Of course the front line clinician is NOT going to search MEDLINE - either PubMed nor Ovid nor any other interface.  They seldom if ever did, even before the web took off in 1994.  MEDLINE, and EMBASE for that matter, are for the researchers, the clinicians working on a paper/poster/project, the person doing in-depth research trying to find an answer.  To say that a clinician in a busy clinic should search MEDLINE just because of EBM is to say that a lay person wanting to find out the news should search a newspaper index instead of picking up the local or national paper. 

 

No, the front line clinician is going to do what she or he has always done, ask a colleague.  If none are around, she will look for the quickest answer, which is probably to use Google.  No mystery there.  There are plenty of papers on the information seeking behaviors of physicians.  (Andy is right.  We do need to look at our customer's habits, needs and wants.)

 

However, there are products that are better than Google for professional level medical research.  What about TRIP?  www.tripdatabase.com  How about SUMSearch? http://sumsearch.uthscsa.edu/  These are two EBM meta search engines free on the web. (TRIP currently gives 5 free searches.)  I would rather the docs search here than Google.  As Patrick noted, Google is not going to be comprehensive.  If I'm the patient, I want a better search than my doc surfing on Google. 

 

There are quite a few products available, fee or even free:  Pier, Clinical Evidence, Cochrane, Bandolier, ACP Journal Club, Dynamed, UpToDate, DARE, etc.

 

In summary, I'm not surprised that the docs are using Google.  I do think it's a great opportunity for librarians (a.k.a. us) to wade in and point out better tools - and, no, I don't mean MEDLINE (PubMed).

 

Rebecca

 

Rebecca S. Graves, MLS, AHIP
Educational Services Librarian
J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library
University of Missouri - Columbia
Columbia, MO  65212
(573) 882-0469
[log in to unmask]

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of reasoning we used when we created them."  Albert Einstein

-----Original Message-----
From: Evidence based practice to librarianship and information science [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Patrick Fitzgerald (Librarian, TGH)
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2004 8:09 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Google better than MEDLINE?!

With the animated professional debate from the (wonderful) Belfast conference still ringing in my ears I couldn't resist joining in on such an important topic. 

 

In my opinion Google can be a magnificent tool in the hands of the knowledgeable searcher and it has revolutionised access to information over the last couple of years. Unfortunately its comprehensiveness can provide the illusion of providing access to all evidence (an illusion which unfortunately seems to afflict many clinicians and healthcare lecturers).

 

Perhaps the main strength of Google is that it has shown that it is possible to revolutionise the searching experience and provide accurate/relevant results quickly with a minimum of searching skill. Unfortunately (in common with the search engines Google replaced) our current database interfaces do not do this. Picking up on Andy's comments - perhaps it does indicate the direction in which users want to move and perhaps we should be helping them move there.

 

So in an ideal library world - do we need a search interface as simple as Google, which can carry out subject searching of all relevant healthcare databases, weights the results so that the most relevant are at the top and allows limiting of the results in a standard / meaningful way. Is this possible and should it be a goal for the development of a Single Search Interface?

 

Patrick

-----Original Message-----
From: Info-LibSvcs Corp2 [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2004 1:11 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Google better than MEDLINE?!

And another thought, if you have the reference to the paper (from another

paper), Pubmed won't even find you the url of the journal easily - whereas

if you type into Google, you can often get to the correct paper

immediately.

 

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Fiona McLean [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 09 September 2004 13:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Google better than MEDLINE?!

That reminds me of another problem- how do we get them to use the relevant range of databases? Needs a v simple search screen as before, but with default so that they automatically search across several databases (Medline and Embase or whatever is relevant/available..),  plus deduped. Then they only need to do something extra if they want to change that...

 

(ouch- noticed time- will now bow out!)

 

Fiona

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Eve Hollis [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 09 September 2004 12:54
To: Fiona McLean; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Google better than MEDLINE?!

