Andrea Kenyon

I am delighted to tell you about some exciting opportunities for Chapter member involvement and professional growth. Participating in Chapter activities give members the chance to develop and hone library and leadership skills in a supportive environment.

Committee participation is an excellent way to get involved. We would like to engage more members in helping our new Website Chair, Ene Belleh, enhance the Chapter’s webpages. Have ideas for Chapter programs or continuing education? Do you enjoy planning and organizing events? The Program and Continuing Education Committee Chairs would welcome your assistance. Fundraising and membership cultivation are other areas of Chapter involvement that would benefit the Chapter and provide you with valuable development experience. These are just a few examples of rewarding ways to benefit from Chapter membership.

Another way to get involved is through conference planning. I am pleased to announce that our Chapter will be participating in a joint library health information conference with three other MLA chapters to be held in Baltimore, Maryland in the fall of 2012. Conference participation offers our Chapter members a chance to gain experience submitting posters, serving as presenters and moderators and networking with a larger group of health information professionals. Priscilla Stephenson, Chief of Library Service at the VA, has agreed to serve as the Philadelphia Regional Chapter’s representative to the conference planning team. This is a huge undertaking and many volunteers are needed to help plan and implement the conference. With your help we have every expectation that this conference will be a valuable opportunity for networking, collaboration and professional education. Please contact Priscilla and let her know how you might help with the conference.

I want to personally invite each of you to attend the Philadelphia Regional Chapter’s 60th Annual Meeting and Reception on April 6 at Pennsylvania Hospital, starting at 4 p.m. Program Chair Gary Kaplan has invited a speaker to describe The Public Health Management Corporation’s Community Health Database. The Public Health Management Corporation is a leading nonprofit provider of public health resources. The evening promises to be a very special one in a beautiful, historic setting.

In the last Chronicle, I sought your feedback about the Chapter–what you value as a member and the direction you feel the Chapter needs to go in order to help you on your career path. Questions include: How can we engage you in Chapter activities? How can we engage members outside of Philadelphia? Should we merge with another Chapter? I was hoping to initiate a dialogue. So far I have not been overwhelmed with responses. Please take a moment to reflect on what the Chapter means to you and send me an email at alkenyon@verizon.net

Wishing you a productive and happy spring!

Andrea

The Chapter is soliciting gently used professional clothing and accessories for Dress for Success Philadelphia, which helps disadvantaged women in the Philadelphia region gain employment by providing professional attire. In addition, the organization offers a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. Each Dress for Success client receives one suit when she has a job interview and can return for a second suit or separates when she finds work. Dress for Success Philadelphia opened its doors on July 1, 2008, and in a very short time has become the second largest suiting program in the world, suiting more than 6,000 low income women who are trying to emerge from poverty.

In this tough economy finding a job can be a very tedious, time consuming process. Even dressing your best for job interview can be expensive, but that’s where Dress for Success comes in. Just by cleaning out your closet, you can help someone land their dream job. Clothing includes interview and work-appropriate separates, including blazers, jackets, shirts, pants and skirts. Professional shoes, jewelry, scarves, handbags, and briefcases are also needed. Please bring your clothing to the Annual Meeting on April 6. A clothing drop-off will be set up near the registration table. If you have questions, please contact Andrea Kenyon, who is coordinating the clothing drive, at alkenyon@verizon.net. To learn more about Dress for Success visit http://www.dressforsuccess.org/affiliate.aspx?pageid=1&sisid=169.

Anne Seymour

As the MLA-Phil representative to Chapter Council, I’d like to encourage all MLA ’11 attendees to sign up for the Roundtables event, to be held Sunday, May 15 from noon til 2 p.m. It is one of the best networking and information sharing opportunities at MLA. I’ve participated almost every year I’ve attended the Annual Conference and each time I learn something new and meet new colleagues. There are lots of topics to chose from (see the list below) – if anything, it’s difficult to choose just one!

