title: Search strategies for population and social subjects in a medical school curriculum.
abstract: This case study describes strategies developed for medical students to conduct Specific (as opposed to Sensitive) searches in PubMed so they can quickly locate several relevant references to articles on the population and social aspects of medicine. The Specific search strategy protocol for population and social aspects of medicine involves use of the MeSH Database, certain features of the Detailed Display in the MeSH Database, and applying Limits. By teaching the Specific form of search strategy, busy users can learn a handful of basic techniques that should yield a useful proportion of references, thereby ensuring these users' frequent success.
authors.affiliation: University of New Mexico, MSC09 5100, Albuquerque, NM, 87131-0001 USA. jeldredge@salud.unm.edu
authors.forename: Jonathan D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Eldredge
mesh_terms: D003200:Computer User Training; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods; D004813:Epidemiology / Q000193:education*; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D007993:Libraries, Medical; D046650:Medical Subject Headings; D009516:New Mexico; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D018794:Problem-Based Learning; D039781:PubMed; D012577:Schools, Medical; D012936:Social Medicine / Q000193:education*; D012962:Sociology, Medical / Q000193:education*