What is this GDPR thing I keep hearing about? (from NNLM's Dragonfly blog)

You've probably heard a bit about the GDPR, or at least have seen that acronym on a website recently. If you need to brush up on it, a recent NNLM Dragonfly blog gives a nice overview of this new regulation. 

https://news.nnlm.gov/pnr/data-flash-what-is-this-gdpr-thing-i-keep-hearing-about/

A glimpse into New York Public Library's staff apartments

Today we'll detour from the world of health science librarianship to visit a piece of library history...the "secret" apartments once reserved for staff of the New York Public Library. 

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/inside-the-new-york-public-librarys-last-secret-apartments

That story goes hand-in-hand with this one about Ronald Clark and his family, who lived in one of NYPL's branches. Wouldn't that be cool! 

Graphene - coming to a human heart near you

Graphene, a carbon-based material discovered in 2010, is showing up in the world of biomedicine. 

• "Eight years later, the jury is still out on whether graphene will be part of every smartphone and gadget of the future, but scientists are finding graphene to be an extremely powerful tool in the biomedical laboratory. In a study out this week in the journal Science Advances, scientists used graphene’s electrical properties to stimulate lab grown heart cells that could be used in patients after they’ve had a heart attack."

Listen here: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/mending-human-hearts-with-help-from-graphene/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graphene-3D-balls.png

It's still gross week! Why do we pass gas?

Enough said. 

Awards and Grants Available from the Midwest Chapter/MLA

Awards and Grants Available from the Midwest Chapter/MLA

Did you know only a very few people ever nominate their deserving colleagues for professional awards? Did you know that only a very few people ever apply for awards, scholarships and grants? Be a change agent. Year 2018 is the year to give the Midwest Chapter’s Awards and Scholarships Committee plenty of applications and nominations to evaluate. The committee members for this year (Abigail Goben, Matt Hoy, Anna Beth Morgan, Merle Rosenzweig and Eileen Severson) want to receive a large batch of nominations for awards and applications for grants. Change the status quo - Put the committee to work - Apply for grants and nominate colleagues for awards.

For 2018, the following Midwest Chapter awards and grants will be available:

• Annual Meeting Grant
• First-Time Attendee Annual Meeting Grant
• Student Annual Meeting Grant
• Distinguished Librarian of the Year Award
• Jean Williams Sayre Innovation Award

For more information about each award and grant, please visit the chapter’s Awards page to learn more and submit nominations for awards and applications for grants. If you need further assistance, please contact Anna Beth Morgan at morgan.annabeth@mayo.edu.

Eileen Severson, MLIS

Supervisor, Library and Patient Education Services

Gundersen Health System

1900 South Ave. H01-011 La Crosse, WI 54601

Phone:  (608) 775-5546  Fax:  (608)775-6343 Email:easevers@gundersenhealth.org

It's gross week! What causes constipation?

It's Gross Week on the WHSLA blog! Why? Why not. 

I got a chuckle out of seeing a reference to the Bristol stool chart in this TED-Ed video on constipation. The Physician Assistant program at Marquette had a color print out of this in all student-accessible bathrooms. Just goes to show that learning can take place anytime and anywhere! 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bristol_stool_chart.svg#/media/File:Bristol_stool_chart.svg

Probiotics for preemies - a good fit, or risky undertaking?

Probiotics are something of a craze right now. Like you, I've done my fair share of literature searches on this topic, but there is still some controversy about the evidence, effectiveness, and lack of harm associated with probiotics. I ran across this article from NOVA Next recently; it gave me lots to think about. 

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Can Probiotics Prevent Deadly Infections in Preemies?

By Cassandra Willyard on Wed, 02 May 2018

"Humans need about 40 weeks in the womb to fully develop. MaKenzie Trice, however, took an early exit. Her mom’s water broke at 20 weeks, and by 27 weeks MaKenzie’s head was so far down in her mother’s pelvis, doctors struggled to get a good ultrasound image. When MaKenzie came bursting into the world at 28 weeks and four days, she was tiny—no bigger than an eggplant. Her skin was paper-thin, and she needed a ventilator to breathe.

Today, MaKenzie is nearly two months old. She still needs help breathing, and she still weighs far less than a typical newborn. Like other babies in the neonatal intensive care unit at the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital, she receives a daily cocktail of helpful bacteria, or probiotics. MaKenzie, dressed in a striped sleeper with bright red feet designed to look like strawberries, is about to get today’s dose. A nurse hooks up a syringe full of milky liquid to MaKenzie’s feeding tube and pushes the plunger, jettisoning billions of live bacteria into her stomach. " Read rest of article at NOVA Next

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/probiotics-for-preemies/

MEDLINE Transpose - a tool to translate your query from OVID Medline to PubMed

JMLA had a recent article (p.415-416) on MEDLINE Transpose, a free tool to translate OVID Medline queries to PubMed.It is perfect? No. Is it good enough? Probably. 

Amanda Wanner and Niki Baumann write...

"Some applications of MEDLINE Transpose include:

• more accurate and efficient way of searching both PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE for a systematic review
• ability to capitalize on the strengths of both databases during day-to-day use, such as quickly converting a draft search string into Ovid syntax to use the adjacency operator or into PubMed syntax to use a pharmacological action concept
• ability to use another person’s or institution’s premade search strategy in the alternate interface; for instance, a search hedge

There are limitations to the translation abilities of MEDLINE Transpose. Most prominently, not all searches have an exact translation, and in these cases, the program can suggest alternatives but cannot create database functionalities that do not currently exist. The program also relies on user input that is formatted correctly. Because MEDLINE Transpose looks for patterns, rather than reading and understanding the input content, it cannot identify spelling mistakes, retired MeSH, or incorrectly formed syntax (although some error corrections have been incorporated into the program)."

See what you think: https://medlinetranspose.github.io/. 

J. Marion Sims: the "father" of gynecology's statue is removed from Central Park

We all know the history of surgical innovation is not a pretty one. With all the blessings and benefits of this type of treatment there are thousands of stories of little or no anesthesia, dirty instruments, and overeager scalpel wielders. 

I recently heard about the removal of a surgeon's statue, a 19th century "pioneering" gynecologist, from Central Park. I wasn't familiar with J. Marion Sims until a few weeks ago. His invention of the vaginal speculum and surgical repair for fistula came after a series of experimental surgeries on non-anesthetized enslaved women. Anarcha, a 17-year-old, was operated on by Sims thirty times. 

Read the story and watch the video from Vox: New York just removed a statue of a surgeon who experimented on enslaved women. 

A 2006 Journal of Medical Ethics article gives another view of Sims patients and suggests they were willing participants when no other treatment was available: The medical ethics of Dr J Marion Sims: a fresh look at the historical record.

Hidden Brain podcast - a pioneering surgeon maximizes his "hedgehog" tendencies

I had been meaning to share a podcast from "Hidden Brain" a series from NPR's Shankar Vedantam for a while now. This morning's drive reminded to do that. I hope you enjoy this episode on how our brains are playing out the fox and the hedgehog!

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APRIL 30, 2018

The Fox and the Hedgehog

The Greek poet Archilochus wrote that "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." This week, we'll use the metaphor of the fox and the hedgehog as a way to understand the differences between tacticians and big-picture thinkers. We'll explore the story of a pioneering surgeon whose hedgehog tendencies led him to great triumphs, and a heartbreaking tragedy. This episode first aired in May 2017.