When you ask a question, Inciteful Med doesn't just spit out an answer. It runs a multi-step research process: planning, searching the literature, reading, and writing the report. You'll see a status bar that shows where it's up to.

The four phases

Understanding - figuring out what you're really asking, and which records or context apply.
Researching - searching across PubMed, guidelines, and (when relevant) clinical trials, then reading what it finds.
Drafting - putting together an answer, structured around the parts of your question.
Polishing - adding citations, tightening the language, and packaging the final report.

You can navigate away during any phase - when you come back, the report will be waiting (or still in progress, picking up from where it was).

Getting interrupted with a clarifying question

Sometimes Inciteful Med needs more from you to give a useful answer - for example, if your question could mean two different things, or if a key piece of context is missing. When that happens it pauses and shows a short form with one or two questions.

Answer the form and click Continue - the run will pick up with your answers in hand. See Answering a clarifying question from the agent for tips on how to answer well.

Why it takes a minute or two

A typical research run takes 30 seconds to 2 minutes - comparable to a junior researcher reading a few dozen abstracts. We optimize for accuracy and citation quality over speed. If you'd rather have a quick guess, that's not what Inciteful Med is built for - and it's not what your medical decisions deserve.

If a run is taking unusually long, see Why is my research taking a long time?.