Grateful Med: getting started.

When a local medical library is not available, it is often necessary for physicians to discover alternate ways to receive medical information. Rural physicians, particularly, can make use of a computer program called Grateful Med that provides access to the same literature available to physicians in large cities. This program permits the user to perform database searches on the National Library of Medicine database (MEDLINE), corresponding to the primary index to medical literature, Index Medicus. In this article, we give the procedure for procuring a National Library of Medicine password and for making efficient use of the Grateful Med program.