Literature searching for Medical and Dental Sciences

Please also note that the content of Medline (Ovid) is equivalent to that accessed through the PubMed interface.  If a search is carried out using Ovid Medline, then this does not need to be repeated on PubMed, unless instructed to do so by your tutor for example.  In addition, accessing the full-text of articles is easier through Ovid Medline as you are already signed in as a University user and links are provided via FindIt@Bham. 

For more about Ovid Medline and PubMed, see 'Ovid's Medline compared to PubMed' from LWW Wolters Kluwer.

Watch the above Panopto video from Academic Skills Centre on searching Medline (includes sub-titles).

Locate the entry for Ovid Medline on FindIt@Bham (or use the link at the top of this page) and follow this to open up a menu screen of Ovid databases.  Choose the option "Ovid Medline - 1946 to [recent date]" : all the articles there are indexed.  The non-indexed or in-process Medline options, as well as the other Ovid databases, should be ignored.

SAMPLE SEARCH TOPIC

• "Haemophilia A and blood transfusions"

FIRST TERM

• Enter Blood transfusion in the search bar and ‘Search’

• Find Blood transfusion in the list of terms on the following screen
  • Note the Scope note ('i' icon) on the right of the screen: you can select this to view a definition of the term and other or 'Used for' wording. This can be very useful in clarifying terminology in different contexts or locations
• Now click directly on the heading 'Blood transfusion'
  • This will show the subject tree, with narrower terms underneath 'Blood transfusion' indented to the right
• Tick the box to the left of 'Blood transfusion', and the ‘Explode’ column box on the right
  • 'Explode' will include the narrower terms clustered within Blood transfusion
  • 'Continue' (top of screen)

• On the next screen tick the box to ‘Include all subheadings’

• The term will then be shown as a summary line on the main page, with individual items listed further down the screen

SECOND TERM

NB: you should be in the default Advanced Search screen in Ovid Medline.  Advanced search will be in bold above the search bar in the centre screen.  This has the box "Map term to subject headings" automatically ticked: this will direct you to useful subject headings or MeSH for your topic.

• Enter Haemophilia A in the search bar and click "Search"
• Find Hemophilia A in the list of terms - subject headings - on the following page
• Click directly on the heading itself to view the screen with a detailed view of the subject tree
• There are no further terms indented to the right under 'Hemophilia A'
  • So, just tick the box to the left of Hemophilia A and 'Continue'
  • Select 'Include all subheadings' on the next screen
• This should take you to the home page again, with "Hemophilia A" at the top, under Blood transfusion

COMBINING TERMS

• Tick the box to the left of each term towards the top of the screen
• Note the boxes  AND, OR,  underneath the headings, which have now become active
• Select AND to narrow the search to items where both topics occur in the same article
  • See "A note about AND / OR" at the end of this page for details about these connecting words

LIMITS

• In the middle of the screen, there are limits, for example English Language, Human, Review Articles, Publication Dates (you select the from - to range)
• These are good to use after you have selected and combined your main search terms
  • Try: English Language, Review Articles, last 10 years, and click 'Search' to apply these limits
• The "Additional Limits" have detailed options such as age groups, publication types (Clinical Trials, Systematic Reviews etc).  These are very useful for more detailed projects

VIEWING THE RESULTS

• Now look at the results lower down the screen
• You can use the Abstract arrow to look at a summary, or select Complete reference to the right of the article for more details
• ​To view the Full Text, click on the FindIt@Bham icon link to the right of the article, or Full Text if this is available

FREETEXT KEYWORD SEARCHING

• Suitable MeSH terms are not always available
• A search across multiple fields such as Title, Abstract can be carried out by unticking "Map term to subject heading" on the initial Advanced Search page under the search bar
• Then simply enter the word[s] you wish to search
• Techniques such as the Truncation Symbol * (asterisk) can be used for these searches
  • This will search for any words beginning with the letters to the left and retrieves more results
    • For example: child* will search for child, children, childhood and so on
    • See the Library's Guide to Effective Search Techniques for more information
• This will produce a further line of search which can be combined with other lines, as above, using Boolean AND, OR
• In this example, child* has been included as a freetext search line, then combined with the subject heading search lines for 'Blood transfusion', 'Hemophilia A': using the connector AND

Ovid (LWW Wolters Kluwer) have also produced some official video guides to aspects of Medline.  The following are especially worth viewing.  To see full transcripts, select the notes option - from the folder icon - which displays the notes underneath the slides, as subtitles are not available.  

Advanced search                                                                   Special techniques in Medline     

These are available also, with other guides, on the Ovid Medline 'Tools' page from Wolters Kluwer, which includes the PICO Resource Center.