Tips for Searching MEDLINE - PubMed Retrieval System

The default for the "number of documents to display per page" is 20, you can change that to 50, 100, or even 5000. If you set the number to 100 documents per page, then when you click on a document or citation you might want to "right click" the link with your mouse and then click "open in new window". This will open another browser and this way it will be quicker to go back and forth between the list of documents and the individual documents.
The default for the "publication date limit" is "No Limit". If this results in too many documents being retrieved, or if you are only interested in recent research information, you can change this anywhere from 30 days to no limit.
Also remember that you can try using various words, and combinations of words as your search term.

Suggestions on How to Obtain Full Text Versions of the Abstracts -

If you find some abstracts that you think you would like to read the full text version of, then you can either order them for a fee from a MEDLINE access provider like HealthGate or try to get a copy from the author directly. Also you may try to find the article in the Journal that it was published by going to the library and looking up the Journal, or seeing if the Journal has some full text articles available online. Or you might try to obtain it cheaply by way of your local library through their interlibrary loan service. Some public libraries can obtain photocopies of medical journal articles from medical libraries, for which there would be a small charge.

 Internet Grateful Med Update:

Internet Grateful Med is now free to all users. Currently IGM (Internet Grateful Med) searches MEDLINE, HealthSTAR, PREMEDLINE and AIDSLINE. The newest version of Internet Grateful Med (IGM) also offers free access to the following databases: AIDSDRUGS, AIDSTRIALS, DIRLINE, HISTLINE, HSRPROJ, OLDMEDLINE, and SDILINE. IGM searches as keyword, text word in title or abstract, author name. You can limit search by language, publication type, study group, gender, age group, journal subset, year (can search back to 1966).
For more information, you can read Internet Grateful Med: New User's Survival Guide.

• HealthGate also provides free access to MEDLINE Medical Abstracts through MEDLINE. Under "Limit references to" you might want to check "Published in English" and "Abstracts available". Also, you can try unchecking "Last 2 years" if you only get a few abstracts with initial search and change retrieve documents to increments of 50.

• There are several comparison tables of MEDLINE access. One is available at Medical Matrix Medline Acess and another is at Dr. Felix's Free MEDLINE Page.

"Training materials for PubMed and Internet Grateful Med that correspond with the NLM's National Online Training Center training courses are available for downloading in PDF, PostScript and WordPerfect 6.1 formats. An HTML version will be added at a later date. The manuals have been broken down into sections so you can choose the areas of interest to you."
Example: PubMed Training Workbook for End-Users: The Basics of Searching PubMed (Last Updated 7/98)