 

One of the comments that went round at the recent HLG conference in Belfast was about search content and every librarian echoed the message:  you cannot do a comprehensive literature search on pub-med alone.  Google is very good at what it does but it cannot get into half the databases we use therefore it cannot be comprehensive.

Cheers

Eve

 

Girdlestone Memorial Library, NOC NHS Trust,
Windmill Road, Headington, Oxford OX3 7LD
Athens Domain Administrator
Thames Valley SHA

 

NeLH -  high quality, clinical information on your desktop. Visit
www.nelh.nhs.uk/tour to learn more.

>>> Fiona McLean <[log in to unmask]> 09/09/2004 12:47:55 >>>

I absolutely agree. PubMed is particularly bad on design- there are
loads of excellent features, but few are intuitive. OVID is better. But
none as easy as Google.

I can see you need to have more search options than Google to refine the
results (try putting breast cancer into Medline!) Medline does limit the
results to articles in peer-review journals, and in reverse date order.

But its an interesting point- how many of the search options do
clinicians really need? Maybe have something like PubMed's clinical
queries (see left menu on home page), with a search box and  only a
couple of buttons to click as the 'home page' (plus buttons for English,
human and abstract to click?), and all the rest of the functionality as
a page as a link on...?

Of course, that then leads to all the usual questions about mediated
searching. If clinicians are only using quick/easy searching of Medline
they will be missing lots. But do they get enough? Do they know what
they are missing?

And if the software prioritises simple searching, will the more complex
functions we can need for difficult searches (or exhaustive searching)
be dropped or wither?

Back to some of the usual problems!

Fiona

Fiona McLean
Library and Information Service Manager
CancerBACUP
3 Bath Place, Rivington Street
London EC2A 3JR

Tel 020 7920 7241 Fax 020 7696 9002
Email: [log in to unmask]

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-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Prue [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 09 September 2004 11:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Google better than MEDLINE?!

*** SORRY FOR CROSS POSTING ***

Hi Folks,

While I certainly agree that it is a dangerous road for users to tread
in
putting their faith almost entirely into the power of Google there is a
key
issue to be addressed:

Why are senior lecturing staff/users prioritising Google over MEDLINE?

Rather than lambasting users should the library profession be trying to
understand why Google is becoming the preferred option?

Personally I think this would be a valuable exercise in understanding
user
search behavior.
By gaining an appreciation of what users expect from an information
service
(e.g. convenience and simplicity) and the problems that they face with
current information service structures, we might be able to add an extra
dimension to our service which can only be a positive thing.

Just a thought!!!!

Andy Prue

Web Development Librarian
Health Libraries Network
http://stlis.thenhs.com/hln/index1.htm


-----Original Message-----
From: Evidence based practice to librarianship and information science
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Feddern,
Tanya
Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2004 7:30 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Google better than MEDLINE?!


***cross-posted***
Hello, everyone.  I'd like your thoughts on this.  I learned that
supposedly
a Missouri occupational therapy professor, who's also an author and
journal
editor, advocated using Google and Dogpile (instead of MEDLINE) to find
article citations for evidence-based practice.  Obviously, she doesn't
know
about the powerful features of specialized literature databases such as
the
PubMed or Ovid software for searching MEDLINE.  If she did, she wouldn't
be
using Google to find evidence for patient care (nor suggesting this in
an
invited lecture).  Unfortunately, this idea is probably being picked up
by
others.

Have any of you heard of other respected faculty telling students and
healthcare professionals to use Google instead of MEDLINE?  How did you
address that?  Please feel free to forward this.  I will summarize to
the
list(s).

Take care,

Tanya

Tanya Feddern, MLIS, AHIP, MOT, OTR/L
http://www.geocities.com/nqiya/EBMbib.html
http://www.geocities.com/nqiya/index.html
Evidence-Based Medicine Assistant Professor; Reference & Education
Services
Librarian University of Miami School of Medicine, Louis Calder Memorial
Library