MeSH - Medical Subject Headings

I wanted to point you to Jan's Searching Tips this morning (see the permanent link in the right hand column).

MeSH: Heirarchical List

She neatly describes why we get the results we do when we do a search in the MedLine or Cinahl database.

Medical subject headings are instrumental in pulling the results we want into the retreived set. When you are doing your search, be sure to keep each concept in a separate search. Search them individually and then combine after you have sets for each. The medical databases are quite sophisticated and cannot easily handle a phrase searching and then give you back meaningful (and complete) results sets.

I urge you to read Jan's blog today, and other days.

If you think that you need to refine your searching, come to one of Jan's (or my classes), or just ask me for some extra help.