The Library’s Online Catalogue is BMA members’ one stop shop for accessing all of our online resources. All of our e-book and e-journal content can be easily searched for and accessed using the online catalogue.
First things first
We recommend that you start off by signing in to our online catalogue before you begin searching. Access to the full text of e-books and e-journals that we subscribe to is only available to current members of the BMA.
Searching for an article
Our online catalogue allows you to search directly for journal articles. Simply enter the title of the article you are searching for into the search box:
Provided the article is included in our central index, the catalogue entry to access the article will appear straight away. Please note that if you are searching for an article that was published pre 21st Century or only published in the last few weeks it is possible that it won’t yet have an entry in the index. If this is the case we recommend that you instead search for the e-journal that the article is published in…
Searching for a e-journal
To see if you can access to a particular e-journal please click on the Journal Search button, above the search box of the online catalogue home page, and enter the title of the journal you wish to access. As you start to type the journal title the catalogue will begin searching for it straight away:
Either finish typing in the title of the journal, or click on the entry if it appears on the drop down list, to access the record and view the e-journal.
If you don’t have a particular journal in mind and instead want to see what e-journals we have available in a particular medical specialty please use the Journals by category links on the left hand side of the Journal Search page.
Searching for an e-book
Enter the title of the e-book you are looking for into the search box of the online catalogue home page and press return. To the left hand side of the list of search results that appears you will see a set of options for tweaking your results. Click on Resource Type and then on the drop down list that appears select the Books option to filter the list of search results to just e-books:
If you don’t have a particular e-book in mind and instead want to see the e-books that we have available in a particular medical specialty please use our E-Books by Medical Specialty curated collection to browse the titles available.
If you have any comments or queries about searching our online catalogue please email: e-resources@bma.org.uk
If you are a regular user of PubMed you might be interested to know that your BMA Library resources are now accessible from search results in just one click.
BMA Library has been included on the list of available institutions of its Outside Tool facility.
To activate the Outside Tool linking to us within PubMed:
- Sign into PubMed
- Click on your email address in the top right hand side of the screen
- Click on the Account Settings option on the menu that appears
- Click on the Site Preferences link at the top of the new page that appears
- Under the PubMed Preferences heading click on the Outside Tool link
- Click on the B button and then scroll down the list to find and select our entry
After carrying out these steps you will now find that when you view the full record for an article a BMA icon button will appear on the right hand side of the screen:
Clicking on this button will allow you to quickly and seamlessly check to see if the full text of the particular article is available in our e-journals collection.
This new integation with PubMed is in addition to the existing integration that we already offer with Google Scholar.
If you have any queries or comments about this new PubMed integration, please get in touch with us by email at: e-journals@bma.org.uk
We have recently added three new curated collections to our online catalogue:
All three of these new curated collections, as with all of our others, are intended to make it quicker and easier to browse and access the titles that are available in our e-resource collections on particular topics. Please note that the collections do not cover all of our holdings. If there is specific title that you wish to access we recommend entering it into to the search box on the home page of our online catalogue.
All of our e-resources are accessible to all current BMA members regardless of what stage they are at in their medical career.
If you have any comments or feedback about any of these three new curated e-collections please email us: e-resources@bma.org.uk
For Medline and Embase users please note that you will see a new cookie consent message when you next go into either database:
If you click to “Accept”, all the search functionality will remain the same. We recommend that our users click to accept so that their search experience remains unchanged.
If you select “Reject all cookies” you may find that some options are no longer available to you such as seeing your search history.
Your selections will be retained for a period of one year, after which time you will be asked to re-verify your selections.
If you have already opted to reject cookies and wish to change this, please clear your browser cookies, access the Ovid platform again and this time select the “Accept All Cookies” option.
Alternatively if you do not wish to clear all your browser cookies (because you have saved login credentials that you do not want to delete) or do not know how to you can either use a different web browser or open an “InPrivate” or ”Incognito” tab in your existing browser.
We have updated the Help page of our online catalogue, providing answers to the questions we are most frequently asked.
The questions, and accompanying answers, cover:
- our significant e-books and e-journals offering to BMA members
- the loan and return of books
- requesting digital copies of journal articles from us
- the access we provide to ClinicalKey and ClinicalKey Student
We hope that the updated content on this page will improve your knowledge and understanding of our offering to BMA members.
Do you have a question that isn’t covered? Please let us know: bma-library@bma.org.uk
This week marks the 75th Anniversary of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.
The NHS was launched on Monday 5 July 1948, following the passing of the National Health Service Act by the UK Parliament two years earlier.
The BMA represents, supports and negotiates on behalf of all UK doctors and medical students. We are member-run and led, fighting for the best terms and conditions as well as lobbying and campaigning on the issues impacting the medical profession.
The BMA worked throughout the formation of the NHS to provide advice and support for medical professionals and negotiate on members’ behalf.
The BMA Archive holds a wealth of material which demonstrate how the organisation has worked to represent the profession.
From Friday 7 July until Friday 4 August 2023, there will be an exhibition of documents, photographs and marketing materials from the BMA Archive, in the Hastings Room, on the ground floor of BMA House for members to visit.
