The aim of this part is to highlight some of the most useful resources available from PubMed Homepage.
Many free tools/resources are available from NLM and accessible from the main PubMed page. Clicking on NIH logo from the top left-hand corner which is a collection of hundreds of NLM resources that can be freely searched.
This contains resources in the fields of Chemicals & Bioassays, DNA & RNA, Domains & Structures, Genes & Expression, Genetics & Medicine, Genomes & Maps, etc...
PubMed Single Citation Matcher is a special feature of PubMed that allows users to find out a specific citation by knowing only parts of the citation such as volume, issue number, first page, year ...
Simply fill in the boxes for which you have information about ( you may omit entering data into any of the fields below) and click "Go to Search". PubMed will then display all records that satisfy the data entered.
MeSH Database is an alternate way of searching PubMed, and can be accessed from the PubMed home-page.
MeSH is PubMed's controlled vocabulary that is used to index the articles. It provides a consistent way of retrieving articles that may use different terminology for the same concepts and ensures retrieval of articles that talk about a particular MeSH.
For example to see what is the MeSH for cardiac disease, type cardiac disease and click "Go".
PubMed suggests "Heart Diseases" as a Mesh. There are two options for you to follow:
Click on the square box next to it, click "Links", then select PubMed. This searches the MeSH term "Heart Diseases" at PubMed and you click "Go" you retrieve articles "talking" about the MeSH heart diseases.
Click on the hyperlink the MeSH term "Heart diseases", this opens a screen displaying:
Subheadings (you can select one or more or all subheadings) You also have the option to restrict search to Major Topic headings only (Focus) and also the option to disable the Explode.
Then a list of related terms, and the tree structure of the MeSH term are displayed. For more information on these read "General Information" section of Medicine.
Do all the necessary selections from this page, then click on "Send to" button and select "Search Box with AND", finally click "Search PubMed" button.
MedlinePlus is the National Institute of Health's site for patients and their families, produced by the National Library of Medicine.
It contains information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues written in a language that a non-healthcare people can easily understand. It offers reliable, up-to-date health information for everyone and for free.
MY NCBI is mainly used to create e-mail alerts so you would be automatically alerted whenever new data is being added to PubMed that satisfies your topic of interest. This is achieved by searching PubMed as usual then you should click on "Save Search" link.
Example search for 'prevention of cross infection', then click "Save Search".
A new window opens where you key in your user name and password to MY NCBI (if you have not registered before to MY NCBI you can do that now).
1) Key in your user name and password into the system, and click "Sign In".
2) When asked if you would like to receive an e-mail updates of new search, select "Yes", then select options from screen and finally click "OK".
Now whenever new articles are entered into PubMed about prevention of cross infection, you will receive automatically an e-mail alert of these new citations.
