SUMSearch 2

MEDLINE searching: executing the search

Now that you have a PubMed collection for storing articles and search terms for finding articles, you are almost ready to search.

Overview of a search strategy:

Find the most recent one or more (preferrably two or more) systematic reviews on your topic. Recall that some practice guidelines, such as those by the USPSTF are equivalent to systematic reviews.
Find original studies that are more recent tha the search date of your reviews.

Choices of search engines:

Search engine	Description	Filters/hedges?
PubMed	Description	Only for intervention studies!
PubMed's Clinical Queries	This give you the most control over your search, but requires separate searches of studies, systematic reviews, and guidelines. In addition, PuMed is difficult for many physicians.	Yes
SUMSearch	This searches for studies and systematic reviews and practice guidelines from multiple sources. Searches retrieving numerous results are automatically revised with a more restrictive strategy. In addition, brief summaries are provided for most articles and visual clues in red indicate articles that may be more important. Also, since SUMSearch is a KUSM-W product, let us know if you have complaints or suggestions.	Yes, click 'Intervention' or 'Diagnosis'

Storing search results:

Whichever engine you use, add the articles that you think may help you to the PubMed collection that you already made.
Note that you may want to create more than one collection so you can divide your articles into subquestions of your original clinical question.

Goal for this page: please send your faculty the url to your PubMed collection(s) after you add your articles for feedback before proceeding to the next page.

Next page (interpreting the results)

Questions: rbadgett@kumc.edu