Recently published evidence updates

The following Evidence Updates have been published this month, detailing the latest evidence and literature.

Breast Cancer
Cardiac Surgery
Colorectal Surgery
Corporate Nursing
Emergency Medicine
Family Planning
Infection Control
Musculoskeletal
Neonatal
Older People's Health
Palliative Care
Respiratory

UHL Clinical Librarian, Sarah Sutton, is interested in hearing other views on the issue of using 'NOT' and posed the following question:  

Dear All

I am searching in Ovid as I expect to find thousands of results and this is my search to exclude purely children studies, line 53 is the results of my topic search and I am trying to limit to adult studies only. I realise this will mean I am limiting my results to articles tagged as being about adults.

Can you all think of any other reason  I shouldn’t do it?

Best wishes

Sarah

54	exp Child/	1555371	Advanced
	55	exp Adult/	5628420	Advanced
	56	54 not (54 and 55)	972652	Advanced
	57	53 not 56	12997	Advanced

Thanks to Judy Wright for her incredibly helpful response below:

Dear Sarah,

I do a very similar search when trying to limit results to adults.  I think the safest way is to remove the purely child studies as you have done. The exploded Child MeSH includes the heading ‘Child, Preschool’ but doesn’t include Adolescent/ or Infant/ MeSH headings. If you want to include these age groups in your child search you could do the following

1         [result of topic search]

2         (exp Child/ OR Adolescent/ OR exp Infant/) NOT exp Adult/))

3         1 NOT 2

This would retrieve the topic search but with any purely child or infant or adolescent studies removed.

This assumes the indexing is 100% accurate for those records that have a child heading attached. I guess there is always a chance that an indexer may assign the headings child/ and adolescent/ but not adult/ by mistake to a study of participants ranging from say 10 – 20. I’m not aware of any research to show this is a problem – but would be interested to hear if anyone has looked closely into this.

Best wishes

Judy

Judy Wright
Senior Information Specialist

http://medhealth.leeds.ac.uk/auhe/is

Literature search tips - saved search with an easily memorable name

This week's literature search tip comes from our Clinical Librarian Service Manager, Pip Divall:

If there’s something you’re searching on regularly, e.g. I do loads for anti-TNF drugs, and also ultrasound guided regional anaesthesia, then set up a saved search with an easily memorable name and run that at the right time in your strategy.

We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share your thoughts in the comments field below.

The UHL writing club is back!

The UHL Writing Club is returning on Thursday 5th February from 1 - 2 pm. It will be looking at writing case reports, with Damian Roland as guest speaker. This session would of particular interest to UHL Junior Doctors, but is open to all UHL staff who are interested in writing for publication.

More details can be found on our website here.

A day in the life of a clinical librarian

Hello and welcome to our brand new blog series, A day in the life of a clinical librarian! This is a monthly series sharing what a day at work for those working in clinical librarianship actually looks like and finding out about the person behind the job.

We're kick starting the series with our newest member of the UHL Clinical Librarian team!

Who are you and where do you work?
I’m Hannah Beckitt and I am a Clinical Information Search Service (CISS) Officer.  I am part of a job share and work 2 days a week supporting the Clinical Librarian Service across the 3 UHL sites, although I can usually be found at Glenfield Education Centre.

How long have you been there?
I am the newest member of the team, joining in June 2014.

What attracted you to Clinical Librarianship?
I enjoy roles that allow me to provide an efficient service, and I felt I had skills in using the internet to find information that matched the specification of this role.  I also have experience of working in the NHS which is helpful for this role. My background is in Speech and Language Therapy, and I have a Masters in Clinical Communication Studies.  My course developed my understanding of medical terminology and research methods, both of which are extremely useful for this job.  I have often reflected that I would have liked to train as a librarian and I am now able to work in this field, albeit in a supportive role.

What does an average day at work involve?
I respond to requests from health professionals for articles that they have been unable to access themselves.  We check a number of sources to see if we can obtain it electronically, complying with copyright law, and with the least amount of cost to the library.  My job also involves creating bimonthly ‘Evidence Updates’ (previously known as Current Awareness Bulletins) for 11 clinical areas including Musculoskeletal, Urology, Pain and Stroke.  These are circulated via email, uploaded to our website and publicised via social media.  I also provide general admin support to our Clinical Librarians e.g. organising registration and payments our study days; carrying out literature searches when needed; updating our website with a ‘publication of the week’ chosen by one of our Clinical Librarians

If you weren’t a Librarian, what would you be?
I really like the blend of my two current jobs, I have the benefits of working for myself and working for an organisation.  I also enjoy the fact that I can switch off when I go home from this job! I get satisfaction from helping people and providing a good service.  I hope the patients in the hospital benefit from the small part that I play in providing up-to-date information quickly to the healthcare professionals that are treating them.  If I had to choose a completely new job I might go for floristry, but somewhere warm!

