Finding the evidence: teaching medical residents to search MEDLINE.

Abstract

Increasingly, medical residency programs are teaching their trainees how to practice evidence-based medicine (EBM), with one-third of internal medicine programs now offering freestanding EBM curricula [1]. Most EBM curricula described in the literature focus on teaching critical appraisal of original journal research [2]. However, other aspects of EBM are equally important. One crucial step is efficiently finding the best literature that answers clinical questions. As part of a newly implemented EBM curriculum, the authors have developed a workshop to teach our internal medicine housestaff how to search MEDLINE efficiently and effectively to find the answers to clinical questions arising from patient care.