Laura E. Abate

Engaging students in active learning: Use of a blog and audience response system

Librarians provide instruction to medical students as part of a core course in the medical school curriculum. Instruction was provided, in part, through didactic sessions covering professional-level medical information resources, PubMed search skills, psychosocial information, and evidence-based medicine. Librarians redesigned instructional sessions with the goals of increasing student engagement and minimizing the lecture format, maximizing the number of students receiving feedback on their search and evaluation skills, and permitting students to see a variety of possible responses as well as engage in peer- and self-evaluation. Librarians integrated the use of a blog and an audience response system (ARS) into the instruction to help accomplish these goals.

Web-scale discovery in an academic health sciences library: Development and implementation of the EBSCO discovery service

Funds made available at the close of the 2010–11 fiscal year allowed purchase of the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) for a year-long trial. The appeal of this web-scale discovery product that offers a Google-like interface to library resources was counter-balanced by concerns about quality of search results in an academic health science setting and the challenge of configuring an interface that serves the needs of a diverse group of library users. After initial configuration, usability testing with library users revealed the need for further work before general release. Of greatest concern were continuing issues with the relevance of items retrieved, appropriateness of system-supplied facet terms, and user difficulties with navigating the interface. EBSCO has worked with the library to better understand and identify problems and solutions. External roll-out to users occurred in June 2012.

Strengthening Our Collaborations: Building an Electronic Health Record Educational Module

This article addresses the planning, creation, content, and implementation of an online educational module on electronic health records. Development of this module required close collaboration among multiple departments, and the module was immediately integrated into the second year medical student curriculum upon completion.

Rethinking Our Mobility: Supporting Our Patrons Where They Live

This article describes initiatives undertaken by one academic medical library to support patrons using handheld mobile devices. These initiatives included efforts to assist patrons with installation and use of mobile information resources, educate librarians regarding content and navigation of mobile apps and websites, and leverage tools to promote the library in a mobile environment.

A Systematic Review of Evidence-Based Treatments for Prurigo Nodularis

&NA; Prurigo nodularis is a chronic dermatologic condition involving the development of multiple cutaneous nodules in the setting of intractable pruritus. Given emerging treatment options for this difficult‐to‐treat condition, a current review of therapeutics is needed. A systematic review was performed for clinical studies investigating prurigo nodularis treatment published from 1990 to present including ≥5 subjects. A total of 35 articles were assigned a level of evidence according to the Oxford Center for Evidence‐based Medicine. All 5 studies investigating topical agents, including corticosteroids, calcineurin inhibitors, calcipotriol, and capsaicin, conveyed some beneficial effect with level of evidence 2b or higher. Six of 8 reports investigating photo‐ and photochemotherapy achieved levels of evidence 2b or greater and showed good partial response rates. Thalidomide was studied by 6 reports providing evidence of good symptom response, only 2 of which were rated level 2b or greater. Cyclosporine and methotrexate have demonstrated benefit in 4 combined studies, albeit with level 4 evidence. Pregabalin, amitriptyline, paroxetine, fluvoxamine, and neurokinin‐1 receptor antagonists have demonstrated promising evidence in 5 level 2b studies. Higher‐powered studies and additional randomized controlled trials are needed for the evaluation of safe and efficacious systemic treatment options for prurigo nodularis.

Discovery Assessment and Improvement at an Academic Health Sciences Library: Health Information @ Himmelfarb Five Years Later

ABSTRACT Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library was an early health sciences library adopter of web scale discovery with introduction of a customized instance of EBSCO’s Discovery Service (EDS) in 2012. After three years with EDS, the library initiated an evaluation project involving two user surveys and a library staff focus group to assess user satisfaction with the service. Resulting changes included introduction of widgets to improve access to clinical content, addition of radio buttons to the search box to make defaults easier to enable and disable, and a custom course reserves search feature. The improvements launched fall semester 2016.

Introducing the Testimonial-Commentator Format to the Musculoskeletal Curriculum of Medical Students

Principal Objective: We implemented a rheumatology curriculum redesign for second-year medical students. Goal: Our agenda was to emphasize patient contact in the support of learning. Methodology: A testimonial-commentator format of instruction, based on three seminars concerning rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and psoriatic arthritis, was implemented and studied using a multiple case study design. All second year medical students were included in the protocol and none were excluded. Each seminar had two distinct parts. The first half was comprised of a patient’s personal testimonial followed by a pathophysiological overview of the disease. The second half of the seminar was comprised of an expert panel answering the student’s questions as submitted to the moderator during the intervening break. The students completed a post-session structured feedback form and a Likert favorability score (on a scale of 1 to 5 where 5 reflects preference for the new method of teaching). Results: Favorability scores averaged over 3.7, and thereby consistently supported the new teaching method over traditional didactics, seminar by seminar, and year by year, for each of three years. To compare the effectiveness of the new method of instruction versus the traditional method, analysis of the multiple choice final test comparing a control group (previous class) with the intervention group (current class) demonstrated no statistical difference year by year suggesting that the new method was non-inferior to the traditional method. Conclusion: Specific challenges to the implementation of our revised curriculum centered upon creating administrative-level acceptance of the redesigned course. Nevertheless, our curriculum redesign was met with enthusiasm and suffered no loss of learning as compared to traditional didactic methods.