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Objectives:

• You will know how to conduct a MEDLINE search using PubMed and to generate a list of citations with abstracts.
• You will know how to browse citations and abstracts to identify potential high-quality articles.
• You will know how to review articles and evaluate them for quality, validity, and applicability in the context of your clinical question.
• You will find and evaluate literature for your Critically Appraised Topic.

Online Reading:

• Review The Literature Search for reference
• Evaluating the Evidence
• Testing Your Knowledge, Case 1: Therapy for Strep Throat

Preparation:

Now that you have chosen a topic for your CAT and have started to find relevant articles, agree on a list of citations that you feel may help to answer your clinical question.

For these citations, review the abstracts and find the articles that are the "highest yield" based on techniques you learned in the tutorial
and in your first preceptor session. Download or photocopy the citations you think you might use for your CAT file. Make sure you send this list of citations with abstracts to your preceptor, so they can review them as well prior to your second meeting. PubMed has the ability to email citations directly from the search interface.

Finally, write a brief summary of each citation you identified- a few sentences for each one will suffice. Comment on the study design, the patient
population, the results, and any methodological questions you had.

Scheduling:

Arrange a second group meeting with your preceptor sometime after you have completed the literature search and citation evaluation. Again, make sure you schedule this meeting early.

Second Meeting:

At this meeting, you will review the articles you found with your preceptor, who can point you to other possible references or can make comments on your analysis. Once this meeting is done, you're ready to begin composing your CAT file.