Medical Professionalism

1. Medical Professionalism Finding Information Using  Alumni Medical Library Resources

2. Bioethics Subject Guide Page Subjects A-Z tab on library homepage The BioethicsSubject Guide contains links to the library catalog, relevant e-texts, databases, journals, and recommended websites that are good starting places for an information search.

3. Print Materials: Library Catalog Search the library catalog for books on a topic. There are three main ways it may be helpful to search the catalog: by Keyword, by Subject, and using MeSH (Medical Subject Headings)

4. Searching the Catalog: Keywords A keyword search looks for the terms you enter in the title or description of the item. Here, you can simply use “medical professionalism."

5. Searching the Catalog: Subject Choose Advanced Search option

6. Searching the Catalog: Subject Select Subject from menu Subject terms to try: • Bioethics • Medical Ethics • Physicians – Professional Ethics

7. Searching the Catalog: MeSH MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) is the vocabulary used to index articles in PubMed. You can also search the library catalog using these terms.  The next slide shows MeSH terms that may be useful in locating print information on Medical Professionalism.

8. MeSH Terms for the Catalog Professionalism/ethics • Bioethics • Ethics, Medical • Physician's Role • Professional Practice Specific issues • Confidentiality • Conflict of Interest  • Privacy • Truth Disclosure

9. Searching for Journal Articles Often you will not find a print book on your topic, and will wish to search one or more of the library's databases to locate useful journal articles. The premier database for biomedical journal literature is the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE, accessible through PubMed. MEDLINE uses the MeSH vocabulary.

10. MEDLINE: Overview Millions of citations to articles in biomedical journals Sign in through the Medical Library homepage to get full-text access to articles in journals to which the library subscribes.

11. MeSH Notes Many more MeSH terms are useful for article searches in PubMed than are likely to be used for print items in the library catalog. Medical Professionalism is a broad and varied topic with many potentially relevant terms, so you may need to try different combinations of headings depending on exactly what you're looking for. It is almost always a good idea to use a controlled vocabulary (like MeSH) if one is available, since a human is responsible for assigning these terms.

12. MeSH in PubMed To take advantage of the MeSH terms once you are on the PubMed site, click on MeSH Database under More Resources.

13. Locating MeSH Terms Enter search terms one at a time and click Go. The system will suggest MeSH terms related to your concept.  The next slide shows MeSH terms that may be helpful for locating materials on Medical Professionalism. Choose those that seem most promising for your topic.

14. MeSH Terms for Professionalism Professionalism/ethics • Bioethics • "Codes of Ethics" • Ethics, Medical • Physician's Role • Physicians (with Ethics and Standards  subheadings) • Professional Practice Specific issues • Confidentiality • "Conflict of Interest"  • Disclosure • Drug industry • Gift Giving • Industry • Privacy • Truth Disclosure

15. Searching with MeSH Terms If more than one term is suggested, check the box beside the one that looks most useful. You can also click on a term for more information and to select subheadings.

16. Subheadings Subheadings focus on a specific aspect of a topic. For example, the MeSH term Physicians is extremely broad. Using the  ethics  and  standards  subheadings limits the results to those most likely to be relevant to the topic of Medical Professionalism.

17. Searching PubMed with MeSH Once you have checked off a search term, you will tell PubMed to search for it. Click Send To and select Search Box with AND.

18. Searching, Continued This creates a search box in which you will build your PubMed search. You can either click to Search PubMed immediately, or add more terms to your search in the same way you added the first one, using AND or OR to combine.

19. Results When you have the search terms you want, click Search PubMed to see results. Review articles and articles available in free full text will be sorted out for you. Note that ‘Free Full Text’ in this context means free to anyone: you may have full text access to more than these articles through BU’s subscriptions.

20. Refining Results If you get too many results to easily review, you can click on the Advanced Search link to apply limits. Scroll down to Limits. Limits let you narrow search results by article type, publication year, subject criteria, language and more. It is advisable to apply limits one at a time, to see how each affects the search results.

21. Keyword Searches If there is no MeSH term for a concept, you always have the option to search for the original term as a keyword: simply type it in the search box on the front page of PubMed, rather than using the MeSH Database. Since the word "professionalism" may be used by authors even though it is not a MeSH term, it is a good idea to run this keyword search.

22. Combining Search Results You can run searches for several different terms separately and then combine your results. Click on Advanced Search to see a list of searches you have completed.

23. Combining Searches, Continued Right-click the number next to a search and select: - AND (if you want results to contain both of the terms from the initial searches)  - OR (if you want results to contain either of the terms from the initial searches)

24. Example: Use of ‘OR’ If there is no MeSH term for a concept, as with Medical Professionalism, it may be helpful to combine several related terms using OR to create one search in the MeSH Database covering that broader concept. Your search of PubMed will now be much more comprehensive.

