When searching PubMed you may come across links to articles in PubMed Central (PMC). PubMed Central is a free archive of full-text biomedical and life sciences journal articles. Most, but not all of PMCs content is indexed (searchable) in PubMed.
Although PubMed is essentially a way of accessing the MEDLINE database, it actually contains some additional content, including references to some books and chapters, in-process and ahead of print citations, and some articles which lie slightly outside of the subject scope of MEDLINE, such as those on astrophysics.
Note, however, that WU's access to MEDLINE includes in-process and ahead of print citations so it is unlikely that you would have a need to search both PubMed and MEDLINE. If you are undertaking a systematic review and have decided to run a supplementary search of PubMed in addition to Medline, then consider combining your PubMed search with this search string (pubstatusaheadofprint OR publisher[sb] OR pubmednotmedline[sb]) to reduce duplicate results.
Tip: PubMed is a great interface for carrying out a basic scoping search, or if you wish to identify a limited number of key references. MEDLINE via the links below are recommended if you wish to carry out a comprehensive and systematic search.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) premier life sciences database. Explore biomedicine and life sciences, bioengineering, public health, clinical care, and plant and animal science.
1946-Present, international literature on biomedicine, including the allied health fields and the biological and physical sciences, humanities, and information science as they relate to medicine and health care. Information is indexed from approximately 5,600 journals published world-wide. Learn more about the new interface.
If you receive an error message and cannot access the database, try clearing your browser cache and cookies. The U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) premier life sciences database. Explore biomedicine and life sciences, bioengineering, public health, clinical care, and plant and animal science. Search precisely with MeSH terms and CAS registry numbers; link to NCBI databases and PubMed.