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Veterinary Pharmacy

Resources for UMKC pharmacy students rotating in the VHC pharmacy

Tips for Finding Veterinary Drug Literature

Usually, a PubMed or Scopus search of the drug plus the species plus the disease state will do the trick.

Remember to:

  • Search for generic name of drug and not just the trade name.
  • Think of synonyms for your species (equine OR horses). PubMed will do some automatic mapping of species terms behind the scenes. For example, if you search for canine, PubMed will retrieve (pun intended) articles that use either canine or dogs. Scopus does not do this for you.
  • If you're overwhelmed with results, add another concept (e.g., are you interested in the pharmacokinetics?) or limit to a particular Article Type (e.g., Review or Clinical Trial).

PubMed Tips

Use the PubMed links provided by the Libraries, especially from off campus.

  • Access PubMed from a Library page or bookmark this URL: http://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?myncbishare=umochsclib&dr=abstract
  • This "MU Version" of PubMed will link you to the full text of the article. If you go straight to pubmed.gov, you'll likely be asked to pay for an article.
  • The FindIt@MU button will link you to the full text or let you request a copy if we don't have it electronically. You'll see the FindIt@MU button on the Abstract view.
  • When you're on campus or using VPN, the Publisher link will often work just fine -- use the FindIt@MU button if the publisher link doesn't work.
  • When you're off-campus, use the FindIt@MU button. You'll be asked to log in with your SSO. More info on accessing library resources from off-campus

What's the article about? Check the MeSH terms.

  • The power of PubMed is in the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). Indexers (actual people!) at the National Library of Medicine read each article and tag it with MeSH terms to let you know what the article is about. You'll see a link to "MeSH Terms" in the full record. Terms with an asterisk indicate a focus of the article. Note: new articles might not yet have their full MeSH indexing.
  • PubMed also does what's called "Automatic Term Mapping." If you search for "canine," PubMed automatically includes results on "dogs," the official MeSH term.
  • You can see what PubMed is doing by looking at the "Details." The Details are on the Advanced Search page, in the "History and Search Details" section.

Overwhelmed with "human" results? Try adding "veterinary" to your search.

  • Adding "veterinary" to your search will not only search for the term as a keyword, but as a subheading
  • The veterinary subheading is used for naturally occurring diseases in animals, or for diagnostic, preventive, or therapeutic procedures used in veterinary medicine  So, an article with the MeSH term "Asthma/veterinary" lets you know that the article is about asthma in veterinary patients even if "veterinary" doesn't appear anywhere else in the record.

Looking for treatment information? Try Clinical Queries.