25. Example: Use of ‘AND’ If you are interested in medical professionalism as it relates to a specific issue, for example "conflict of interest," you can search for this term as well and then combine it on the Advanced Search page with your broader concept, using AND.

26. Viewing and Accessing Results Results of the most recent search will normally be displayed. To see results for an earlier search, click Advanced Search and click on the number listed to the right of any search.

27. Article Information Click the title of an article to see the abstract (if available) and other citation information. Look for a full-text link at the upper right if BU has an online subscription to the journal. The Find@BU link will search the catalog to see if the journal is available in print.

28. Article Information, Continued Scroll down and click on Publication Types, MeSH Terms to see terms used to index an article. If any of these look useful, you can click to add them to your search. This can be a good way to find relevant terms for a search.

29. PubMed Help • Alumni Medical Library tutorials:  http://medlib.bu.edu/tutorials/medline/ • Reference Desk, staffed 8:30am-5:00pm weekdays • Meet with a librarian: call or email to make an appointment

30. Other Useful Databases MEDLINE is the primary resource for biomedical journal articles, but other databases may also be helpful: • Academic OneFile • CINAHL (Cumulated Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature) • PsycINFO • Web of Knowledge

31. Accessing Databases Access databases on the Alumni Medical Library homepage under E-Resources

32. Academic OneFile Academic OneFile lists articles from journals covering a broad range of subjects. While it does not primarily focus on medical topics, useful articles can still be found here.

33. Academic OneFile: Subject Subject Guide Search: • Medical Ethics • Professional Ethics Also, click 'related subjects' to see subject headings for specific ethical issues

34. Academic OneFile: Keyword Advanced Search: • Keyword: medical  And • Keyword: professionalism

35. Academic OneFile: Results You can refine results by adding more search terms, or by limiting to publication type, document type, date, etc.

36. CINAHL CINAHL (Cumulated Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) covers major nursing and allied health journals. It will not always be relevant for biomedical searches, but it can be a good source of information on some topics.

37. CINAHL: Subject CINAHL Headings (subject search):  • Professionalism  • Ethics, Professional • Ethics, Medical

38. CINAHL: Keyword Advanced Search:  Select TX All Text and enter keywords: • medical and • professionalism

39. CINAHL: Results You can narrow and limit results, add extra search terms, or search the library catalog for the journal.

40. CINAHL: Results Click an article title to see the full reference and the subject terms used to index it.  If one of them seems relevant, you can click to run a search for that term.

41. PsycINFO PsycINFO (and PsycARTICLES, a subset that includes only full-text articles) searches the psychological literature. PsycINFO is larger (including all information from the PsycARTICLES subset), so for a broad search, you will want to use it even though many results are not full-text. If you want only full-text results, you may wish to use PsycARTICLES. Both may be searched in the same way.

42. PsycINFO: Subject Thesaurus (Subject) Search: • Bioethics • Professionalism • Professional Ethics • Professional Standards And • Physicians

43. PsycINFO: Combining Subjects Try combining subject headings:  ((DE "Professionalism" or DE "Professional Standards" or DE "Professional Ethics" or DE "Bioethics")) and (DE "Physicians") You can also apply various limits to narrow the search.

44. PsycINFO: Keyword Advanced Search: Select TX All Text and enter "medical professionalism." Depending on the specific topic of your search, you may also wish to try other keywords.

45. PsycINFO: Results You can narrow and limit results, add extra search terms, or access full text (if available).

46. PsycINFO: Results Click the article title to see the full reference and subject terms used to index it.  If one of the other indexing terms seems relevant, you can click to run a search for that term.

47. Web of Knowledge Web of Knowledge is a major source for articles in a wide range of fields, including the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The subset database Web of Science is an excellent place to find articles from scientific journals that may not be included in MEDLINE.

48. Web of Knowledge: Search Web of Knowledge (and its subset database, Web of Science) does not use a controlled vocabulary to index items, so effective use of keywords is necessary. Try "medical professionalism" as a topic phrase.

49. Web of Knowledge: Results Refine the search by adding  additional terms related to the  specific issue (i.e. "confidentiality")  or by checking off specific categories  or subject areas. You can also try additional topic keywords. Since there is no standardized list of subject terms, you may need to  try the search with several different terms and combinations.

50. Web of Science This science-focused subset of Web of Knowledge also lacks a standardized subject vocabulary, but does offer an Advanced Search option (it can also be searched in the same way as Web of Knowledge using the default Search mode). Access Web of Science from its tab on the main Web of Knowledge page.