PubMed is a database of citations to more than 22 million journal articles from thousands of the world's most significant health sciences journals. These PubMed citations to articles come from journals in the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, health care systems, and the life sciences.  The database is updated weekly with new citations.

Why is PubMed important?
PubMed is a free database that allows you to find article citations when you need them. Practitioners in health sciences are expected to know a lot of information, but realistically can't know everything. If you can use PubMed you can get access to research on many topics.

Knowing how to use PubMed is an important clinical skill.

The University of Adelaide Library has a customized version of PubMed that provides direct links to Uni of Adelaide's electronic journals. You can use this version of PubMed by finding it on

The Library Home

Graphics with red borders show what you should see on your screen. They are not 'live' windows and will not respond to clicking or typing.

You can also get direct access to the customized version of PubMed by clicking on the link below.
Right click on the link, then click on Open in new window, or Open in new tab.

Customised PubMed

From outside the university network you will be challenged to show you are a Uni of Adelaide student. To do this enter 'a' followed by your student number as your Username, and your password. If you don't use the customised version of the database you won't have direct links to the full text online articles from the Libraries journal subscriptions.

In your PubMed window click on PubMed Tutorials.

Click on The PubMed Tutorial link.

Now you should have 3 browser windows open,
This introductory web site,  the PubMed database, and the NLM PubMed Tutorial
If you have trouble with any of these please contact me.

 If you are using a home computer you may need to download the Flash player software now from the PubMed Tutorial window.
You'll have to close down this window and the PubMed window first.

Click on downloaded to get Flash player.

After downloading Flash player you should open a new window and return to this site at
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/guide/med/dent/tut/01pm.html

Read the short section of the PubMed tutorial titled Goals and Objectives.
This tutorial will cover most of these points.

Click on the link to Using this Tutorial that is located in the blue section on the left hand side of the screen.

Read this section and then continue the tutorial by clicking Next.

Read up to and including the section on
Moving Around.
You don't need to read the section called PubMed Overview.

After you have read up to PubMed Overview click on the link below to move to the next section of this Library PubMed Tutorial.

Next section of the PubMed Tutorial Using the MeSH Database

Return to the Library PubMed Tutorial Table of Contents