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Education & Training: PubMed

Browse the Education & Training Guide to learn more about the services we offer to support research and scholarly communication. Also, view tutorials and help sheets on using select Sladen resources.

About PubMed

PubMed Features

Search capabilities include keyword and advanced searching using the MeSH Database, ability to store citations and receive automatic alerts via email, save searches, citation verification using the single citation matcher, and provides access to full-text holdings based on library holdings.

Accessing Full-Text

Many PubMed citations have links to the full-text of articles through PubMed Central (a free digital archive of life sciences journal literature), through Sladen library's electronic and print holdings, or through the publisher (the latter may require a subscription or may make an article available by pay-per-view).  Click on the  icon to determine whether you can download the full-text through Sladen Library's subscriptions.

Need additional assistance?

A Librarian can conduct a one-on-one session with you on how to use the PubMed database. Feel free to call the Reference desk (313) 916-2550 or email sladen@hfhs.org if you have questions or need assistance with searching.

Sign up for a MyNCBI account

PubMed's MyNCBI feature stores both citation and search strategies and provides automatic email updates of stored searches.  Register for a MyNCBI account by clicking here and creating a user name and password.

PubMed News

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Information about using the new PubMed interface

In mid-May 2020, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) changed over to the new PubMed interface as its default for searching. The new interface is more than a facelift, it promises a faster, more intuitive search, a stable Cloud infrastructure, and an improved mobile experience.

PubMed Tutorials from NLM

Using MeSH Terms to Build a Better Search

The MeSH database has remained the same in the new PubMed interface. This tutorial remains applicable for an explanation of the structure of MeSH and building a search in PubMed using MeSH. The MeSH database is now accessible from the PubMed homepage under the Explore heading. 

PubMed Clinical Queries

PubMed’s Clinical Queries section, accessed from the homepage under the Find heading, makes it easier to find articles that report applied clinical research. Three search options are available. 

To search by clinical study category, enter search terms in the box provided.  Then select a category: etiology, diagnosis, therapy, prognosis, or clinical prediction guides and then choose either “broad” or “narrow” scope.

Use Systematic Reviews to locate systematic reviews, meta-analyses, reviews of clinical trials, evidence-based medicine, consensus development conferences, and guidelines.