There are many reasons it’s important to keep abreast of the medical literature:

• You need to keep on top of developments in your therapy areas

• You’re doing due diligence ahead of a potential deal in a new disease area or technology

• Or you just need to know what your competitors are up to

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be posting tips about setting up search alerts in PubMed, Google Scholar, and also table of contents alerts from your favorite journals. This way, important literature is pushed right to your inbox so you won’t miss anything.

Today, let’s discuss how to set up alerts in PubMed. Before you get started, you’ll need to set up an account with the National Library of Medicine at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) website so that you can create and save your own personal alerts.

Once your account is set up, head to PubMed. Enter your terms in the search bar, or go to Advanced Search to create a more complex search strategy, and select “Search.” (Remember to capitalize all Boolean operators.)

 Your results will appear below. Have a look and check for relevancy. You may need to try a few different combinations of terms before you’re satisfied with the results set.

Once you’re feeling comfortable that you’re capturing the types of articles you need, save your search strategy and set up an alert. Right beneath the search bar, select “Create Alert.”

You’ll have an opportunity rename your search (default’s to search strategy terms), to edit your search terms, and to request email updates. Select the frequency, day of the week (if applicable), and the number of results desired. Select “Save” and you’ll be good to go!