Abstract
Prior to offering direct access to computer-assisted searches of the medical literature (MEDLINE) by faculty of the Department of Pediatrics, eight faculty were selected to have initial access to an online service. The faculty selection was based on an expressed interest in computers and doing online searching. 2/8 faculty were NLM certified physician searchers (EF). The others were inexperienced (IF). 4/8 participated in a previous study looking at resident usage of online searching. All were given a disk based tutorial on online searching as training for this computer service. Data, including duration and time of day of online session, cost per session, and search characteristics were collected over a 7 month period. At the end of the trial period, a questionaire was administered to determine how and why the searches were done and user satisfaction. The number of online sessions for EF was 170 and IF was 166. The mean duration of the online session was 0.20 hr for EF and 0.22 hr for IF. The mean cost of a session was $6.57 for EF and $7.87 for IF. 75% of searches were done from 6am-6pm and 25% from 6pm-6am. The most frequent motivation for searching was patient care followed by research, teaching, and manuscript preparation. 6/8 faculty were satisfied with their search results 90% of the time. 5/8 faculty felt their searches were more valuable than those obtained from the medical research librarian. We conclude that physician searching of MEDLINE is valuable and can be done at a reasonable cost.
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Menke, J., McClead, R. ONLINE SEARCHING OF MEDICAL LITERATURE. Pediatr Res 21 (Suppl 4), 285 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198704010-00708
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198704010-00708