Searching PubMed

You'll need a MyNCBI account to save searches and create collections. This account is not just for PubMed, but links across many NCBI products and NIH awards management systems. To sign up for an account, click "Log In" in the top right corner:

Then click the "Sign Up" button from the list of options. **Note - if you work on NIH funding and already have an eRA Commons account, don't create a duplicate account. Log in with your eRA Commons account.

You have the option of connecting an eRA Commons account if you have one, or linking your Google account. NIH accounts are for people who work at the NIH. The simplest way of signing up is to choose the NCBI option:

Once you're logged in, you'll see your chosen name in the top right corner. Click that to access your dashboard, where you can see your saved searches and collections.

When you have created an effective search, save it! Saving search segments can be useful (for instance, a search about the geriatric population, or a search including randomized controlled trials), so you can easily append them to new searches in the future. To save your search, click "Create Alert" beneath the search bar. You won't have to receive alerts if you don't want them. 

You can access your saved searches by going to your MyNCBI dashboard, then click the hyperlinked title of the search. If you only want to see the new results since you've last looked, you can click on the hyperlinked number in the "What's New" column.

You can incorporate a saved search into a new search by clicking the search title to run it, then going to the Advanced search interface to combine the search line with a new topic.

Create collections for your own reference or to share with others, by selecting the references you'd like from your search results, then click "Send to."

To share your collection with other people, open your MyNCBI dashboard, then click on your collection. Then, click the "Edit in My NCBI" link at the top, and click the "make it public" link. The resulting link is what you can share with others.