Chapter 7-- RESEARCHING MEDICAL ARTICLES

Researching Medical Articles

After reading the reviews at the NCI website and browsing the mailing list archives at ACOR, you probably have more than enough information.

But, sometimes there is a need or a desire to read the original medical articles or at least summaries of them. You might be researching a very unusual disease or a very specific set of questions. Knowing how to research the medical literature will allow you to find all sorts of very specific information.

You may also want to check if there have been any recent articles about your disease which haven’t yet been discussed in the NCI reviews or in the ACOR mailing lists archives.

How do I actually research the medical literature?

In this section, I’ll show you how to search Pub Med -- the world's largest database of medical articles.

What I’m going to teach you is a quick and effective way to use this database. The truth is searching Pub Med can be complicated and becoming an expert in its use is probably not how you want to spend your time.

Remember, I don’t expect anybody reading this book to give lectures to their doctors about the medical literature. What I do expect is that readers will be able to understand the issues at the cutting-edge and then be able to ask the right questions.

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