Molly Hemphill, MLIS

Medical students have specific information needs throughout their medical degree program and education. Library instruction from a medical librarian can help students learn the tools and resources that will increase their health sciences information literacy competencies. Scaffolding library learning outcomes across the MD curriculum can allow students to gain foundational skills that will support their research activities in medical school, residency, and beyond. Mapping library instruction to the MD curriculum will ensure that the skills being taught correspond to tangible academic requirements and scholarly research activities. Building a health sciences information literacy thread will require collaboration between the medical education librarian and DGSOM curricular affairs faculty and staff. Medical education librarians at other institutions have implemented information literacy instruction into MD curriculums with success and the same is possible at DGSOM.

Topics/skills to scaffold include: access library resources on and off campus; getting research help from a librarian; forming a research question - including clinical formats; basic database skills - including picking a database, search strategies, Boolean operators, and finding full text; specific database skills - including controlled vocabularies and translating searches; using a citation manager; organizing a literature review; learning the elements of a scientific article; and writing an abstract.