the 'map of medicine' medline & cinahl for library technicians
DESCRIPTION
The teaching that I do at Langara College helps me to become a better teaching in my work as a biomedical librarian. Here is a slidecast for a medical information sources class, LIBR 2195, that I teach at Langara.TRANSCRIPT
The ‘map of medicine’: an introduction to PubMed & CINAHL… for Library Technicians
Dean Giustini, UBC health librarian & [email protected] | LIBR2195 | March 2015
How do I find good research articles …among all these journals … in the library?
Tonight’s class on searching
1. How do we find medical research? We search
2. PubMed (Medline) & CINAHL – what are they?
3. Medline record – what is it?
4. Google scholar
5. Search practice
Dean Giustini, UBC health librarian & [email protected] | LIBR2195 | March 2015
• MEDLINE is the best place to search• PubMed – free MEDLINE search interface since mid-1990s• Why do we search MEDLINE?
– Two studies from 1990s showed that:• 50% of clinical questions were answered by searching• Average search time? 27 minutes & 43 minutes (too long)
How do we find medical research? Medical papers?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/
What is PubMed (Medline)?
• PubMed.gov is a search “interface”• PubMed allows you to search Medline AND other …..• It is created by the US NLM (National Library of Medicine)• It searches MEDLINE, and ~25,000,000 journal citations…• Indexes about 5800 medical journals
• Topics: medicine, dentistry & veterinary science, nursing & psychology• MeSH terms: why are controlled vocabularies important in searching?• Medical index (thesaurus) = 25,000+ subject headings
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
Dean Giustini, UBC health librarian & [email protected] | LIBR2195 | March 2015
Medline record: what is here?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21322286
ARTICLE:Nahas R, Balla A. Complementary and alternative medicine for prevention & treatment of common cold. Can Fam Physician. 2011 Jan;57(1):31-6. http://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21322286
How are MeSH terms assigned?
Which are major descriptors?
Which are minor?
What is the differencebetween major/minor terms?
Medline record: part 2
Subject terms are assigned based on article content …. & allow you to create a targeted search!
PubMed.gov
• It’s the premier international bibliographic database in biomedicine • ~25 million citations in MEDLINE• 5700+ international journals indexed from 1966-present• OldMedline back to ~1940s (and even back to the 19th century)
• Concentrates on biomedicine, drugs, nursing, patient care, clinical trials• 650,000+ new entries every year • 2000-4000 articles added to database every day (Tuesday to Saturday)• Created by health librarians at US National Library of Medicine in Bethesda MD• MEDLINE is also available at Langara on the EBSCO host
What is Medline?
Dean Giustini, UBC health librarian & [email protected] | LIBR2195 | March 2015
The 16 top-level categories in the MeSH hierarchy or tree structure are:1. Anatomy [A]2. Organisms [B]3. Diseases [C]4. Chemicals and Drugs [D]5. Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment [E]6. Psychiatry and Psychology [F]7. Biological Sciences [G]8. Physical Sciences [H]9. Anthropology, Education, Sociology and Social Phenomena [I]10. Technology and Food and Beverages [J]11. Humanities [K]12. Information Science [L]13. Persons [M]14. Health Care [N]15. Publication Characteristics [V]16. Geographic Locations [Z]
How are MeSH terms organized?
Most MeSH provide short descriptions or definitions for each term
• See MeSH description for diabetes type 2
• Text written by NLM librarians based on standard reference sources
• Sources are standard texts of subject; similar to sources assignment
• Citations are not given; readers referred to bibliography
How are MeSH terms organized?
Dean Giustini, UBC health librarian & [email protected] | LIBR2195 | March 2015
What is CINAHL (nursing & allied health)?
Subject Headings: CINAHL® subject headings are used to index articles in CINAHL; reflect terminology used by nursing & allied health professions. CINAHL subject headings use structure of MeSH. ~12,000 CINAHL subject headings to effectively search ….
Subject Coverage: CINAHL covers nursing & allied health literature, 1981 to 2015, with more than 2800 journals indexed
Overlap with MEDLINE but 55% unique content in nursing & allied health
Some CINAHL content is NOT FINDABLE ON THE WEB
Updated every month; ~70% of CINAHL headings based on MeSH
Note in a record how different limits are in CINAHL
CINAHL via EBSCO
http://www.langara.bc.ca/library/articles-in-journals/articles-atoz.html
ARTICLE:Nahas R, Balla A. Complementary and alternative medicine for prevention & treatment of common cold. Can Fam
Physician. 2011 Jan;57(1):31-6.
What can you do to search efficiently?
• Learn good basic skills using MeSH & CINAHL headings
• Learn how to search PubMed but try EBSCO too
• Take a workshop, read a handout, watch a tutorial online
• Try various things, get my feedback
• Read about searching on the wiki http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca
The best medical information =
the best medical evidence