A health librarian at the cinema - Radioactive
Not at the cinema, really, but a DVD, but it was a feature film.The film is about the life and work of Marie Curie, and her work with Pierre Curie.Marie and Pierre, and Henri Becquerel, were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1903. The film has Pierre reporting that the Nobel Committee did not name Marie on the award. And that Pierre told them that if they did not name her, he would not accept the award. I don ' t know if those things were so. The film does have a scene where Pierre comes back from Stockholm, having accepted the award, and it is clear that Marie has not attended. R...
Source: Browsing - December 10, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Source Type: blogs
What's new in midwifery - 10th December 2020
Things you might want to know about...First, theindependent review into maternity services at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, which has actions for every hospital trust. Then, several pieces of research:An overview of systematic reviews on the benefits and risks of upright positions in the second stage of labour (International Journal of Nursing Studies) A systematic review on COVID-19 in pregnant women, including perinatal outcomes (Scientific Reports) A Cochrane Review comparing intravenous and intramuscular prophylactic oxytocin in the third stage of labour to reduce postpartum blood ...
Source: Browsing - December 10, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: midwifery Source Type: blogs
COVID-19: Vaccines
Last updated 5th December 2020, 1935 UK timeMedicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency - Coronavirus - VaccinesNHS - Coronavirus vaccinesEuropean Medicines Agency - COVID-19 vaccinesDepartment of Health and Social Care announcement of the approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccinePublic Health England ' sPublic Health Matters blogpost about the role of the MHRA and Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisations. Find the latest research with this PubMed search (Source: Browsing)
Source: Browsing - December 5, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: coronavirus COVID-19 NCOV Source Type: blogs
COVID-19: Long COVID
NICE, the RCGP and SIGN are developing guidance on the long term effects of COVID ( " long COVID " ). Resources and articles already publishedPublic Health EnglandRoyal College of General Practitioners response to the call for guidance (PDF), which includes tips for caring for patients.Article in Journal of the American Medical Association (October 2020, open access)Feature in theBritish Medical Journal (July 2020, open access) (Source: Browsing)
Source: Browsing - December 4, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: coronavirus COVID-19 NCOV Source Type: blogs
World AIDS Day - some reading
Today isWorld AIDS Day. Here are some relevant books and chapters. The University of Leicester Library has these as ebooks, your library might have too.ABC of HIV and AIDS / edited by Michael W. Adler, 2012 (this is the latest edition)AIDS: global status / Stephen Berger, 2015 (published by GIDEON, the infectious diseases database)AIDS between science and politics / Peter Piot and Laurence Garey, 2015. (Piot was founding director of the UN AIDS programme)Then there are chapters in larger textbooks:Oxford Textbook of Medicine, 2020Chapters 8.5.23 and 8.5.24 (8.5.24 discusses low and middle i...
Source: Browsing - December 1, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: AIDS HIV Source Type: blogs
Fictional patients as literature search examples
Not simulated patients used in exams, but fictional patients as literature search topics.I have used fictional patients for some years. I looked back to see if I have ever given them names, and can ' t find any evidence of that. That is good, as perhaps there is a danger the names would not be diverse. For the medical students who started in 2017, I had this:" Your patient is a five year old with head lice. Their parent asks if they should use an insecticide lotion to eradicate the lice. Will this work, and better than the alternatives? Are there any adver...
Source: Browsing - November 30, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: literature searching Source Type: blogs
Avian influenza (H5N8)
There are reminders in the news that other infectious diseases carry on, with reports of outbreaks of H5N8 avian influenza in wild birds and on farms.A few resources (more may follow):UK government advice on avian influenza, with updates on the latest situation.NHSA flu diary - blog kept by Michael Coston. There is a post from yesterday describing an outbreak in North Yorkshire, and one from the 11th November about other cases, so scan the posts. (Source: Browsing)
Source: Browsing - November 30, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: avian influenza H5N8 Source Type: blogs
Critical appraisal and gender or ethnicity bias
I do a session with students on a Fundamentals of applied health research module which includes a brief consideration of bias in studies. I inherited the session from a colleague and was familiar already with only some of the topics. I have gained confidence in teaching the others and this year felt the section on bias was beginning to make sense. That bit is certainly informed by work I am involved in about decolonisation and diversification. So this year I found myself wondering if the " standard " critical appraisal checklists ask if the study being appraised shows any bias in...
