Computer literature searching for busy clinicians.

The medical literature is too vast for any of us to keep up with. However, new information technology allows us to search the literature from our offices, clinics, and homes, to solve specific patient problems as they arise. The skills required can be self-taught from instruction manuals or acquired through training programs that typically last just a few hours. The equipment needed can be a simple add-on to the office computer or a standard IBM-PC or compatible, plus an inexpensive modem. Several online vendors provide access to medical information at a reasonable price, including MEDLINE, Colleague, Dialog, EMBASE and PaperChase. The author describes the prospects and procedures for personal access to electronic literature services and provides some start-up information for readers who want to enter the "Information Age" themselves.