How to use PubMed to search for research in medicine and life sciences?

PubMed, the National Library of Medicine's search service, provides access to the MEDLINE database and other life sciences journals, enabling comprehensive searching of biomedical literature. It is freely accessible and the primary tool for identifying peer-reviewed research articles in medicine and related fields. Effective searching requires strategic query construction. Utilize relevant keywords specific to your research question and combine them using Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to focus results. Employ Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), the NLM's controlled vocabulary thesaurus, to locate articles precisely indexed under specific concepts; applying MeSH subheadings further refines searches. Utilize search filters for publication date, article type (like clinical trials, reviews), species, and language to limit results efficiently. Saving searches and setting up email alerts ensures ongoing awareness of new publications matching your criteria. After retrieving initial results, evaluate abstracts to identify core articles and examine their full subject indexing (MeSH terms) to refine your search strategy further using related terms. This systematic approach enables researchers to conduct thorough literature reviews, inform clinical decision-making with evidence, identify knowledge gaps, and synthesize findings for grant proposals or systematic reviews. The platform links to full-text access where available via publisher sites or institutional subscriptions.