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HWN Suggests

Dissecting the literature: the importance of critical appraisal

Literature searches using databases like Medline or EMBASE often result in an overwhelming volume of results which can vary in quality. Similarly, those who browse medical literature for the purposes of CPD or in response to a clinical query will know that there are vast amounts of content available. Critical appraisal helps to reduce the burden and allow you to focus on articles that are relevant to the research question, and that can reliably support or refute its claims with high-quality evidence, or identify high-level research relevant to your practice.

While most of us know not to believe everything we may read in a newspaper (or on Twitter), it’s also true that we cannot rely…

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Featured

  Cochrane Library

The Cochrane Library (ISSN 1465-1858) is a collection of databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making.

  EvidenceAlerts

EvidenceAlerts is an Internet service that notifies physicians and researchers about newly-published clinical studies. Researchers at the McMaster Health Information Unit find the highest quality studies, reviews, and evidence-based clinical practice guidelines from 127 premier clinical journals and these articles are rated by practicing physicians for clinical relevance and interest. Alerts are curated to your own clinical interests.

  ClinicalKey

Search for conditions, treatments, drugs, books, journals, and more.

  DynaMed

Completely reimagined for today’s clinicians, DynaMed combines the highest quality evidence-based information, expert guidance and a user-friendly, personalized experience to deliver accurate answers fast at the point of care.

 Campbell Collaboration

The Campbell Collaboration is an international social science research network that produces high quality, open and policy-relevant evidence syntheses, plain language summaries and policy briefs.

 Clinical Trials

Sweeping clinical trials in which thousands of patients are studied for years at a stretch have long been the Holy Grail of medical research... But in the era of personalized medicine...big trials are falling out of favor - Lucette Lagnado

 Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a free search engine that is part of Google. When you use Google regularly, you won’t notice a big difference when using Google scholar. It allows you to search scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources from a variety of databases - Sarah Neidler PhD

 Health Evidence

To make evidence easily accessible while developing organizational and individual capacity for evidence-informed public health decision making.

 HONsearch

Overview of all available medical search engines on the HON website.

 MEDLINE

MEDLINE is the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) premier bibliographic database that contains more than 28 million references to journal articles in life sciences with a concentration on biomedicine. A distinctive feature of MEDLINE is that the records are indexed with NLM Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).

 Medscape

Your one-stop resource for medical news, clinical reference, and education.

 Ovid

Every day, nurses, doctors, students, professors, healthcare administrators, and allied health professionals rely on Ovid to provide the most up-to-date research, including resources from 120+ publishers, covering over 100 specialty areas.

 PubMed

PubMed® comprises more than 32 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

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ScienceDirect is a medical search engine that allows you to find articles from medical journals that are owned by Elsevier - Sarah Neidler PhD

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Scopus is an abstract and citation database. It contains 1,4B cited references dating back to 1970. Among other sources, Scopus includes records from the EMBASE and MEDLINE databases - Sarah Neidler PhD

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A smart, fast tool to find high quality clinical research evidence.

 UpToDate

To help medical professionals make appropriate care decisions and drive better outcomes, UpToDate delivers evidence-based clinical decision support that is clear, actionable, and rich with real-world insights.

Articles of Interest

A study of search engines for health sciences

The Internet is now the major worldwide Health information communication tool. To avoid waste of time, improved search engines are needed, in terms of accuracy and efficiency. The medical community has been facing the problem of inflation of medical information. Due to information explosion, it is very difficult to find accurate information. The paper describes various search engines which are very much useful for health care professionals.

Searching part one – choosing your databases

It is accepted that searching a single database is not sufficient.

Searching part two – Grey Literature

Remember that most Grey Literature has not been peer reviewed; this is why assessing the quality of primary research included in your review is so important.

Top 10 Medical Websites for Doctors

Finding the right online resources is now part of most doctors’ routine. However, there is an overwhelming amount of information online. This can be even more of an issue for doctors, who are expected to find crucial information in the least amount of time possible.

Top Four Risks of Internet Searching for Clinical Evidence

“Just Google it.” Today we hear this phrase often. Google, other search engines, and the internet in general have become a means and a source for many to answer a myriad of questions.

Resources

5 Best Medical Search Engines

A medical journal search engine allows you to find information and literature about any medical or life science-related topic. Instead of searching primary resources for information, you find everything in one place. Medical search engines include several medical databases, such as EMBASE, MEDLINE, and MedlinePlus.

7 trusted medical journal search engines

While it may not be practical to use all the medical journal search engines listed in this article, having two or three ‘go-to’ medical journal search engines can help you consistently source quality evidence.

Human Dx

The Human Diagnosis Project (also referred to as "Human Dx" or "the Project") is a worldwide effort created with and led by the global medical community to build an online system that maps the best steps to help any patient.