A recent  multi-institutional survey examined internal medicine residents' use of point-of-care information resources for clinical decision making. Respondents reported speed, trust in quality of information, and portability as the top reasons for selecting a resource. The top three resources were UpToDate, faculty consultation, and Google. PubMed/MEDLINE was reported as being used at least daily by only about 13% of respondents because it took more time to search for and synthesis information.

The residents reported using the general Google search to find specific websites or general information on a disease while Google Scholar was used to search for diagnostic techniques and current treatments in journals. A certain amount of mistrust of the quality of information found through Google was reported, but the responses indicated that Google was largely used for discovery before moving on to more trusted information sources.

To read more, visit the library homepage and copy and paste the PMID number below into the PubMed search box.

Duran-Nelson A, Gladding S, Beattie J, Nixon LJ. Should we google it? resource use by internal medicine residents for point-of-care clinical decision making. Acad Med. 2013;88(6):788-794. DOI: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e31828ffdb7 PMID: 23619072