Development and implementation of an LGBT initiative at a health sciences library: the first eighteen months

Background: The University of Louisville School of Medicine is the pilot site for the eQuality project, an initiative to integrate training for providing care to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) patients into the standard medical school curriculum. Inspired by and in support of this School of Medicine initiative, Kornhauser Health Sciences Library staff have developing our own initiative. Because of past and current lack of competent provider training and the resulting need for patients to be knowledgeable self-advocates, however, our initiative was broadened to include the goal of providing LGBT individuals in our communities—both on campus and in the broader public—with the resources and tools that they need to access information about their own health. Case Presentation: This paper describes the development of that twofold initiative and the tangible methods used in its implementation, including collection development, interdepartmental collaboration, electronic resource guide creation, and community engagement through outreach. Conclusions: Outcomes of the initiative to date will also be discussed, along with plans for further development

Offbeat Reference Requests: When to Say Yes and How to Say No

This essay explores the more unusual requests faculty and students make that are outside the normal scope of reference services. The author provides a list of considerations deciding to fulfill those requests and suggestions for refusing them

Publishing Partnership: Facilitating Open Access through Libraries Collaboration with Clinical Departments

When the University of Louisville Libraries launched the ThinkIR institutional repository on the bepress Digital Commons platform in 2015, we anticipated offering open access journal publishing several years in the future. However, the Division of Infectious Diseases’ eagerness to find a venue to facilitate the equitable movement of research and information into the larger global community resulted in a partnership beginning in 2016 to publish two open access journals on the platform, which then served as a model for other health sciences journals, including one from the Emergency Medicine Department. The benefits, including the opportunity to provide free open access to research on topics that became even more relevant as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and to increase the value of the Libraries to clinical departments, far outweighed the challenges of limited resources, learning curves, and managing expectations.This presentation will cover the importance of a memorandum of understanding between the Libraries and the health sciences departments in delineating roles and responsibilities and managing expectations; the Libraries’ tasks and consultations on author agreements, persistent identifiers, metadata, technical support, and indexing, as well as copy editing; and the challenges, goals, and impact of the journals themselves

An Update on the Leading COVID-19 Vaccines

We reviewed the COVID-19 vaccines that reached phase III of clinical development. For each of the 10 vaccines identified, we described the technology used for vaccine development, the available data from phase III clinical trials, data on vaccine safety, and the role of new SARS-CoV-2 variants on vaccine efficacy

Offbeat reference requests

This essay explores the more unusual requests faculty and students make that are outside the normal scope of reference services.  The author provides a list of considerations deciding to fulfill those requests and suggestions for refusing them

The Impact of COVID-19 on Healthcare Worker Wellness: A Scoping Review

At the heart of the unparalleled crisis of COVID-19, healthcare workers (HCWs) face several challenges treating patients with COVID-19: reducing the spread of infection; developing suitable short-term strategies; and formulating long-term plans. The psychological burden and overall wellness of HCWs has received heightened awareness in news and research publications. The purpose of this study was to provide a review on current publications measuring the effects of COVID-19 on wellness of healthcare providers to inform interventional strategies. Between April 6–May 17, 2020, we conducted systematic searches using combinations of these keywords and synonyms in conjunction with the controlled vocabulary of the database: “physician,” “wellness, “wellbeing,” “stress,” “burnout,” “COVID-19,” and “SARS-CoV-2.” We excluded articles without original data, research studies regarding the wellness of non-healthcare occupations or the general public exclusively, other outbreaks, or wellness as an epidemic. A total of 37 studies were included in this review. The review of literature revealed consistent reports of stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in HCWs as a result of COVID-19. We describe published data on HCW distress and burnout but urge future research on strategies to enhance HCW well-being

ACG Clinical Guideline: Gastroparesis.

Gastroparesis is characterized by symptoms suggesting retention of food in the stomach with objective evidence of delayed gastric emptying in the absence of mechanical obstruction in the gastric outflow. This condition is increasingly encountered in clinical practice. These guidelines summarize perspectives on the risk factors, diagnosis, and management of gastroparesis in adults (including dietary, pharmacological, device, and interventions directed at the pylorus), and they represent the official practice recommendations of the American College of Gastroenterology. The scientific evidence for these guidelines was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation process. When the evidence was not appropriate for Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation, we used expert consensus to develop key concept statements. These guidelines should be considered as preferred but are not the only approaches to these conditions