Now that we've reviewed some basics, here is how you can access and use professional medical journals:
- Begin with your diagnosis and the body system affected to determine which journals you want to look at. If you have colon cancer, you'll want to find journals that report studies about colon cancer. If you have diabetes, you'll be looking at journals that report on information of interest to endocrinologists. Some journals are broad and report on many specialties. Others are more specific.
You can find a master list of journals at both Google and Yahoo. Further, there are databases that don't necessarily show up in ordinary searches that may be able to help you.
You can also just to a general search, using the terms, "medical journal" and whatever key word you want to find studies about. You can search on your diagnosis, the name of a treatment, a drug you are considering, or other keywords that might help you.
- If you can do so, figure out whether the journal is peer-reviewed. If it is, there is a better chance the science is more objective and the information more accurate.
- You may not find entire articles, or you may be asked to pay for an entire article. You may find an "abstract," that is, an overview of what the article is about and the findings. PubMed is a service provided by the National Institutes of Health and National Library of Science that lets you look through abstracts of articles, and sometimes provides access to the entire article. Access to any information on PubMed is free.
- Costs: You may find the information you need at no cost. Many of the journals which require a subscription, but publish their articles online, offer free access once an article has been published for six months or a year (different journals have different policies.) If you want to gain access to an article that you can't seem to access for free online, you might ask your doctor if she subscribes and would give you a copy of the article, or you can check with your local library to see if they can get a copy for you. Be sure to record the exact name of the journal (many names are similar), the issue, title of the article, perhaps the authors, and the pages if you can get that information to make it easy for the library or your doctor to help you.
- Once you have a copy of the article, you'll need to be sure the study and its results are objective and accurately represent you and your medical problem. If you are satisfied that it does, then you'll need to look up all the terminology you don't understand. You may also need to consult with someone who understands medicine to translate concepts for you.
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Return to the master list of types of health and medical information resources you can use in your research.
... and don't forget to make sure the information you use is credible and reliable.
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