MDMLG News

Programs and Professional Development – The following programs were presented this year:

• Successful Grant Writing
• Clinical Practice Guidelines
• Government Resources on the Internet
• DOCLINE and SERHOLD Training
• Community Resources for Seniors
• Consumer Health Information: Providing Health Information to the Public
• OVID Consortium Pricing

This has been a great year for our organization. We accomplished a lot and had fun too! It was a terrific opportunity to network, learn, and laugh. Thank you to all members of the Executive Board, Committee Chairs, and Committee Members for moving this organization forward. It has been a pleasure working with everyone!

Thank you again for a wonderful year!

Barbara Platts
President

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Where We Came From, Part 2

Last issue, we heard some of the stories about MDMLG members experiences before they became librarians and how those experiences influenced their librarianship. Now, more stories...

Gina Hug contributes: 
I’ve had several incarnations during my career in health care. It all started when I was a senior in high school and decided to pursue a degree in nursing. I had originally desired to major in English and go into teaching. I had done some tutoring with fellow students and knew that I liked helping others to learn. I graduated from high school in 1981 when teaching jobs in Michigan were few and far between. I was strongly encouraged by my parents and my counselor to pursue another career. I chose nursing because I wanted to be of service. Nurses also do a lot of teaching and it is a profession where you need to commit to lifelong learning. I had always known that I wanted to obtain a Master’s degree, maybe even a Ph.D. I’m not so sure about the Ph.D. any more.

I enrolled and was accepted at Mercy College of Detroit. I enjoyed Mercy but wasn’t so sure about my choice of nursing as a career. I gave nursing the old college try in medical-surgical nursing and obstetrics. I always tried to do my best and enjoyed the stimulation of working in a teaching and research hospital, but I often felt unfulfilled and burned out. I left floor nursing after 3 years.

Around this time I applied to the University of Michigan and was accepted. I decided against going because I wanted to make sure that I was making the right decision. Instead I was able to obtain a position at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in utilization review. I met a lot of other refugees from floor nursing at BCBSM including some people that I am still friends with. It’s always fun to tell war stories with fellow ex-floor nurses. I worked at BCBSM for several years. BCBSM had great benefits including a fabulous tuition reimbursement program.

I was a bit bored with reviewing charts and I always knew that I wanted to go continue with my education and commit to a career. I knew that this time I was sure about library school and was again accepted at the University of Michigan. I had a very supportive boss at BCBSM who allowed me to cut my hours to part-time. I was able to maintain my health care benefits and my tuition reimbursement. Going to U of M was one of the best decisions I ever made. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. Being there was like a feast for me, and I regret that I didn’t take better advantage of all the things there were to do and see on campus.

After graduation I obtained a term appointment as a librarian at the University of Michigan where I met my husband. Shortly after my term appointment ended, I obtained a position at Sladen Library. I have been here for a little over 6 years. I thoroughly enjoy working in such a research and education intensive environment. My career as a librarian has been interesting and challenging. I am glad that I can use my nursing and utilization review background. I have been very happy with my decision to go to library school.

Joyce Jewer wrote: 
I was fifteen when I landed my first full time job as an internal auditor and bookkeeper at Motor Products Corporation, Windsor, Ontario. The year was 1953 and I thought I would be at Motor Products forever. Well, I lasted five years and word came that Motor Products was going bankrupt. Those years at Motor Products taught me the value of filing accurately and how to look at data and authenticate figures. This was not a stimulating job.

In June 1958, I joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and after exhaustive examinations, I was assigned to the Medical Corps. It was here that I gained not only theory but practical knowledge in the medical field. I learned anatomy, nursing, how to do basic lab tests, basic x-rays, air evacuations and the like. It was here that I learned how to take orders and how to give orders. The experience I gained in the medical field assisted me in the field of medical librarianship. I can not tell you how many times I blessed my decision to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. The RCAF provided me with continuing education and it provided me with the opportunity to put my learning into practice.

While stationed in France, I met my husband for the second time in my career. The first time I met Winston was during basic training in St. Jean, Quebec. He went out west to Gimli, Manitoba, and I went down east to Greenwood, Nova Scotia. Five years later we met again in Marville, France. I left the military after getting married and eventually returned to Canada with my husband and daughter in October, 1965.

In 1965, I went to work as a cashier for Metropolitan General Hospital. What did I get out of this position? I learned how to balance books to the penny and as a manager of a library, I found this good training. To the day I left my position as manager of the Windsor Regional Hospital Health Sciences Library, I kept my own ledger and set of books. Finance never questioned the library budget figures.

In 1974, I went to work for I.O.D.E Hospital, which later became Windsor Western Hospital Center, then Windsor Regional Hospital – Western Campus.

I worked in the Emergency Department as the admitting clerk, then was promoted to the Director of Admitting in 1979. This was a training ground in customer service and guarding confidential information. I left Admitting and transferred to the Library and Health Records. The Library became the department I was really interested in and I managed to talk administration into letting me take over this area and release me from Health Records, which I really disliked. Health Records impressed the rule of confidentiality into my brain as well as the Admitting Department. It also taught me that Library work was far more challenging.

Once I got into the Library, I found out I knew the management aspects of running a department, but I knew nothing about libraries. It was Debbie Wisniewski/Sobczak and Carole Gilbert from Providence Hospital and Debbie Adams from Botsford Hospital who encouraged me to approach Wayne State University to attend classes in the library school program. The rest is history.

