Be smart about your medical Web surfing

3. Invest 30 minutes in the pubmed.gov tutorial

Pubmed.gov searches the medical literature, but it isn't completely intuitive. It's worth the time to learn how to use it by doing the tutorial.

Nervous you won't understand the technical jargon in medical articles? Don't be, says Guthrie. She advises reading the very beginning of a study and the very end. "The conclusion will tell you whether the treatment they studied was effective, moderately effective, or not at all effective."

In addition, the Medical Library Association, has brochures called Deciphering Medspeak to help translate some of the more common medical jargon.