MedIndex - Tips & Troubleshooting

Once you are logged in, you can directly type your search term in the Instant Topic search box on the right hand side of the webpage or click search clinical by clinical topic or search by author to go to the corresponding search page.

To search a clinical topic:

Log in using the login box on the right of the webpage
Enter part or all of a word or phrase in the instant topic search box on the right of the webpage
Press the search button or hit enter on your keyboard

MedIndex automatically does a search for any clinical keyword topic that contains your search term. A search page will appear with a list of keyword topics - that link directly to the index entry, which contains the list of relevant articles and weblinks to online articles. To go to the index entry:

Choose the keyword topic that you are interested in from the results list
Click on the keyword topic

To refine your search:

Enter all or part of a search term in the searchbox in the centre of the page
Choose your search options - search any words, all words, exact phrase
Choose how you would like your results displayed - alphabetically, according to most recently updated topic or by most popular keyword topics
Press the search button or hit enter on your keyboard

Using Instant Search

Instant Search is our new handy way to speed up your search for medical articles and guidelines.

Once you are logged in, a box will appear in the top right hand column in which it says 'click here & type'. As you start typing a list will appear below of keyword topics (yellow).

If you see the clinical topic that you are interested in, click directly on it. Alternatively refine your search by continuing to type.

You can search more than one word - but please separate words by spaces (NOT by commas, NOT by symbols like & or +, NOT by words like and or, etc ). So to find out about the treatment of diabetes - enter: diabetes treatment. In fact you can use part words and just enter: diab treat.

(Using Abbreviations)

Yes, you can input DVT, PE, DMARDs, SSRIs, etc, as your search term. Most common abbreviations are searchable in MedIndex.

To speed your abbreviation search and reduce unrelated results, add a regular bracket before or after or (around) the search term.

So for PE, for example, enter " (pe) " OR " (pe " OR " pe) "

Note: capitals don't matter!

Using Part of a Word

If you don't like typin*&g (hmm... does anyone?), you can just enter part of a word - e.g. “dia” for diabetes; “die” - for diet.

You must enter at least 3 characters.

This will yield less specific results - but they can be quickly skimmed to find the keyword topic that you are seeking.

Punctuation Matters

Entering "anti-epileptic" yields plenty of results, while "antiepileptic " yields none. So if your search yields nothing, check the punctuation (and spelling) or just search again using part of the term (e.g. in this case "epilept" would yield a focused result).

Searching by Author

To search by author:

Make sure that you are logged in.
Click on the link "Search by Author", located under the title Go To Search Page in the right-hand column.
Enter all or part of the author's surname, (you may also add an initial after the surname or add more than one surname). Avoid using commas or stops - separate words by spaces.
Hit enter on your keyboard or click on the search button.
A list of authors, and their articles will be listed below. Click on the authors of the article that you are interested in to access the entry and a weblink to the article if it is online.

(Most articles are online, except for those published by Medicine Today).

NB - first names are not listed : so for articles by John Paul Smith, enter Smith JP

In addition, a maximum of five lead authors are listed, so where more than three authors write a paper, you will only be able to search the first three authors names.

When Your Search Finds Too Many Results

When searching a broad or common clinical topic like asthma or diabetes, or a common medication like statins - you may end up with dozens of results.

In this case, refine your search to core aspects of the topic by adding the word core to your search.

E.g. searching asthma core (or core asthma) will results in the following results
1. asthma - diagnosis & assessment
2. asthma - risk factors
3. asthma - treatment
4. asthma in children
5. asthma in the elderly

Similarly searching statins core (or core statins) will yield the following results:
1. statins
2. statins - adverse effects

Alternatively if you know what you are looking for you can add a keyword relevant to your search - e.g. asthma treatment (remember to speed things up you can use part words (e.g. asthma treat)

You may also wish to try Instant Search - see the search box in the top right hand column when you are logged in. Click here for instructions on using Instant search.