Thanks to Dr. Joe Mika and the staff of the library school, I maintained my position as manager of the Health Sciences Library at Windsor Regional Hospital. What did I learn? I can’t begin to tell you. I did make a lot of friends along the way and now I am retired, I learned to accept life for what it is. It is a learning experience. Being retired is like being a teenager, only with money! See what you have to look forward to!!

Marilyn Kostrzewski relays: 
From 4^th to 8^th grade, I was trained in library skills by a nun. In high school I worked in the library and belonged to the library club. In college, I worked in the academic/science library as my work study job. However, I never had any desire to become a librarian, but was always an avid library user. I knew I always wanted to be involved in medicine. In college, my concentration was Natural Sciences and I received my Bachelor of Science in Nursing. After some years of hospital nursing, I was a health educator for 15 years and also, continued to assist in my children’s school libraries. That original nun, from 4^th grade, was assigned to a hospital library and requested my assistance, as a volunteer. Unfortunately, she became terminally ill and I became her replacement. After a couple years, I then decided to pursue my MLIS, which I received in December, 2000.

Being a medical librarian allows me the opportunity to combine my 3 preferences: medicine, teaching and library work. My background is an advantage in understanding search requests and often, leading me in a related direction, that the subject, taken at face value, would not have initiated. My early training, also, has conditioned me in paying attention to detail and doggedly pursuing a conclusion or source. Finally, by being a part of the faculty in a teaching institution, I must stay current on medical trends both clinical and research oriented. Almost daily I am a teacher and/or a librarian/researcher, fully entrenched in the world of medicine.

Karin Werner added: 
I studied English and German in Germany and received my Bachelor’s Degree in 1985. After getting married and moving to the U.S., I got my first job at the Macomb Community College Library as a Library Assistant (without any library experience. Fortunately, my supervisor was willing to hire me anyway, of course for minimum wage!) I worked there for 3 years in various departments (circulation, cataloging, periodicals). I learned a lot in this job. I then decided that since I really enjoyed working in the Library, why not get my MSLS. While attending WSU, I continued working part time at Macomb Community College. In addition, I did a one semester internship at the Children’s Hospital Library. Two months before graduation, I landed my first professional job at a law firm (Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone) It was definitely a great benefit to have worked as a library assistant and thereby learning all the different aspects of library work before starting Library School. The internship at Children’s Hospital (unpaid of course), was also very helpful. I got my first Medical Librarian job because of this internship.

And finally, from Carol Vandenberg: 
Most recently, I was a data manager in the department of biostatistics and research epidemiology. (I set up databases and simple programs for studies). I’ve also been in administration in health care education. That involved a variety of Public Relations tasks among other things. I worked for a market research firm and I’ve worked in various capacities in libraries, including heading up a medical educational audio-visual center.

Everyone’s stories were very interesting and enlightening and I thank all of the contributors. We certainly have a wide range of different backgrounds, all leading us to the same career choice!

Diane M. O’Keefe
Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital

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MDMLG Participates in Cancer Walk

Etymology tells us that Greek syn and ergos mean "together working". In Biology, synergy refers to the relationship between agents whose combined physiological clout outweighs the sum of their individual hits. Surely, the Race for the Cure was One Big Clout for the search for the cure for Breast Cancer.

As 29,000 marchers joined together to draw attention to the Race for the cure, it must have made Heaven sit up and pay attention and Jeannie Brennan most of all.

We marched as her team, Jeannie’s Pals/MDMLG, along with the rest of the Breast Cancer supporters and with the survivors of Breast Cancer in the tenth annual Susan G. Komen Detroit Race for the Cure. It was a new venue.  We’d gotten too big for the old site, and the Race was moved to Comerica Park.

Traffic was a concern, parking was a concern, the weather forecast was the Concern of the Day. The traffic seemed to be very light, not much else goes on in downtown Detroit on a Saturday morning at 8AM. The parking was a challenge but we all did park somewhere! And the weather held off on the really BIG downpour until the Race was finished.

We had music, we had lots of free food, and we had fellowship. If you were a "walker", you missed the "others",...the runners. They left on time and by the time they got to the finish line, it wasn’t! Too much rain and too many people obliterated the finish line. You had to keep track of your own time. They had clocks posted on both sides of where the finish line was supposed to be!

The MDMLG team was distinguished by our homemade and beautiful signs done by Andrea, Audrey, Barb, Carol, Jill and Misa and carried by the members.  The signs were heavy and awkward to hold up in the wind and the rain. Our stalwart group stayed together and made a fine showing as they passed the reviewing stand.

In our minds, we were all willing the rain to go away. But in our hearts, it was the cloud of Breast Cancer that we were trying to clear up. And after raising $905 dollars, we may have just done it!

Here are some photos taken during the Race For The Cure.  

Gay Byrnes
Providence Hospital

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Unique Library Collection

Misa Mi, librarian at the Medical Library in Children's Hospital of Michigan, has applied for and has been awarded the February Cycle HLS/MLA Professional Development Grant. The grant provides her with funds to take a 2 1/2 day ColdFusion course at the School of Information at the University of Michigan in summer. ColdFusion will provide one solution to the problem faced in organizing and managing the Medical Library's digital collection of patient education materials by helping to make the library Intranet web site searchable and data-rich.