Source: Browsing - November 22, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Source Type: blogs
Football and dementia
A link between playing football and dementia was in the news again this week. Sir Geoff Hurst, member of course of the 1966 England team that won the World Cup, is giving interviews,reported in the Guardian. Four of that squad have died with dementia, and one other is living with it now. Jeff Astle, of West Bromwich Albion and England, had repeated heading of footballs recorded as a cause of his death (described by the coroner as an " industrial injury " ). Arecent retrospective cohort study conducted in Scotland compared former soccer players and controls. Death with neurodegen...
Source: Browsing - November 21, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: dementia football Source Type: blogs
What's new in midwifery - 18th November 2020
Some things you may want to know about. Apologies for the long gap since the last list. Maybe monthly is more realistic, or maybe I need to be more organised.First,COVID, a systematic review by three Ethiopian authors on The effect of coronavirus infection (SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV) during pregnancy and the possibility of vertical maternal-fetal transmission: a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the open access European Journal of Medical Research.The Guardian reports thatmothers are needlessly separated from their babies after birth, and has articles about pregn...
Source: Browsing - November 18, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: COVID-19 midwifery Source Type: blogs
Daniel Hale Williams
, born in 1858, has been credited with performing the first open heart operation.An article by W. Montague Cobb in the Journal of the National Medical Association in 1953 (1) records that Williams was famed as the first person to operate on the heart (rather than using the specific phrase " open heart surgery " ). Cobb relates that a planned biography of Williams found that there were earlier cases, and as a result that biography was not published. The heart operation performed by Williams was the suturing of a stab wound to the pericardium, published in 1897 (2). Another article in the same jo...
Source: Browsing - November 1, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: Black History Month medical history Source Type: blogs
Dr Jane Cooke Wright
I recommend Christie Watson ' s book about her experience of nursing, The language of kindness (1). There is a chapter about cancer nursing, which mixes Watson ' s experience of nursing cancer patients with her experience of her father living with cancer, and being nursed by a Marie Curie Nurse.In that chapter, Watson mentions Dr Jane Cooke Wright (1919-2013), clinical oncologist, who discovered the anticancer properties of methotrexate, and investigated anticancer agents in vitro. She was one of the founders of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which was started because the America Association fo...
Source: Browsing - November 1, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: Black History Month medical history Source Type: blogs
Gender and other bias
I teach a session to MRes students entitled " Synthesising research evidence " , looking at the process of doing a systematic review. As part of that we consider bias, both in finding evidence and in the individual pieces of evidence.So, when searching, there are issues around whether all studies are written up, and whether the " standard " databases are good at indexing journals published in Africa, South and Central America, and Asia (research I did for a poster at ICLC2019, the International Clinical Librarians ' Conference, indicates they are not, so we also look at alternative sources like Global Index Med...
Source: Browsing - October 24, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: critical appraisal Source Type: blogs
Dr James McCune Smith
James McCune Smith (1813-1865) was the first African American to gain a degree in medicine. He was unsuccessful in gaining a place at medical school in New York state, his home state, so his friends and benefactors paid for him to travel to Glasgow, so he gained a degree at the University of Glasgow. That university isbuilding a new learning hub and naming it after him.As well as being a physician, he was an abolitionist, working with Frederick Douglass, and made contributions to the fields of physiology and medical statistics. TheWikipedia page about him is a good starting point. I found t...
Source: Browsing - October 15, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: Black History Month medical history Source Type: blogs
What's new in midwifery - 15th October 2020
Language!First, a project designed to make us change the language we use when talking about people with Down ' s Syndrome,Language Creates Reality. It has produced some cards and other downloadable resources, and was featured on BBC Breakfast this morning (at 06.42). I think its principles apply to other areas too. So, not " a Down ' s baby " , but " a baby with Down ' s syndrome " . Not " suffering from " but " has " Down ' s Syndrome. And not " a normal baby " , but " a typical baby " . Note for University of Leicester members: I have made a clip in BoB which y...
Source: Browsing - October 15, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: midwifery Source Type: blogs
