If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: Veterinary medicine is constantly changing. Medical knowledge is said to double every 73 days, which makes keeping up a Herculean effort. And while the expansion of AI and the free web can be helpful for, say, finding a gluten-free, dairy-free, everything-free recipe for fried okra, it’s the Wild West for trustworthy, unbiased medical knowledge. This is where research databases come into play—your trusty sidekicks in the quest for accurate, peer-reviewed veterinary information.
Unlike the sprawling web of the internet, research databases offer a wealth of peer-reviewed studies, conference proceedings, and clinical case reports that help you make informed decisions for your patients. They act as a filter, helping you ensure you’re getting the good stuff—no commercial bias, no unlisted sources, just expert-verified knowledge, clearly identified authors and publishers, and transparent research processes.
We’ve curated a list of the top 7 research databases that every veterinarian should have in their bookmarks bar. Each one is a gold mine of easily verifiable information that can help you stay up-to-date on new treatments, diagnostic techniques, and best practices.
1. PubMed (National Library of Medicine)
Cost: Free
PubMed is a comprehensive database of bibliographic citations and abstracts for clinical medical literature. While it doesn’t include full-text journal articles, links to the full text are often included when they’re available from other sources. It’s one of the most robust databases for medical literature, and it includes citations and abstracts for nearly 100 major veterinary medical journals, including the Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care, Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, and Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia.
2. VetMed Resource
Cost: Varies, institutional access or pay-per-article
One of the numerous collections in the CABI Digital Library is VetMed Resource, a comprehensive database for veterinary medicine that includes more than 3 million records for articles and conference proceedings. In addition to animal health and veterinary medicine, CAB Abstracts covers agricultural biotechnology, animal production and genetics, and dairy science.
3. Web of Science
Cost: Varies, primarily institutional access
webofscience.com
The Web of Science is a paid-access tool that offers multidisciplinary coverage across multiple databases, including BIOSIS, CABI, and Zoological Record. It indexes the world’s leading scholarly journals in the sciences and provides helpful filters for key quality markers so you can limit your searches to high-quality, peer-reviewed literature. The one downside: Most of Web of Science is behind a paywall, and you’ll typically need access through a university or other institution.
4. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
Cost: Free
DOAJ indexes over 14,000 peer-reviewed open-access journals across various disciplines, including veterinary science. This database offers free access to 330+ high-quality, peer-reviewed veterinary journals, across various aspects of veterinary science, including anesthesiology, anatomy, bacteriology, biochemistry, cardiology, and dentistry.
5. International Veterinary Information Service (IVIS)
Cost: Free with registration
IVIS is a non-profit, free (with registration) platform specifically for animal health professionals. Its library includes full-text papers from conference proceedings as well as online books, CE courses, journals, webinars, and other educational resources covering a vast range of species and topics in veterinary medicine.
6. The Wiley Online Library
Cost: Generally free, with some paid resources
The veterinary medicine section of the Wiley Online Library compiles a diverse range of veterinary articles and book chapters, covering topics from animal welfare to surgery, dermatology, oncology, and more. This library includes several specialized veterinary journals, including the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, Veterinary Record, Veterinary and Comparative Oncology, and Veterinary Surgery, with helpful filters if you’d like to limit by a certain species or publication date.
7. ScienceDirect (Elsevier)
Cost: Varies by resource
ScienceDirect is a robust search database offering a selection of 400+ full-text journals and books covering veterinary science and animal health. This is a great resource for finding specialized journals on topics like cardiology, animal nutrition, infectious diseases, and more. While ScienceDirect compiles many open-access resources and offers helpful alerts to keep you in the loop on new articles, you’ll also find quick links to subscribe to print publications for consistent full-text access.
Bonus: 3 Essential Resources That Keep You Current
Beyond research databases, there are many publishers and tools in veterinary medicine that provide a more curated selection of information to help you keep up with clinical innovations and refine your skills.
Here are 3 of the Instinct team’s favorite resources that offer practical insights from the literature and timely updates that are often more relevant to day-to-day veterinary practice.
1. Clinician’s Brief
Cost: Free with account creation
Clinician’s Brief has been distilling clinical research and making it digestible for busy practicing veterinarians since 2002. Think of it as your go-to for concise, peer-reviewed articles that help you keep up with the latest innovations in drugs and therapeutics, assess patients and diagnose diseases, and perform clinical tasks like diagnostic testing and surgical procedures. (On the Instinct team, we’re also big fans of Clinician’s Brief’s daily veterinary word game, VetWords—even when it stumps us.)
2. American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA)
Cost: $370/year (deep discounts for students and interns)
avma.org/publications/journals
The AVMA is the nation's leading advocate for the veterinary profession, representing more than 105,000 members. AVMA publishes several peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) and the American Journal of Veterinary Research (AJVR), which feature original research articles and reviews in veterinary medicine.
3. Plumb’s Pro
Cost: $948/year (deep discounts for students and recent graduates)
Plumb’s Pro is a veterinary clinical decision support tool that’s designed to help you find answers when you’re working up cases. It includes current dosages and prescriber details for drugs, decision trees for clinical signs and conditions, and diagnostic and treatment monographs that help you manage cases from presentation to follow-up. All of the information in Plumb’s Pro is written by experts, peer reviewed, and thoroughly referenced, so you can find answers quickly or dig deeper into the research.
While the internet offers us a vast array of information, the reliability and quality of sources can vary greatly. Trustworthy resources like the veterinary research databases and tools we’ve listed in this post can help you find accurate, peer-reviewed, and up-to-date veterinary information. Bookmark these databases (or just bookmark this blog post) for quick reference next time, so you can stay informed and continue to provide top-notch care for your patients.
Curious about exploring Instinct's platform? You can check out Instinct EMR and request a demo here.