Polio...the solution to a famous painting's mysterious protagonist?

When we used to get JAMA in print I really loved looking at the artwork and reading the short blurb about the painting in question. Many times it was simply a beautiful picture, but other times the paintings had a link to medicine. The painting below is one of those.  

Christina's World  by Andrew Wyeth (housed at NYC's MOMA) is one of those paintings that stays in your mind. Why is she out in the field? Can she walk back to the house on her own? 

In a recent blog article at Discover magazine's website, Rebecca Creston looks at this painting with a critical eye and explain's more about the mystery surrounding Christina. 

MOMA - Christina's World

Our First WHSLA WISDOM CHAT - a teleconference for member sharing on topics of interest. We hope to do one per month.

Our First WHSLA WISDOM CHAT - a teleconference for member sharing on topics of interest.  We hope to do one per month.

Friday, June 24, 2016 1:00 to 2:00 pm

Contact Barb Ruggeri for details including password if you did not receive an email invitation.

AGENDA

1:00        Introductions

1:05        Elizabeth Kiscaden, MLIS, AHIP,  Associate Director,

   National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM)

   Greater Midwest Region (GMR), Hardin Library for the Health Sciences,

   University of Iowa

1:20        Members can ask Elizabeth questions

1:40        Brief summary of Spring Business Meeting and future of WHSLA- Barb Ruggeri

1: 50         Open for Discussion

PubMed Health - a post by Michele Matucheski

Webinar: Finding Systematic Reviews at PubMed Health and PubMed

A recording of the Webinar is available. [About 21 min.] Join Hilda Bastian for a brief instructional Webinar on finding systematic reviews using PubMed Health and PubMed. This is a free Webinar from the NLM Training Office.

PubMedHealth
PubMed Health has been out for a few years now.  This video helped me understand PubMed Health and how it’s different from PubMed, as well as PubMed Health’s utility for Physicians and Clinicians in terms of evidence-based practice and comparative effectiveness for interventions at the point-of-care.

   
The whole point of PubMed Health is:

1)      to help people find systematic reviews on interventions, and
2)      to understand what they find.  

The PubMed Health Collection consists of:

• 40,000 systematic reviews since 2003
• Over 6,000 consumer versions
• 1,000 EBP Clinical Guides [articles] for consumers and clinicians
• 2,000 PubMed Health Glossary entries

To that end, PubMed Health is geared more towards  “public” (rather than professional) searchers; for example,  it works more with keywords and brand names for drugs than MESH. 

Read more at :
Article on finding Systematic Reviews in PMH
About Clinical Effectiveness Research

by Michele Matucheski

Free online classes from Coursera and edX

A while back I was introduced to Coursera, a platform hosting classes from universities around the world. The class I took, on nutrition and cooking, was taught by Maya Adam, a physician at Stanford's School of Medicine.  It was a great class, with just the right balance of videos and a couple of short "assignments".

If you're looking to brush up on something or even learn a brand new skill I would recommend checking out Coursera and edX, another online class platform. Just like any online class, some instructors are more engaging than others and some classes are quite easy while others take a larger time commitment over the weeks/months of the class. 

I admit I got a little carried away and signed up for more online classes than I had time for. So I just unenrolled and made a point to check in when I had more free time. I'm still waiting for that to happen. 

From data science and machine learning, to understanding memory, happiness, and business negotiation, you'll find free class from Johns Hopkins, U Michigan, Stanford, Duke, Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Microsoft, and many more universities. Check it out. 

Twitter as a vehicle for medical history

Twitter is a tool I don't use very often. The bulk of my active usage comes during conferences as a way to share what's going on and see what other attendees are posting. 

I never thought of it as a vehicle for medical history until I ran across three Twitter feeds that focus just on that. What a great way to share the history of medicine. Take a look (you don't need a Twitter account to view these pages, just an Internet connection). 

• Medical Heritage Library
• College of Physicians of Philadelphia History of Medicine
• Harvard Center for the History of Medicine

Scarlet fever, plague, and diphtheria? Yes, they are still alive and well.

Last week my son came down with something. I didn't think much of it until late Friday night when a new symptom popped up. After an early morning visit to the doctor on Saturday, she confirmed that he has scarlet fever. 

I was so surprised and spent the weekend reading up on this disease that is still around, but has fallen out of the spotlight. Turns out there are a whole host of diseases that we might think are long gone, but they are still active all over the world and not just in third world countries. Here's a recent article from CNN Health: From the plague to polio ... 10 diseases you (wrongly) thought were gone.

Why Do We Have A Little Groove Under Our Nose?

You know how one reference question many times leads to another question? Well for me today one reference question led to an answer instead. I love it when that happens! 

While I was researching fetal alcohol syndrome characteristics for a caregiver, I ran across this really interesting chart showing "typical" facial features of individuals with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. One facial feature in particular, the philtrum, is given a lot of attention. 

Not too long ago someone told me my son looks like just me. They mentioned my eyes and pointed to my lips and said "That thing above your lip. His looks like that too." Neither of us could think of what the part of the face is called, so imagine my surprise when that earlier reference question led me just to the word I forgot I needed: philtrum.  

Why do we have a philtrum? Dr. David Moseley in this clip, explains “It is the place where the puzzle that is the human face finally all comes together". http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/why-do-we-have-little-groove-under-our-nose