limits
 Clinical Queries

38. MEDLINE ONLINE
TUTORIAL

41. SEARCH FOR AN
AUTHOR IN PUBMED

82. MeSH Terms
 Since the late 1800s, the U.S. National Library
of Medicine (NLM) has used its own list of
terms for medicine. This vocabulary is used by
the NLM to catalogue books, other library
materials, and to index articles for inclusion in
health related databases including MEDLINE.
This preferred list of terms is known as
Medical Subject Headings®, or MeSH®.

83. Example 1: Tree structure of
DIGESTIVE SYSTEM DISEASES
 Diseases
 Digestive System Diseases
 Abdominal Pain
 Biliary Tract Diseases
 Digestive System Abnormalities
 Digestive System Fistula
 Digestive System Neoplasms
 Esopageal Diseases
 Gastrointestinal Diseases
 Liver Diseases
 Pancreatic Diseases
 Peritoneal Diseases

84. A Simple Query
 “prostate cancer”
 33,737 citations

97. Types of Searches
 Natural language
 What are the outcomes of radical prostatectomy?
 Qualified
 Outcome[TW] AND radical [TW] AND prostate
[MAJR]

101. Qualified Queries
 Gatchalian [AU]
 1990:2000 [DP]
 BMJ [TA]
 ureterolithiasis [MAJR]
 cystolithiasis [MH]

102. Qualifiers
 AU: author
 DP: date published
 MH: major heading
 TA: journal title
 Etc.

103. Boolean Operators
 OR
 AND
 NOT

104. MEDLINE by E-mail
 BioMail
 http://biomail.sourceforge.net
 Direct e-mail
 To: query@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 Body: help

110. END

111. Reference for practical
 https://researchguides.uic.edu/c.php?g=25234
8&p=1684801
 https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/pubmedtut
orial/010_180.html

112. PubMed feeds into Blogspot

129. THANK YOU.
rtrafaelmd@gmail.com

130. 1. ____________is a public search engine and digital library and repository for scientific and academic papers with a
focus on computer and information science.
2. ____________ is a comprehensive science-specific search engine
3. Midline currently have ______million citations
4. ___________ citation is a credit or reference to another document or source which documents both influence and
authority.
5. ____________ Largest collection of medical knowledge and perfect reference for evidence-based practice of
medicine
6. How to get to medline
7. How to SEARCH for an Author in PUBMED
8. How to search for an author using only the last name?
9. How to search by author and subject?
10. This is the natural language:
What are the outcomes of Whipple procedure?
Make a qualified question
_______________