For those interested in serving MLA further, the Roundtables Committee is seeking volunteers to serve as Facilitators and Recorders for the event. Although experience in a topic is not necessary, enthusiasm is! So if you are passionate about a topic and would like to share that enthusiasm with others, please consider volunteering. Duties for facilitators include initiating discussion and encouraging participation. Duties for recorders include documenting the discussion for posting on the Chapter Council website. Facilitators and recorders earn one AHIP point for completing these activities.

If you are interested in volunteering, please email Angela Dixon at angela_dixon@urmc.rochester.edu.

TOPICS FOR 2011 ROUNDTABLES (Annotations linked from http://www.chaptercouncil.mlanet.org/roundtables/index.html):

1 – Assessment

2 – Career and Leadership Development

3 – Copyright Issues

4 – E-Books

5 – Embedded Librarians

6 – Electronic Medical Records – Role of the Library

7 – Evidence Based Nursing

8 – Expert Searching

9 – Health Literacy

10 – How to Stay Current with New Technologies

11 – Influencing Decision Makers

12 – Instruction Techniques

13 – Integrating You or the Library Into the Curriculum

14 – Issues in Hospital Librarianship

15 – Liaisons Stepping Out of the Library

16 – Literature Searching to Support Systematic Reviews

17 – Marketing Library Services

18 – Measuring Success/ROI/Showing the Value of Your Library

19 – Mobile Technologies for Medical Libraries

20 – New and Emerging Roles for Medical Librarians

21 – New Librarians Unite

22 – Research for Librarians

23 – Social Networking for Medical Libraries

24 – Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine

25 – Technical Services in Medical Libraries

Anne K. Seymour
Chapter Council Representative, 2008-2011

The Survey

The survey is an updated version of the Rochester study. [See: "The impact of the hospital library on clinical decision making: the Rochester study.” Bull Med Libr Assoc. 1992 Apr;80(2):169-78. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC225641/?tool=pubmed] It is designed to account for changes in healthcare and technology, including the more independent nature of clinician searching. Members of the Planning Committee developed the online survey component using the same “critical incident” technique employed in the Rochester study. Respondents are asked to think of one recent occasion when they needed information related to patient care. They then answer a series of questions based on that specific occasion. The survey captures the type of information needed, resources used, how the resources were accessed, where the search was conducted, whether the needed information was found and, if so, which resources contained the needed information. The survey also captures the impact the information had on patient care, such as choice of diagnostic test, choice of medications, or advice given to the patient. The survey also asks whether any adverse effects—hospital admission/readmission, surgery, language or cultural misunderstandings, or hospital acquired infections—were avoided as a result of the acquired information.

The consultant research team, from the University of North Carolina (UNC), includes Joanne Marshall, one of the original authors of the Rochester study. This team worked with programmers from a private survey company to transform the survey designed by the Planning Committee into an online instrument. They also assisted in the development of the Facilitator Handbook, including sections on IRB approval with a blanket statement of approval from the UNC IRB. This team is charged with analyzing the data and writing reports for both the overall study results and institution-specific results. The goal is to make the overall results available on the Web and individual reports available to each institution.

Pilot Testing

In order to validate the study design and the methodology, the online survey was pilot- tested by seven institutions in the late summer of 2010. Based on those results, adjustments were made to both the survey and the registration process. A poster describing the design and the full results of the pilot testing will be presented at the MLA Annual Meeting in Minneapolis.

Full Launch

The full launch of the online survey is planned for March 2011. Participating institutions receive a Facilitator Handbook, a Quick Guide of important procedures and dates, and a survey URL specific to their institution. The Facilitator Handbook provides a comprehensive level of detail such as information on how to obtain IRB approval, sample wording of the invitation email, sample wording of the institutional champion email, and sample flyers for advertising the survey. Survey sites are required to recruit an institutional champion; obtain local IRB approval or exemption; gain access to internal email lists in order to send an invitation email containing the link to the survey; publicize the survey at their institution; and send out email reminders. The ‘”institutional champion” should be a high-level administrator who will support the study and give it legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of the populations being surveyed. The main role of the champion is to send out an email alerting the target population that an important message about the survey will be coming to their email. In the carefully outlined methodology, the institutional champion’s responsibility is to send this email out just a few days before the librarian sends the invitation email with the link to the survey. The champion must provide his/her name and a quote to be used in emails and must encourage department or division heads to ask physicians and nurses to complete the survey. Suggested institutional champions would be the hospital or medical CEO, COO, CNO or CFO; a Vice President, Dean or Chancellor. It is expected that using an institutional champion will encourage participation and increase the response rate.

