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Robert F. Kennedy Library | PubMed LibGuide

PubMed LibGuide

Robert F. Kennedy Library | PubMed LibGuide


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PubMed LibGuide

Welcome to the online library guide for PubMed, created by the librarians at the Robert F. Kennedy Library, 做厙AV. For research help, contact an RFK librarian:/student-services/rfk-library/ask-a-librarian. 

 
PubMed is a free biomedical database from the U.S. National Library of Medicine that indexes over 3840 million citations from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books, and often links out to full text on publisher sites or PubMed Central (PMC) 

Access and retrieval of full text 

PubMed itself primarily provides citations and abstracts but frequently offers links to full text on publisher websites or in PubMed Central (PMC). Access to non-free articles depends on institutional subscriptions, local link resolvers, or interlibrary loan services.  

Direct Link:  

Tutorial Link:  

    • Text availability: 
      • Options include Free full text, Full text, and Abstract. 
      • Use Free full text for open access reading, or Full text when your institutions link resolver is active; avoid over relying on this filter for systematic or comprehensive searches because it may bias toward easily available articles. 
    • Date Range (Publication Date) 
      • Use the Publication date filters on the left (1 year, 5 years, 10 years) or Custom Range to focus on recent literature. 
      • For precise ranges, use the Advanced Search Builder and the Date Publication field (e.g., 2019/01/01:2024/12/31[dp]) 
    • Article type: 
      • Frequently used types include Review, Systematic Review, Meta Analysis, Randomized Controlled Trial, and Clinical Trial. 
      • These filters can be powerful for quickly finding evidence syntheses or intervention studies but often limit you to fully indexed MEDLINE records, which may exclude the newest in process or as supplied by publisher citations. 
    • Language: 
      • Limit to English (or another language) for assignments or clinical work when translation is not feasible. 
    • Species and population: 
      • Filters such as Humans, Animals, Age groups (e.g., Child, Adolescent, Aged), and Sex narrow results to relevant populations. 
      • Because some of these filters are implemented as MeSH terms, they again may exclude the newest not yet indexed citations; as an alternative, some guides recommend adding NOT animal terms to a strategy instead of using the built-in Humans limit for comprehensive reviews. 

Best practice: Use date and language filters freely for most student assignments, but apply article-type and species filters cautiously for formal reviews or when you must capture the complete evidence base. 

    • Institutional access 

Or 

Click ProQuest Dissertations & Theses on: 

/student-services/rfk-library/ 

 

 

    • For help troubleshooting access,  
      • Call the Research Assistance Desk at (671) 735-2341,  

 

Boolean searching in PubMed 

PubMed supports standard浮oolean皋perators: AND, OR, and NOT, which must be typed in ALL CAPS to function as operators rather than keywords. These operators can be combined with field tags and phrases to refine queries. 

    • AND narrows a search by retrieving only records containing all combined terms (e.g., asthma AND children). 
    • OR broadens a search by retrieving records containing any of the listed synonyms or related terms (e.g., adolescent OR teenager OR youth). 
    • NOT excludes a term to remove unwanted concepts but should be used cautiously to avoid losing relevant results (e.g., diabetes NOT type 1). 
    • Use quotation marks for exact phrases, such as "systematic review" OR "randomized controlled trial", to avoid splitting terms into separate words. 
    • Combine concepts systematically: (hypertension OR "high blood pressure") AND (exercise OR physical activity) for concept-synonym searching. 

 

PubMed AI 

PubMed AI (PubMed.ai) is an AI-enhanced interface that connects to PubMed to help users find, understand, and summarize biomedical research more efficiently. It uses large language models (LLMs) to transform questions into optimized PubMed/MeSH searches and then generates evidencelinked summaries grounded in PubMed勳紳餃梗單梗餃&紳莉莽梯;硃娶喧勳釵梭梗莽. 

What PubMed AI does 

    • AIpowered search 
    • Translates naturallanguage questions into targeted queries using keywords and MeSH terms across the PubMed database. 
    • Highlights key papers, trends, and concepts rather than just listing citations. 
    • Summaries and key insights 
    • Generates research overviews, bulletpoint key findings, and research reports from selected articles, with citations back to PubMed. 
    • Helps identify gaps, controversies, and methodological notes more quickly than manual abstractby硃莉莽喧娶硃釵喧&紳莉莽梯;娶梗硃餃勳紳眶. 
    • Chatbased assistance 
    • Provides an interactive chat so users can refine questions, clarify terms, compare interventions, or explore subtopics. 
    • Supports followup prompts (e.g., focus on RCTs only or limit to last 5 years) to iteratively improve the search. 

When to use (and when not) 

    • Good use cases 
    • Getting an initial map of a topic or updating on a familiar area before doing a formal search. 
    • Quickly extracting themes or key points from a large set of studies (e.g., for background reading or brainstorming keywords). 
    • Use with caution 
    • AI summaries can omit important studies or overgeneralize findings; always verify details in the original articles. 
    • For systematic reviews, clinical guidelines, or assignments requiring reproducible methods, PubMed (and other databases) should still be searched directly using transparent strategies. 

You can add a short note such as: PubMed AI is a supplement to, not a replacement for, rigorous database searching. Always cite the original articles, not the AI summary. 

Getting started with PubMed AI 

    • Access 
      • Go to: 
      • Create an account if prompted to save chats or projects (feature set may change over time). 
      • Basic workflow 
      • Enter a question in plain language (e.g., What are the longterm effects of ecigarette use in adolescents?). 
      • Review the summarized answer and linked citations, then open key PubMed records for full abstracts and access pathways to full text. 
      • Refine with followup prompts (e.g., focus on cohort studies since 2018 or summarize adverse cardiovascular outcomes only). 

You may want to add a local line such as: For help deciding when to use PubMed vs. PubMed AI, contact an RFK librarian. 

YouTube tutorials: PubMed AI 

Consider embedding or linking one or more of these videos in a PubMed AI Tutorials box. 

    • The new PubMed: PubMed AI for biomedical literature search 
    • 惚賊郭: 
    • Overview of using AI to accelerate literature searches, extract relevant studies, generate summaries, and manage references. 
    • How it Works PubMed.ai 
    • 惚賊郭: 
    • Walkthrough of the PubMed.ai interface, including AIgenerated summaries, chat, and research report features.