Course: Medical databases
Every week 7,000-9,000 new scientific articles in medicine and related sciences are published worldwide. Therefore, search and selection of appropriate medical, pharmaceutical and economical information is an essential skill. Literature databases (e.g. Medline), on-line journals, biochemical and structural databases, internet search engines and pharmaceutical databases are considered appropriate sources of medical data. Using these resources, every clinician or scientist may follow the progress in selected areas of medicine, provided that they are able to use the appropriate databases.
Intended participants
The course will surely interest the graduates of the courses in EBM and HTA, who, using analytical tools, may encounter problems in identification of appropriate data in vast resources of the internet.
Key abilities
After completing this course, the participant will be able to:
- select the most useful medical databases containing relevant information,
- competently use electronic databases in order to identify and select medical and economical information,
- properly use different search engines,
- clearly formulate clinical questions depending on the clinical or investigation problem under consideration,
- create a sensitive and specific search strategy,
- efficiently identify the most recent data and information necessary for a quick analysis.