Audience: UTK Veterinary College

• Empowers you to find the answers to questions, such as "Does the library have a book I want?"
• Helps you with answering Learning Issues for ABLEs if you are a DVM student
• Helps you with finding clinical information if you are students in the clinics, residents, interns, or clinicians
• Prepares you for jobs post-graduation that require you to find high quality information
• Enables you to do literature reviews in research projects

Below, find tutorials to help DVM students and clinicians become better information searchers (PubMed, CAB Abstracts, and Library Resources).

The biggest challenges ABLEs students face during the process of looking for high quality information to fulfill learning issues:

Time constraints

Too much information to look through

Only using the first available information

Identifying the type of information on the Evidence Pyramid

Possible consequence:

May not develop good information seeking skills necessary for clinicians

Dr. Lisa Neufang (Clinical Pathology Resident, UTCVM)

"As a veterinary student on the clinic floor, I always needed to research information on my cases for rounds. This was especially true when I first started my rotations and coming up with differentials. I used Blackwell's Five-Minute Consult a lot. Even out in practice I used this book the most. However, textbooks recommended/required in my classes were also occasionally helpful, especially with rare diseases that would come up from time to time. "

Dr. Brittany Veersammy (ACVS Large Animal Surgery Resident, UTCVM)

"Prior to every surgery I like to search the current literature for novel techniques, how the technique has evolved and how different approaches have either the same or different outcomes. I usually start with the online Equine Surgery textbook by looking online at the Pendergrass library but I like to perform my literature search on Pubmed."

A veterinarian at a veterinary clinic in Knoxviille

She did extra research to find additional ways to help a Domestic Shorthair cat with plasma cell pododermatitis.  After the cat underwent a course of steroids and antibiotics, the vet investigated other treatments and suggested that diet could be a factor.