Tips and tricks for using the internet for professional purposes

[摘要] The internet has become one of the most popular resources for up-to-date knowledge for medical professionals. The online resources offer access to large amounts of information quickly with flexible e-learning tools in various formats, especially with mobile technologies as opposed to traditional education instruments. Many studies demonstrate how important the online resources have become for decision making.1 Due to the huge amount of information readily available to physicians, finding the evidence is an issue. Even well-published researchers often fail to appreciate the background knowledge required to conduct a good literature search on the internet. A successful search should be time-efficient, reproducible, complete, up-to-date and focussed so that it minimises hits without missing relevant data and this is only possible when the right search techniques are used. Critical appraisal of the literature is also an essential part of this process.2 Otherwise, the internet literature searches can become time-consuming and even misleading. A study that examined how using PubMed and Google contributed to physicians’ diagnostic skill showed that some physicians actually made the correct diagnosis earlier in the investigation and then incorrectly changed their diagnoses after conducting an internet search about their decision.

[学科分类] 神经科学

[关键词] literature;internet;bibliographical database