How to find evidence when you need it, part 2: a clinician's guide to MEDLINE: the basics.

In Part 1 of this series, we introduced you to the “ABCs” of matching, or “mapping,” clinical questions to resources, databases, and search strategies and identified some of the options likely to be useful to emergency physicians.1 Finding the best evidence is not always easy. The busy clinician faced with a computer terminal, Web connection, and a clinical question may find herself wishing instead for an easier way to find the answers, such as asking a nearby colleague. When appropriate for the question at hand, resources that reflect a selection and appraisal of relevant evidence and require a minimum of searching skills, such as The Cochrane Library2,3 or Best Evidence (http://www.acponline.org/catalog/electronic/ best_evidence.htm)4 are extremely efficient.5 However, when MEDLINE is the only route available, such a clinician needs a way to simplify the searching process.6 In this article and in Part 3, we will provide you with a primer on the use of MEDLINE. We will begin with a summary of what MEDLINE is as a database. We will proceed to familiarize you with some of the more important terminology used in connection with MEDLINE searching and with how this terminology relates to different approaches to searching the database. Finally, we will introduce you to selected special features of MEDLINE searching that are of interest to clinician users and will provide information regarding how to access MEDLINE. At the end of these 2 installments, you should be equipped to attempt relatively straightforward MEDLINE searches without assistance and, just as importantly, to effectively and efficiently use the skills of available research librarians in conducting more challenging searches. The principles and skills presented in these 2 articles will also equip you to use search engines you are likely to encounter in connection with databases other than MEDLINE. How to Find Evidence When You Need It, Part 2: