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Physician Associates: Key resources

A guide to finding information for Physician Associate students. Includes links to key resources and sources of help.

Use the databases listed on this page to find relevant information on topics related to your studies. They will give you access to both primary and secondary sources of information.

  • Primary sources - these are first hand accounts of research that has been undertaken and written by the researchers themselves.
  • Secondary sources - describe, summarize, or discuss information or details originally presented in another source. Books are usually secondary sources. As are review articles which summarise the current state of the knowledge on a topic (many databases allow you to restrict search results to this type of article). A more specialised secondary source is a systematic review, which uses the existing literature to try to answer a specific question, often including a meta-analysis of the all the studies included in the relevant articles.

Key databases

These are the major resources for finding literature and information. 

Drug info and clinical practice
Journal articles and systematic reviews

NHS Athens resource

Whilst you are on placement you may be able to register for an NHS Athens account via the hospital's Library services. You will then be able to make full use their Knowledge and Library Hub for literature searching and accessing resources. Even without the login you can search, but you won't be able to access the full resources via the Hub.

Key websites

Most of these resources are freely available. Those only available to University members have red icons next to the name.

Clinical practice guidelines

Clinical skills & knowledge practice

Drug information

Other useful sites

Physician Associates

General medical bodies

Quality assurance frameworks

Most of these resources are freely available. Those only available to University members have red icons next to the name.

General sources
Anatomy
Diseases & conditions

Searching PubMed? Install the LibKey Nomad extension for quick access to full-text

PubMed is a great place to search for articles and gives access to many freely available PDFs, but it doesn't show which ones you have access to via the Library. Install the LibKey Nomad browser extension for quick access to articles we have. It will display a 'Download PDF' button under each article accessible via the University:

The 'Download PDF' button displayed under an article available from the University.

Doing a literature search

This short playlist shows you how to prepare for and perform a literature search. The first video introduces literature searches and their role. The second video covers using the search operators AND and OR to create a search statement, and explains the role of wildcards and truncation in constructing a comprehensive search. 

If you are unable to view these videos on YouTube they are also available on YuJa or Stream (University username and password required):

We also have the following generic guide to literature searching and searching databases:

Planning your own search

Use the template below to help plan out your own literature search - identifying keywords and synonyms. There's also an example to help guide you and an example of adapting a search for different databases.

NHS Trust libraries

You might have access to additional resources via your NHS Trust library. For instance, they might have access to a wider range of medical-related journals than are covered by our subscriptions. Here are a few local ones.

If you are able to register for an NHS Athens account when on placement then you can make full use of this resource for literature searching and it will give you access to more medical-related journals:

Getting items not held at Reading

Map of the south of the UKOur Inter-Library Loans service can get articles, books and other publications not held at Reading from other libraries (usually from the British Library).

For more information see our webpages:

Searching for 'Global South' publications to 'decolonise' academic work

To present fairer, balanced academic work, it is important to include academic literature from around the world, representing all backgrounds. However, it can be difficult to find Global South examples from within English language databases with currently more Global North examples. This tab lists alternative search terms and strategies that might help us pick out Global South material. Use the other tab in this box to try useful resources and database features.

Definitions: Global South is a term currently used to mean countries of  Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Global North is used to refer to countries of North America and Europe but also Australia and New Zealand, with stong economies and influence.

Remember to include searching tricks as used in examples below:

  • "speech marks" to search for phrases
  • truncate to retrieve alternate endings: Africa* retrieves Africa, African, Africaans
  • Use wildcard (often ? or #, but check database Help) for alternate letter spellings or plurals.
  • List alternatives in brackets with OR in between

Geographical & social terms

  • Include individual country or regional names that might occur in reference records. 
    • For example: Africa* OR “East Africa” OR “West Africa” OR ​“sub-Saharan” OR [Individual country names]​
       
  • Country grouping terms and acronyms include:
    • BRICS OR Brazil OR Russia OR India OR China OR "South Africa"
    • MENA OR "Middle East" OR "North Africa"
       
  • Development-related terms and acronyms include:
    • LEDC OR "Less Economically Developed Countries"
    • LDC OR "Least developed countries"
    • LIC OR "Low Income Countries"
    • LMIC OR "Low Middle Income Countries"
    • "Medium/Low Human Development"
    • "Unicef Programme Countries"
    • Outdated terms: When searching for older material, you might include terms used historically but now thought derogatory. For instance: "developing countries" or "third world countries" (that is, neither 'Western' or 'Soviet' powers).
      ​​​​​
  • In a social context, 'global majority' may replace 'ethnic minority' to refer to people who are "black, Asian, brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as 'ethnic minorities'" and "represent approximately 80% of the world's population", (Rosemary Campbell-Stephens, as cited by Bryan, 2024).
     
  • Use 'local' place names, as used by people who live there (such as “South-East Asia”​) rather than, or maybe as well as, names allocated by people from another part of the world (such as "the Far East").
     
  • Exclude country names with NOT, using brackets to ensure the correct term is excluded.
    • For example: (Africa* OR “East Africa”) NOT Kenya
       
  • International terms: Only if an article is especially addressing international issues would it use words you can search for like
    • world OR "world-wide" OR international OR global
       
  • If addressing an imbalance of power/privilege, articles might use terms such as:
    • “post-colonial*” OR gobali?ation [if ? is wildcard standing for s or z]
    • developing OR "less-developed" or underdeveloped​​

US/UK spelling and vocabulary

Be sure to incorporate in your searches different UK and American English terms and spellings, so as not to omit research from countries using one or the other language form. List alternatives with OR or insert a 'wildcard' or truncation term. Check the help on the database you are searching to find out if wildcards are supported and which symbol to use. For example:

  • sidewalk OR pavement OR footpath
  • organisation OR organization - an alterative search could be organi?ation  [If ? is wildcard standing for s or z]

Objective or subjective terms

Search for objective or even biased terms. For instance:

  • curriculum AND (change OR reform OR fail*)

Decolonising literature searching, a detailed guide from Lancaster University Library, may provide further ideas 

Databases with regional features

Use the Scopus 'Researcher Discovery' tab and limit by country of origin to connect with target areas and people.

Web of Science alows you to filter results by 'Countries/Regions'.

'Global south' resources