SearchMedica, the specialty-oriented medical search engine, has enhanced its search engine. It now allows internal medicine and family practitioners to sort their search results by publication date. Not only does SearchMedica allow doctors to find the most relevant information, they can now find the most timely information. This is important, especially because when it comes to health care, it’s important to find not only the good information but the latest information.

SearchMedica recently surveyed six thousands doctors and found that Google was the search engine of choice. When asked about their biggest challenge using Google, though, sixty five percent of primary care physicians said Google’s search results returned too many irrelevant results. The second most common challenge, according to SearchMedica, is not enough clinical information in the search results.

The SearchMedica vertical search engines currently serves primary care physicians, oncologists and psychiatrists, and clinicians. They receive a specialist’s view of the Web amongst an easy to use interface. SearchMedica.com leverages the medical expertise of leading medical editors as well as actual practicing physicians to ensure that every search result is clinically sound.

For example, a search at Google for “teen suicide” returns more than 649,000 results. Most those search results in Google are geared towards parents and patients. The same search for “teen suicide” on SearchMedica Primary Care shows 380 results from many credible online sources of medical information for physicians and practitioners. This new feature makes searching easier for those searching at SearchMedica. Time-pressed physicians can now prioritize the search results based on publication date in addition to various categories or segments.

SearchMedica is open to the public, but healthcare professionals are encouraged to register so they can receive updates about new content and tips on how to use various advanced tools within SearchMedica. SearchMedica.com recently was acknowledged for its outstanding user experience as a recipient of a 2007 Standard of Excellence WebAward.

SearchMedica.com indexes only authoritative medical information, approved for inclusion by medical editors and a physician editorial board. Medical professionals receive more relevant, smaller sets of search results from SearchMedica.com than from mainstream engines, which contain consumer-oriented, paid testimonials and other types of unreliable information. Since SearchMedica.com is advertiser supported, medical professionals pay nothing to use the specialty search engines.

All SearchMedica search results are independent and unbiased. They contain well-known, credible journals, peer-reviewed research, and evidence-based articles written for practicing healthcare professionals. In addition to ranking search results according to relevance, SearchMedica also organizes results into categories such as practical articles and news, research reviews and editorials, evidence-based articles and meta-analyses, practice guidelines, clinical trials for patients, continuing medical education, and alternative-complementary medicine.