How to Enlarge the Font / Text size

Some people prefer a larger font (text) size when reading on the computer. Your browser has the ability to zoom in and do this. If using Internet Explorer 7, there is a drop down zoom option see the bottom right corner of the browser. If using Mozilla Firefox, you can change the text size by clicking on "view" in the top menu and then hover your mouse over text size and select the size to suit you that appears on the right.

A speedy way to increase the text and font size shown by most browsers is to hold down the control button "Ctrl" and then simultaneously hit the "+" button as many times as needed to reach the size text that you like. ( You can similarly reduce the font size by holding down "Ctrl" and "-" button.) If using an Apple Macintosh, use the apple / command key in place of the "Ctrl" key.

Please note changing the font/text size and zooming / magnifying the website, will be at some expense of the layout - i.e. the site's display may be malaligned in parts.

When Your Search Result is a Long Article or Document

Some of the articles indexed, particularly some of the guidelines can be rather long - even hundreds of pages! So when you open them you can go to the index and if it's a large pdf, you can usually click on the chapter that you are interested in.

A really handy & fast way to find what you are looking for, in almost any type of document (webpage, pdf, word document, spread sheet), is to skim it electronically using the search/find function. See an explanation of this below:

Once the file has completed downloading and opening, just click the “Ctrl” and “f” key together, then type in your search term and hit enter on your keyboard. Then skim the document by repeatedly clicking the “enter” key (or clicking “next” with your mouse on screen) until you find a section in the document that you are interested in. (NB: f is for find.)

If you use an apple mac , it offers the same function - just click the apple button (also called the command button) together with the ‘f button to access the search facility.

For example if you search MedIndex for (TENS) as in transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, one result is the NHMRC guideline: NHMRC: Evidence-based Management of Acute Musculoskeletal Pain.WebLink. (This document is 259 pages long - but don't be alarmed you will be reading up on TENS and acute musculoskletal pain within seconds. )

Now the abbreviation 'TENS' is not the most unique group of three letters, so I would enter: transcutaneous electrical as my search term to search the document. When I did so, I clicked enter on my keyboard 2 or 3 times skipping through brief mentions on TENS (in tables etc) that I wasn't really interested in before reaching a section on the evidence regarding effectiveness of TENS, on page 53.

If you want (or need - see below) to use abbreviations, type your abbreviation in capitals and use the case sensitive search function. The find/search functions nearly always have a case sensitive box to tick (in adobe pdfs, click the down arrow on the search box for options).

Beware if the first mention of the term includes an abbreviation, then the abbreviation may be used rather than the term throught the rest of the article - in this case you will need to search the abbreviation also. E.g. in an article on tacharrythmias - "atrial fibrillation (AF) " was the first mention of AF. So AF has to be typed into the search box to find all the entries on this topic.

When Your Search Finds Zero Results

If your search yields zero results:

Check spelling and punctuation
Make your search more general - e.g. pituitary instead of pituitary adenoma
Search only one word or use the all words search option
Try an alternative term
Check that you are logged in

You may also wish to try Instant Search - see the search box in the top right hand column when you are logged in. Click here for instructions on using Instant search.

However, it may be that the topic has not been covered by these journals in recent times.

You must be logged in to search or the search will yield zero results. You need to subscribe by clicking here, or register here for a free 10-day trial.

When There is No WebLink or a Broken WebLink

If you click on a link and it doesn't take you to where you expect or there is an error message - this may mean that the site to which you are linking is currently unavailable, or has changed its internal WebLink. Moreover because of the ever changing nature of medicine, articles and guidelines are constantly removed and updated.

MedIndex currently links you to over 17, 000 clinical articles & guidelines. Each month we run a software program to detect any broken links and painstakingly update our database to keep up with changes.

Nonetheless, if you find a broken or incorrect WebLink, let us know and we will make it a priority to check whether there is a problem at this end that we can rectify.

All articles & guidelines are available online with the exception of most articles in Medicine Today & articles published before 2004 in AFP. For these articles there is no WebLink.

* Only articles involved in Medicine Today's CDP program are online – these include all peer reviewed feature articles since 2007.

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