 |
|
Middle Atlantic Region Featured Projects 2007
Back to National Medical Librarians Month 2007 page
Residents, Librarians & EBM
The Internal Medicine Residency Program and the Medical Library at North Shore University Hospital (NSUH), Manhasset, NY, collaborate to provide healthcare professionals with the knowledge and skills necessary to retrieve and evaluate evidence-based information. Residents are required to complete an eight module course in information literacy every year of their three year program. The librarians design and teach the first module of the courses, indoctrinating residents on the importance of evidence-based medicine in clinical practice. Each class is a collaborative effort of librarian and students to discover the most effective and efficient methods to locate the best clinical information for actual clinical cases. The lessons, based on these cases, are structured to be intellectually challenging. The remaining modules are designed and taught by the Department of Medicine. The skills acquired are transferable to residents' future information needs. The 23 percent rise in scores on the examinations, administered by the Internal Medicine Residency Program Director, attests to the quality of the course. Success is the result of constant measurement and analysis of the residents' knowledge base and clinical needs.
North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, NY
Project Director: Debra Eisenberg, Library Director, MLS, AHIP
Key staff: Tanya Shkolnikov, Senior Librarian, MLS, AHIP
Wellness Wednesdays
As a partner in Healthy Delaware 2010, the Delaware Academy of Medicine, through its Consumer Health Information Service, has introduced Wellness Wednesdays to the citizens of Delaware. The Consumer Health Librarians, one located in each of the 3 Delaware counties, are reaching out to Delawareans to provide health information and wellness tips.
Wellness Wednesdays began in New Castle County, the most populated county, in January 2007 when Susan LaValley, MLS, initiated the program as a way to make library patrons aware that they had access to their very own health librarian. Continuing on Wednesdays this fall and winter, New Castle County library visitors can expect to find LaValley, the designated Consumer Health Librarian for New Castle County, available at one of their local libraries.
Additionally, Wellness Wednesdays has expanded this year to include selected senior centers as well. Individuals receive confidential direction in finding reliable health information and are also assisted in researching related topics of personal interest. Interested participants can check with their local library for anticipated visit dates and times.
Wellness Wednesdays in Sussex County began in June. Linda Leonard, MLS, the Consumer Health Librarian for this Southern and most rural county in Delaware, visits each of the 14 public libraries in the county once a month on Wednesdays. A set schedule has been advertised in each of the libraries so community members will know they can go to the library at that time to speak with a medical librarian and ask for information and research assistance. Also during these visits, assistance is given to the libraries on collection development for health related materials.
Kent County, the home of Delaware's capital, Dover, will be starting regular Wellness Wednesdays in September, kicking off the program with a health-oriented story time for young children at the Harrington Public Library on September 5. Each Wednesday, Kent County Consumer Health Librarian Patty Hartmannsgruber, MLS, will visit a different library. From 10 - noon, she will meet with library patrons, apprise staff of new health related book and media titles, and note useful websites and search strategies for patron questions. Each library will receive a supply of "Ask Us a Health Question" forms to use between visits for library patrons who request in-depth research on any health topic they are interested in. As we stress confidentiality, the forms will be sealed in a pre-addressed envelope and delivered to Hartmannsgruber via the inter-county library courier system.
As the Consumer Health Librarians also do programming on health topics for their counties, the Wellness Wednesdays provide vital insights into the health concerns of the community. This allows the 3-librarian team to provide relevant health-related programs to their communities and to collaborate with health educators and community organizations to bring additional programming into the libraries.
Delaware Academy of Medicine, Consumer Health Information Service
Project Director: P.J. Grier, Director, Library and Information Services
Key Staff: Patty Hartmannsgruber, Susan LaValley and Linda Leonard, Consumer Health Librarians
Expanding the World Health Organization Essential Medicines List
In an effort to improve global public health, Weill Cornell Medical College students and librarians have helped place a lifesaving heart disease drug onto the World Health Organization's (WHO) list of essential medicines ( http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/essentialmedicines/en/index.html ). This list is a guideline for developing countries to choose which high-priority drugs should be supplied to their citizens inexpensively. Librarians, Pattie Mongelia and helen-ann brown, were part of the team that prepared the application, which was approved in April 2007. Simvastatin (Zocor) was selected based on its worldwide availability, cost-effectiveness and the interest of generic firms in producing it. Such statin medicines have been shown to lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL) levels, commonly known as "bad cholesterol," by 25-30 percent in individuals at high-risk for heart disease. The United Nations and other philanthropic foundations can now donate large amounts of this drug to the national pharmaceutical inventories of developing countries.
Weill Cornell Medical Library, Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University
Name of project director: helen-ann brown, Head, Education & Outreach
Key staff: Pattie Mongelia, Education & Outreach Librarian
Literature and Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care
"Literature and Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care" is a national, award-winning program that encourages professionals to connect the worlds of science and life experience. Originally created by the Maine Humanities Council in 1997, hospitals in 19 states throughout the country now hold monthly gatherings in which readings and films are used to facilitate discussion as participants apply program materials to reflect on issues that are central to the human face of their work. With sponsorship from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, "Literature & Medicine" was first offered at the Overlook Hospital health sciences library in 2005 and continues today. The books and readings are purchased before the first meeting and distributed through the library, videos can be checked out from the library.
The monthly meetings are held in the library from January through June and facilitated by a scholar-facilitator. Each group consists of approximately 20 hospital employees from different backgrounds, including physicians, nurses, allied health personnel, office workers, and others, who come together to share the selected readings and their own personal responses and stories.
The program's scholars select readings that capture medical-care experiences from a literary perspective and also reflect our own feelings and struggles in our work. The participants expressed honesty and candor in response, the discussion provided a safe environment in which to explore beyond our scientific training and cultural perspectives. To quote one of the participants "it was a wonderful opportunity to hear the different voices that contribute to our shared conversation about our patients' health and wellness. It helped me understand all the pieces of caring for the ill".
Overlook Hospital, Summit New Jersey
Librarian: Pat Regenberg, MLS AHIP
Scholars - Jeanne Kerwin MMH MICP, Stuart Green MSW MA and Nancy Gross MA
I.D.E.A.S. Information. Discovery. Education. Access. Scholarship.
A series of programs sponsored by the Schaffer Library of Health Sciences
The Library initiated a series of programs to promote knowledge-based resources and related technologies. The inaugural program in January 2007 featured Scopus and the second program in April 2007 featured DynaMed. Vendors provided give-aways, including an iPOD and a 2 GB flash drive. Program evaluations indicated a high level of satisfaction. Nearly all attendees responded that they would apply what they learned in the near future. Initial database statistics indicate an increase in use subsequent to the sessions.
The third in the series is scheduled for October as part of several events in recognition of National Medical Librarians Month.
Albany Medical College
Name of project director: Enid Geyer
Key staff: Elizabeth Irish, Karen Hudyncia, Sue Lahey, Ann Marie L'Hommedieu, Jay Ayotte, Cindy Koman, Vilija Markunas
Back to National Medical Librarians Month 2007 page
Last reviewed: 09 September 2008
Last updated: 27 September 2007
First published: 01 October 2007
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanence Not Guaranteed