Participating Sites

The enrolled sites include institutions from the Middle Atlantic, Southeastern Atlantic, Greater Midwest, Midcontinental, South Central, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Southwest, New England and Canada regions. More than half of the institutions enrolled report the number of health professionals they serve as more than 2000. Hospitals served by participating libraries range in size from less than 100 beds to more than 499 beds. Sites include both institutions which are members of the Council of Teaching Hospitals and those which are not. The majority of the institutions are located in an urban setting. The full study is expected to include up to 65 hospitals.

The Value of Libraries and Information Services in Patient Care study has been funded in part with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. NO1-LM-6-3501 with the New York University School of Medicine. Additional support is provided by the Hospital Library Section of the Medical Library Association (MLA), the NY/NJ Chapter of MLA, the Philadelphia Chapter of MLA, the Upstate New York and Ontario Chapter of MLA, the New York State Reference and Research Library Resources Councils, and the Donald Lindberg Research Fellowship from MLA. The study planning team is comprised of Julia Sollenberger, University of Rochester Medical Center; Joanne Gard Marshall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Sharon Easterby-Gannett, Christiana Care Health System; Mary Lou Klem, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; Lynn Kasner Morgan, Mount Sinai Medical Center; Kathleen (Kate) Burr Oliver, NN/LM MAR; Karen Brewer, New York University; Susan Cavanaugh, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; Kathel Dunn, Consultant, Private; Sue Hunter, NN/LM MAR; and Neil Romanosky, NN/LM MAR. The research team at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is comprised of Joanne Gard Marshall, Jennifer Craft Morgan, Cheryl A. Thompson and Amber Wells.

Susan K. Cavanaugh, MS, MPH
Planning Committee
Value of Library and Information Services in Patient Care Study
and Reference Librarian
UMDNJ Camden Campus Library
Cooper University Hospital
Camden, NJ
Cavanaugh-Susan@cooperhealth.edu

Calvin Wang

MLA-Phil librarians experienced a unique look into a unique exhibit now on view at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). Anatomy/Academy is a look at the collaboration between Philadelphia’s medical and art communities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. <http://www.pafa.org/Museum/Exhibitions/Currently-On-View/Anatomy-Academy/679/

Allow me to forewarn, dear reader, that in the days before my MSLIS degree from Drexel, I used an MAMS to pay my bills. (Yes, enough letters to make a decent alphabet soup.) That Master of Associated Medical Sciences degree (now an MS) from the University of Illinois at Chicago was in medical art. My emphasis was medical sculpting, which I used for ten years in the field of applied materials. More details about that career path will have to come in person over a pint of Guinness. (Permit me also to add proudly that my mother studied at PAFA in 1958 and ’59.)

Our good fortune on having this event on the spring calendar (thanks, Gary Kaplan and Nina Long for the idea) was enhanced by having MLA-Phil member Sue Couch as our docent. Our tour took place on a bright and mild Thursday afternoon, February 24, with an unexpectedly large turnout of 26 intrepids. The pairing with Sue was serendipitous. She must have jumped at the opportunity the moment she learned of the impending visit. Among those in attendance were Michael Angelo, Thomas Jefferson University; and Nina Long, Wistar Institute, whom the show’s curators consulted at some length to borrow works owned by their institutions for inclusion.

Our tour took place in the Fisher Brooks Gallery of the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building. Sue led us through the exhibit chronologically, beginning with the early 1800s room and the earliest years of PAFA. William Rush and a host of other artists founded PAFA in Philadelphia in 1805. The focus of the first room we visted is a plaster replica (1890-1900) of l’Écorché (Flayed Man), by P.P. Caproni, based on the original, created in 1767 by Jean Antoine Houdon. An écorché is a representation of the human figure stripped of skin to highlight its musculature. <http://www.pafa.org/Museum/Exhibitions/Currently-On-View/Anatomy-Academy/Image-Gallery/Image-Gallery/874/vobId__6661/> Flanking l’Écorché are charcoal sketches of the human body by Charles Schussele, a teacher of Thomas Eakins, and terra cotta busts by William Rush.