Tell us a joke or a non-work fact about yourself
I have two daughters, two labradors and two guinea pigs! I am rubbish at jokes!

Evidence-Based Health Care Career Enhancement Scholarship

Evidence-Based Health Care Career Enhancement Scholarship – helping gifted individuals advance their skills in evidence-based health care and improve practice.

The Postgraduate Programme in Evidence-Based Health Care is offering a Career Enhancement Scholarship to one exceptional applicant per course as detailed below. The Scholarship will cover the full cost of tuition fees (£1,970) but excludes the cost of travel, accommodation and subsistence. The student is expected to cover these costs. For further details on how to apply please follow the links below.

Clinical Trial Management, 27 April - 1 May 2015
Developing best practice for the management and delivery of clinical trials
Full details and information on how to apply can be found on the course webpage - www.conted.ox.ac.uk/ctm

Practice of Evidence-Based Health Care, 18-22 May 2015 (A compulsory module for the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care)
Appraising the evidence to answer your clinical question
Full details and information on how to apply can be found on the course webpage - www.conted.ox.ac.uk/pebhc

Introduction to Study Design & Research Methods, 1-5 June 2015 (A compulsory module for the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care)
Choosing and designing the most appropriate study to address your clinical research problem is paramount in generating the best evidence
Full details and information on how to apply can be found on the course webpage - www.conted.ox.ac.uk/isdrm

Literature search tips - developing your search strategy using Cochrane Library

This week's literature search tip comes from our Clinical Librarian, Sarah Sutton:


If you are searching in a new area its always worth having a look at the Cochrane Library and seeing if any of your concepts are covered in the search strategy for a Cochrane Systematic Review. Possibly best to make a list of your own ideas first, and then add any you find in the Cochrane. As once you have seen the Cochrane list it may push some other useful ones out of your head.

You probably won’t find your whole PICO but you might find one tricky aspect like “sedentary behaviour”! So you can just use any  terms you think are good from that bit of the Cochrane search, to stimulate your thinking for your search strategy.


We hope you like today's tip! Stay tuned for more and please do share or pop your thoughts in the comments field below.

Research minded workshop in June 2015

In collaboration with the International Conference of Animal Health Information Specialists (ICAHIS) and the International Clinical Librarian Conference (ICLC), the European Association for Health Information and Libraries (EAHIL) will be holding a workshop in Edinburgh this summer. The workshop aims to provide healthcare librarians and information professionals with a better understanding and practice of research skills and methods.

Details of the workshop can be found here and on Hazel Hall's blog.

Health Librarian Workshop: Make your library service visible and essential to users

A workshop for health librarians on taking your services to your customers, with practical strategies and a chance to share good practice with colleagues.

If I Google your library service what will I find? Can I tweet an enquiry? Are you proactively sending me the information I need to do my job, be it as a clinician or a manager?

If these questions are playing on your mind then we can help find solutions. We are running a workshop for Health Librarians on 23rd of April 2015 on making your service visible and essential to your users.

Registration from 9
10.00 Welcome Sarah Sutton.  Clinical Librarian, University Hospitals of Leicester.   Short introduction on being loud and proud about your service.
10.15 Workshop on websites led by Stuart Glover.  Library Services Manager, University Hospitals of Leicester.
11.15 Break
11.45 Social Media workshop lead by Kieran Lamb. Senior Manager Evidence Services, North West CSU.
1.00 Lunch
2.00 Current Awareness Bulletins/Evidence Updates, presentations and workshops led by Steph Bradley. Primary Care Librarian, North Bristol NHS Trust and University Hospitals of Leicester Clinical Librarian Service.
3.50 Final comments and farewells.

To secure your place, please complete the form available on our website.

Health Education East Midlands (HEEM) is kindly sponsoring 15 places on this course for health library staff, including colleagues from public health departments, working in Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire & Northamptonshire only. This means that the full cost of the course will be met by HEEM (excluding travel expenses). Allocation of the sponsored places will be on a first come first served basis. To request a HEEM place, please complete the form above and select the option to apply for a HEEM place.