Due to popular demand, instructor Connie Schardt returned to the Pacific Southwest Region to provide a second offering of the one-day workshop, Information Treasure Hunt: Supporting Evidence-Based Practice @ Your Institution. The workshop focused on study design, critical appraisal, systematic reviews, and qualitative studies, ending with putting it all into practice. Nearly forty attendees braved the wet weather to attend the event, hosted at the Parnassus Campus of the UCSF Library & Center for Knowledge Management on November 30, 2012. (more…)

by Nancy Crossfield
Library Services Manager, William O. Owen Medical Library
Saint Agnes Medical Center
Fresno, CA

A five-week online class titled “Patient Safety Resource Seminar: Librarians on the Front Line” was taught in November-December 2012, with instructor Holly Burt, NN/LM Greater Midwest Region Outreach & Exhibits Coordinator. The course is based on a variety of materials freely available from the National Library of Medicine. I participated with librarians from around the country, including several from our region; Heidi Mortensen, Peggy Makie, Beverly McLeod, Lisa Olson, Carol Attwood, and Billie White. Following is a brief overview of the class content, including some useful links. (more…)

By Sophia Prisco
Department of Information Studies student
UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies

During the 2012 fall quarter, I had the opportunity to intern with the Pacific Southwest Regional Medical Library. During the course of my internship, I worked on an NLM initiative to promote results in ClinicalTrials.gov. ClinicalTrials.gov is a freely available registry and results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world. The National Library of Medicine believes that health sciences librarians are ideally placed to advocate to the clinical research community the importance of complying with registration and reporting requirements as mandated by the FDA. For the project, I reconfigured a Moodle class based on the framework created by Stephen Kiyoi, who recently completed his NLM Associate Fellowship at PSRML. I also created promotional materials to better equip health sciences librarians with the skills and knowledge to advocate for this resource at their institutions. (more…)

by Yamila El-Khayat, MALS
Outreach Services Librarian, Arizona Health Sciences Library
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ

This year I had the pleasure of attending the 98th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), November 25-30, to represent the National Library of Medicine. This meeting is an international conference, which attracts radiologists, medical physicists, and other medical professionals. The conference hosts one of the largest medical meetings in the world, attracting more than 60,000 participants annually, and is held at the McCormick Place convention center in Chicago. It offers educational resources, both in exhibits, and continuing education sessions that offer credits towards the physicians’ maintenance of certification. (more…)

by Erica Bass, BS, MLS, Library Director
Jerry L. Pettis VA Memorial Medical Center
Loma Linda, CA

On November 15, I attended the six-hour Medical Library Association Continuing Education class Diagnostic Error: Team Up and Tackle It! The course was offered in conjunction with the Diagnostic Error in Medicine: 5th International Conference held in Baltimore, MD, November 12-14, and sponosored by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Instructors for the course were Lorri Zipperer, Elaine Alligood, Linda Williams, and NN/LM MidContinental Region Library Advocacy Coordinator, Barb Jones. The overall goal of the course is to cover how multidisciplinary teams contribute to the reduction of diagnostic error, with a focus on evidence-based processes, and the impact of librarians. The course breaks down the diagnostic process into components, to reveal how medical misdiagnosis occurs. (more…)

by Yamila El-Khayat, Outreach Services Librarian, Arizona Health Sciences Library, University of Arizona and
Lori Tagawa, Community Outreach Coordinator, NN/LM Pacific Southwest Region

Having the opportunity to attend the 2nd National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC) in Kansas City, MO, was an amazing experience. It was different; we were surrounded by a large diverse group, but with one similarity: librarianship! (more…)

by Yamila El-Khayat, MALS
Outreach Services Librarian, Arizona Health Sciences Library
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ

Pat Bradley, from the University of New Mexico, and I were invited to give a presentation to nurses in Fort Defiance, a nearly seven-hour driving trip from Tucson. The scenery was beautiful as I drove to the northern part of the state. Just looking at the canyons during the drive gave me inspiration for our presentation! The Fort Defiance Indian Hospital is located in the Navajo Nation and is one of the 12 health care centers in this region. (more…)

By Sophia Prisco
Department of Information Studies student
UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies

Hello, I am Sophia Prisco, the Pacific Southwest Regional Medical Library’s fall 2012 intern. I am a second-year student at UCLA, working towards a Masters degree in Library and Information Science (MLIS). (more…)

October is National Medical Librarians Month (NMLM)! Highlighting the fact that medical librarians are the best and most cost effective way to obtain quality health information, this year’s NMLM theme is “Medical Librarians: Your Best Return on Investment!” In honor of this event, we are recognizing the contributions of medical librarians by promoting Network member outreach projects. (more…)

With September being National Preparedness Month, we’ve been hearing a lot about how to prepare for emergencies. Indeed, hurricanes, fires, and other events over this past summer and early fall are reminders of the importance of being prepared, with or without advance warning. In an ideal world, the time to prepare for a disaster or emergency is of course prior to the event, with continued awareness of how to maintain readiness and to know what to do during and after an actual event. (more…)