The Late 1800s

The late 1800s room showcases the sensational Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (commonly known as The Gross Clinic), completed in 1875. Gross was a celebrated physician at Jefferson Medical College (now part of Thomas Jefferson University), which owned the portrait until 2006 when it attempted to sell it to the National Gallery of Art to raise money. Apprehension about losing the painting generated an effort to out-purchase the National Gallery with donations from thousands of local donors that resulted in PAFA and the Philadelphia Museum of Art obtaining collective ownership. The painting portrays Gross explaining the surgical removal of an osteomyeloma from the patient’s left femur to a gallery of medical students. Sue directed our attention to numerous elements of the painting, including the presence of Eakins himself in the operating room gallery and the accurately depicted six-fingered figure of the patient’s relative recoiling from the vivid horror of the operation. <http://www.jefferson.edu/eakins/grossclinic.cfm>

In this room also were grisailles, gray-toned paintings, of gender-segregated figure painting classes taking place at PAFA; plaster casts of a dissected male body painted to match the original, over-sized wood carvings of anatomical features of the body used for auditorium teaching, paper maché anatomical models, a human heart preserved by the injection of wax, and even a pillow sham embroidered with anatomical subject matter by PAFA students.

The tremendous variety of artistic media represented in this room and throughout the exhibition did not fail to catch my attention. One would expect to find pencil, paint, photographic media, and plaster. Unexpected were terra cotta, wood, paper maché, and cotton. I was pleased to see wax models on loan from the Mütter Museum. Because of its translucency and workability, wax was often used to make anatomical models in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with a shocking degree of realism. For those enamored of the morbid, the wax models of the La Specola museum in Italy are, or should be, recommended viewing. Anatomy/Academy also includes a model of the lymphatic system of the neck that highlights the vessels and nodes of the body’s drainage system in spidery detail.

The Early 20th Century

The last section of the exhibit is the early twentieth century. Here we viewed Marcel Duchamps’ Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912, whose cubist treatment drew derision from the public and critics of the day, who were much more accustomed to realism. Other paintings and photographic works look at the human body with varying degrees of attention to anatomy.

Outside the Fisher Brook Gallery are more contemporary looks at the human body. One work took the form of a photographic triptych by the art collective TODT: “…medical technology can easily cross the line of ethical practice and become an instrument that violates the body.” Another was an assemblage of fabric in bottles—vaguely resembling wet specimens of organs—wired together with a score of ½-sized plastic skeletons.

For my educational background, I found the exhibit ultimately unsatisfying. Perhaps I should have considered that PAFA does not have either a medical art or a scientific illustration program. It is called Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, after all. Even with that shortsightedness in mind, the combination of anatomical studies with works of fine art still struck me as being an opportunity to thread together works with an otherwise modest connection. The work is still beautiful, the variety immense. The Gross Clinic is masterful, Nude Descending a Staircase provocative. Go yourself and pass your own judgment. The exhibit began January 17 and runs until April 29. Admission is $15.

In closing, I’ll remark that I walked through the exhibition with an eye out for the philosophical connection of medical librarianship to anatomical art. I experienced no epiphanies until the conclusion of our tour when I joined a conversation with member Peg Fallis and Penn Biomedical Library intern Gerard Regan. I confirmed to them what Nina shared about a medical artist acquaintance testifying to the broad variety of courses she had to take as a student. “It’s not different from librarians taking courses in cataloging and classification when they could end up in reference services,” interjected I. Nor is it different from art students taking coursework in the gamut of artistic media. On the one hand, you don’t know what will interest you until you’ve received some exposure to it. On the other, what you learn in divergent courses of study can not fail to speak to whatever you ultimately end up doing. Dissect that during your own tour of Anatomy/Academy.

Calvin Wang
Sciences Librarian, Landman Library
and Adjunct Professor, School Library Certification Program
Arcadia University, Glenside, PA
wangc@arcadia.edu