Pre-Clerkship Library Resources
The information resources you need for your first two years of medical school.
Literature Search Strategies
When you search for resources:
Think about your core concepts. Keep search terms simple, and pay attention to keywords and other terms you see referenced in relevant articles. You can use those terms if you need to revise your search.
Use the Evidence Pyramid to guide your search. Look for the highest level of evidence you can find. Keep in mind that many epidemiologic/ public health studies may be more in the observational categories: cohort, case-control, case series. Your goal is to find the highest level of evidence that is relevant for your information need.
Evidence Pyramid
Background Information (Start Here!)
- AccessMedicine This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to current medical textbooks and other topic-specific ebooks, case files, images and illustrations, diagnostic tools.
- Library e-BooksSearch for e-books by title, topic or keyword.
- PubMed This link opens in a new window
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Filter to review articles for background questions. - Essential Evidence Plus This link opens in a new window
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Please note: this resource now requires users to register for a personal account attached to their Upstate email.
Users can still choose to be enrolled in EE+ Daily POEMs. Email libsuppt@upstate.edu to request enrollment. Please note that any links from POEMs out to the Essential Evidence Plus site will require personal registration as noted above.
- Medline PlusPortal to health information in plain language. Excellent resource for public: patients, families, caregivers...anyone! Also a good resource for health information in various languages.
Biomedical/Social-Ecological Literature ("Evidence")
- PubMed This link opens in a new window
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Millions of citations to biomedical literature. Key resource for medical research. - Embase This link opens in a new window
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Biomedical literature resource with an international scope. Specializes in tracking drug and medical device information. Also includes conference abstracts from 2009-present. - Scopus This link opens in a new window
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International, interdisciplinary science database. Allows for searching scholarly literature across a wide variety of disciplines. - Social Sciences Full Text This link opens in a new windowTopics include: community health, environment, ethics, family studies, gender studies, minority studies, and more. Excellent for representing how societal issues impact health.
Open-Access Journal Resources (more "evidence")
- DOAJ (Database of Open Access Journals)Covers areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities from all countries and all languages.
- Frontiers InPeer-reviewed,open access journals that focus on current and innovative research in various areas of science, health, engineering, humanities and social sciences.
- Google ScholarLinks to articles on websites and in databases
- MedRxivPre-print server for health sciences. Not yet peer-reviewed, but a good resource for the most current information.
- PLOS OneCovers subject areas across science, engineering, medicine, and the related social sciences and humanities. Highly respected science resource, and free access for anyone.
Finding Guidelines
- PubmedSearch the topic and use the guidelines filter
- TRIP Turning Research into Practice (TRIP) Medical DatabaseSearch by topic/keyword. Includes evidence-based search filter, a variety of study types, and major guideline groups (medical societies, UK national health summaries, etc.)
- Guidelines for the Primary and Gender-Affirming Care of Transgender and Gender Nonbinary PeopleFrom the UCSF Gender Affirming Health Program
Staying Current Best New Evidence
- ACP Journal Clubhelps you stay current with the latest evidence-based clinical information relevant to internal medicine and its subspecialties. Reviewing over 120 leading medical journals, this monthly feature in Annals of Internal Medicine contains an editorial, easy to read abstracts, and a page of other notable articles.
- NEJM Journal WatchSummaries of and commentary on latest articles from key medical journals. Also includes Guidelines Watch section