A study of the information-seeking skills of medical students and physician faculty

In the research reported here, the authors compared (a) the abilities of third- and fourth-year students and physicians to solve problems requiring review of current literature with (b) the information-seeking procedures of the three groups in researching those problems. The subjects were given a patient care question to answer, and logs were maintained to document their information-seeking processes. The findings indicated no differences among the three groups in accurately solving patient care problems; a difference in information-seeking processes between third-year students and physicians; and no differences between third-year and fourth-year students or between physicians and fourth-year students in their approaches to seeking information. Mean scores indicated that all three groups need additional training on accessing the literature in making patient care decisions.