WHSLA Spotlight - Jennifer Deal at Aurora West Allis Medical Center in West Allis, WI

This month's Spotlight highlights our brand-new WHSLA President, Jennifer Deal. 

Jennifer Deal is a Librarian at Aurora West Allis Medical Center which is part of Aurora Health Care. She has been the librarian at Aurora West Allis Medical Center since 2015. Before that, she served as the librarian at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton for two years.

Her main responsibilities include literature searches, managing Aurora Health Care’s institutional repository, collection development, teaching caregivers how to use the library’s resources, and administration of the hospital’s intranet site.

Jennifer has a BA in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MLIS from UW-Milwaukee as well as an MA in History from UW-Milwaukee (both 2013). She had planned on working in archives but a fieldwork opportunity at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in 2012 changed that. She loves working in the fast-paced world of health care and knowing that the information she provides to both providers and patient/community members leads to better care and outcomes. It also doesn’t hurt that she works with a fantastic group of people that are very focused on providing amazing service.

Jennifer lives in Milwaukee with her husband, two year old daughter, and two cats. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family, hiking, cooking, reading, and knitting.

Yale MeSH Analyzer - a tool to compare up to 20 PMIDs at once

I stumbled across the Cushing Library's Yale MeSH analyzer yesterday. It's a great tool for comparing commons fields in up to 20 PMID articles at once: http://mesh.med.yale.edu/. Watch a video of it in action here.

Have you ever been asked to create a search strategy to fit in pre-specified articles? Or just trying to identify more MeSH terms or keywords based on a few articles you already have? This tool is a breeze to use and has lots of potential applications. 

Looking for dissertation and thesis motivation? Try Pinterest.

Pinterest, Pinterest, Pinterest. What's not to love about a social site that let's you "pin" and share images from any website and organize them by boards? I know I use it for pining recipes, parenting articles, clothes, inspiring quotes, along other things, but I never thought to see it as a tool to help nurses writing a dissertation. 

Last week I had a one-on-one consult with a nurse who is beginning to write her dissertation. She mentioned to me that Pinterest gave her lots of ideas for organizing, writing, and staying motivated during the dissertation process.  

A quick search for dissertation motivation brought up dozens, upon dozens of articles, blog posts, dissertation "hacks", and other helpful resources. There was even a Ryan Gosling meme about it! So next time you know of someone need a little dissertation or thesis reassurance and help, why not recommend Pinterest?

Knowing our nurses - how do they find what they need?

Whether we're in a hospital, clinic, or academic setting, nurses are one of our big user groups. But how well do we know what they're looking for and how they find information? Check out this 4-minute video from EBSCO.  

Thanks to Michele Matucheski for sharing this video. 

Know Your Nurses from EBSCO on Vimeo.

NCLEX practice exams - free and online via Badgerlink's Learning Express Library (MARQ records available for your online catalog)

The Badgerlink funded Learning Express Library's Career Center has a wealth of resources for health science libraries. Did you know you can download MARQ records and include this resource in your catalog? 

As you probably know Badgerlink is funded by the WI Department of Instruction. Thus, users need to be physically located in the state of WI, or use their WI public library card number for access. 

Here are the health science related entrance and career exams you can find. For more info about MARQ records, scroll to the bottom of this page: http://www.learningexpresshub.com/librarian-resources/library-resources. 

Entrance exams: 

• Health Careers entry tests in biology, chemistry, math, reading, verbal
• Nursing School practice entrance tests include questions students might encounter when taking RNSAE, APNE, NET, HESI, and TEAS.

Occupation exams:

• Allied Health: Medical Asssting, Pharmacy Technician, Physician Assisting, Radiologic Tech, Surgical Tech
• EMS: EMT and Paramedic 
• Nursing: NCLEX-RN, Nurse Aide

Memes, more memes, and a Ryan Gosling public health meme, too

Ah memes, who doesn't love them? If you haven't heard of them before, or don't know just what the fuss is about, let WHSLA help you navigate the meme waters. Yes they're fun and flippant, but they're also a way to connect with people and make them laugh/think/cry. Welcome to Memes 101.

What is a meme? Google tells me it is "a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users."

Where can I find memes? Google "meme" plus anything else: diabetes memes, exercise memes, depresssion memes, cancer memes, Ryan Gosling memes (of which there are a ton and they're all good!). 

How do I create a meme? Try a meme generator like Imgflip (https://imgflip.com/) and Meme Generator (https://memegenerator.net/). 

Where are all the Ryan Gosling memes? I'm so glad you asked. Here you go! 

Created with Imgflip (https://imgflip.com/) 

  

Zorba Paster - "Call your hospital librarian"

Zorba Paster, you (hopefully) know him as the Madison doctor with a national radio show and a passion for all things healthy. But did you know he also loves medical librarians? True! Here's the low-down from Leslie Christensen [Manager, Medical Library; SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital, Madison]. 

• "Dr. Zorba Paster had a nice shout out to hospital librarians (and our library specifically) on his weekly radio show this last week. I thought maybe WHSLA members might be interested in listening to the segment. It is available through iTunes or the following website: http://www.wpr.org/listen/1035296  If people don’t want to listen to the whole show, they can go to the 18:28 mark--that’s where he starts talking about how awesome librarians are!"

Thanks, Leslie for sharing this with WHSLA. I've always thought Zorba Paster was a cool guy, now I know he's really cool (and well informed)!

Unmentionable - can I mention cesspools, Victorian undergarments, and thunder mugs here?

I ran across Unmentionable: the Victorian lady's guide to sex, marriage, and manners on some "best of 2016" list a while back. I started reading it last night and couldn't put it down. It's a funny and witty look at all those "unmentionable" things from the Victorian era: sanitation, corsets, undergarments, venereal disease, and so much more. If you like history, fantasizing about being Elizabeth Bennett, or anything funny this book is for you. I would recommend it for any hospital, academic, or public library. But as Levar Burton used to say, "Don't just take my word for it". Here is a book review from NPR. 

Here is a little taste from author Therese ONeill: "Have you ever wished you could live in an earlier, more romantic era? Ladies, welcome to the 19th century, where there's arsenic in your face cream, a pot of cold pee sits under your bed, and all of your underwear is crotchless. (Why? Shush, dear. A lady doesn't question.)"

Oh, and if you're wondering what a thunder mug is you'll just have to read the book.