Below are a selection of some of the items that appear in the exhibition:
The above picture, taken at the BMA’s 1998 Annual Representative Meeting (ARM), held in Cardiff, shows the presentation of a plaque to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the NHS. The presentation was made in front of a statue of Aneurin Bevan, who spearheaded the creation of the NHS in his role as the UK Government’s Secretary of State for Health.
Over the last 75 years the BMA has been involved with and launched several movements such as the 1975 campaign, Save the NHS and #NoMoreGames in 2015, supporting medical professionals and protecting the NHS.
Poster from BMA led campaign SOS for the NHS, 1987 (BMA Archive ref. C/2/2/7).
Photograph of Junior Doctors Committee members for the SOS for the NHS campaign, taken in the courtyard of BMA House, in 1989.
A full-page advertisement for the BMA’s Look After Our NHS campaign in 2009.
On the 21 June 1948, two weeks before the formation of the NHS, the HMT Empire Windrush arrived in the UK carrying over 1000 passengers who disembarked the following day, hoping to start a new life, and bringing much needed skills and labour to post war Britain.
Over 800 passengers aboard listed their last country of residence as one of the Caribbean nations. Five passengers listed their profession as medical and many others as nurses. Many of those passengers who arrived from the Caribbean between 1948 and 1973 went on to work for the NHS.
To discover more about those who travelled on the Empire Windrush you can visit the National Archives blog where you can find out more about viewing the passenger manifest (both in person at the National Archives or through digitised content online).
Affiliate Medical Associations
The medical professionals aboard embarked at Trinidad, Kingston (Jamaica) and Barbados. At the time these counties were British colonies, and each had a local branch of the BMA known as Affiliate Medical Associations.
Much like the BMA in Britain the local affiliate branches campaigned the Government for better health care facilities, systems and recognition for doctors.
The image below shows some of the work of the Jamaica branch of AMA in 1938-39.
Image: Page from Jamaica Branch Transactions for Years of Royal Visit 1953-54 with review covering the period 1937-54. Arch Ref. D/103/25/1
Commonwealth Medical Association
In the year after the Empire Windrush made the journey across the Atlantic, doctors from Commonwealth countries came together to discuss the formation of an international organisation to set universal education and standards.
Image: Copy of communication announcement, 22 June 1949. Arch ref. C/7/1/1
In 1952 the Commonwealth Medical Association was established with the main objective of assisting and strengthening the capacities of national medical associations of countries within the Commonwealth to improve the health, well-being and human rights of their countries and communities.
The BMA has always looked at ways to support doctors into the profession with the Empire Medical Advisory Bureau opening in July 1948.
Image: Article published in a BMA circular, 1948. Arch ref. C/7/1/1
International medical professionals
International Medical Graduates (IMGs) have been an integral part of our NHS right from its inception and today, 75 years on; the NHS is one of the most diverse workforces in the UK.
We use the term ‘Windrush Generation’ to refer to those who travelled from the Caribbean to the UK between 1948 and the 1970’s. Many of these people travelled to take up vital jobs in the NHS. By 1960, almost 40% of junior doctors in the NHS came from commonwealth or former commonwealth counties. Figures from 1971 suggested that 31% of all NHS doctors in England were born and educated abroad. In 2022, 46% of doctors joining the NHS in England came from overseas.
In 2022 the BMA launched its international affiliate membership, aiming to support IMG’s, from when they first arrive in the UK through to their career progression. Find out more on the BMA website.
References:
Baker, C. (2022) NHS Staff from overseas: statistics. House of Commons Library. Available at: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7783/CBP-7783.pdf [Accessed 16 June 2023]
NHS Digital (2022) 2022 data: NHS Digital, NHS Workforce Statistics – December 2022. Available at https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics/december-2022 [Accessed 16 June 2023]
Bivins, R. The Windrush Generation and the NHS: By the Numbers. (People’s History of the NHS) Available at: https://peopleshistorynhs.org/the-windrush-generation-and-the-nhs-by-the-numbers/ [Accessed 16 June 2023]
Bivins, R. Windrush and the NHS, by the Numbers 2: Where we are today. (People’s History of the NHS) Available at: https://peopleshistorynhs.org/windrush-and-the-nhs-by-the-numbers-2-where-we-are-today/ [Accessed 16 June 2023]
Royal Museums Greenwich. The story of the Windrush. Available at: https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/windrush-histories/story-of-windrush-ship [Accessed 16 June 2023]
If you want to quickly and easily see new titles that have been added to our e-book collection, or which e-books are currently the most popular with BMA members, we have the following two curated collections to help you achieve this.
New E-Books
The New E-Books curated collection brings together all of the titles that we have added to our collection in the previous month. You can also find three sub-collections, one for each of the preceding months, allowing you to rapidly browse and access all of the e-books we have added in the last four months:
Top Ten E-Books
We also have a Top Ten E-Books curated collection which, as the name suggests, displays the current ten most accessed titles in our e-book collection.
Both collections include direct access links to each title, allowing you to quickly access the e-books. These curated collections are updated every month.
If you have any comments or queries about either of these curated collections please email: e-books@bma.org.uk
BMA library and archive blog 