PubMed Database

Use this skill when a task needs biomedical literature from PubMed rather than general web search.

When to Use

• Searching MEDLINE or life-sciences literature.
• Building PubMed queries with MeSH terms, field tags, dates, or article types.
• Looking up PMIDs, abstracts, publication metadata, or related citations.
• Running systematic-review search passes that need repeatable search strings.
• Using NCBI E-utilities directly from Python, shell, or another HTTP client.

Query Construction

Start with the research question, split it into concepts, then combine concepts with Boolean operators.

concept_1 AND concept_2 AND filter
synonym_a OR synonym_b
NOT exclusion_term

Useful PubMed field tags:

• [ti]: title
• [ab]: abstract
• [tiab]: title or abstract
• [au]: author
• [ta]: journal title abbreviation
• [mh]: MeSH term
• [majr]: major MeSH topic
• [pt]: publication type
• [dp]: date of publication
• [la]: language

Examples:

diabetes mellitus[mh] AND treatment[tiab] AND systematic review[pt] AND 2023:2026[dp]
(metformin[nm] OR insulin[nm]) AND diabetes mellitus, type 2[mh] AND randomized controlled trial[pt]
smith j…