Spring classes available

Our spring class schedule is now available. There are three new sessions:

• NIH Public Access Policy: how to ensure that publications arising from NIH funding comply with the new public access policy. (April 10, April 15)
• Mouse Genome Informatics resources: an instructor from MGI will be presenting on resources available for researchers. (April 10)
• Creating with MS Publisher: part of our Information Commons software series - Publisher is a powerful and somewhat overlooked program that can be used to create many types of publications, signs, flyers, etc.

Read more about these and other sessions and register online at our classes web page.

Holiday hours

The Biomedical library will be open from 10am - 6pm on Friday, March 28.  There will be no Annex delivery.  Regular hours and services resume on Saturday, March 29.  All other UCSD libraries will be closed on March 28.

Student-directed online interactive medical curriculum

The University of Alberta School of Medicine has embraced one of the newest trends in medical education - providing online interactive and collaborative study tools within their learning system. Homer - think Greek mythology and students setting out on “an epic journey of lifelong learning” - is their newly created system that contains links to the information med students need - class notes, slides, and schedules - and also learning games, journal articles, email, Facebook and other networking tools.

The assistant dean for health informatics and an associate professor of medicine, Robert Hayward, headed the team that invented Homer. In a field that is typically dominated by “top-down instruction” via lectures, U of A “wanted to make a change from the traditional system of regurgitating notes at exam time and competing with other students to a cooperative model,” said Hayward.

What is particularly unique is the student interactivity. Students can post their own quizzes or questions, provide study tips and help monitor others posts for possible errors. The project is mostly self-policed by the med students who find and correct any errors. As one might expect, “Some first-year students objected at first, saying they just wanted to know what they were going to be tested on.” However, perhaps offering the high praise Homer’s creators were hoping for, they acknowledge later that “Homer helped them study.”

See the full story at The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Medical-School Curriculum Goes Interactive, Online, … and Hip-Hop.

Watch the “Diagnosis Wenckebach” video by a group of 2nd year med students at U of Alberta.

PubMed and UC e-Links buttons

Some users - including library staff - are having problems using UC e-Links buttons in PubMed when viewing items in the “Abstract Plus” format - problems have been found with Firefox and Safari where most of the orange button cannot be clicked. If this is happening to you, try carefully positioning your mouse over the very top edge of the button - that area is still clickable. NLM is aware of this issue. You might want to try using Internet Explorer or clearing your browser’s “cache” or “temporary internet files.” We’ve also heard that using the “Citation” format is working properly. We think this is a problem at the PubMed end with how the button and link are displayed. The buttons seem to be working OK in our other databases like Web of Science, BIOSIS, etc.

The Great UCSD Campus Race

Think you know the campus? Want to win $200? Bring your fast-footed friends out on April 12th to the Great Campus Race, which will begin at the Geisel Library, Forum level at noon. Details and team registration information are available online.

Need Help with the NIH Public Access Policy?

Are you an NIH-funded researcher who is wondering how you will comply with the new NIH public access policy that takes effect on April 7?

The UCSD Biomedical Library has created a website to summarize and clarify the policy, and to make it easier for you to comply.

The Library is also offering 30-minute sessions to review the benefits and requirements of the policy.  The first two are scheduled for April 10 and April 15, 12:15-12:45 PM in the Events Room.  If the class dates and times aren’t convenient, custom sessions can be arranged for individuals or groups.

As a faculty member who requested a custom session recently said:  “Thank you SO MUCH for your presentation yesterday.  It was just what we needed to raise awareness and learn how-to information on getting this new requirement accomplished!”

For more information, contact Nancy Stimson at (858) 534-6321 or nstimson@ucsd.edu.  To sign up for a class, contact Vicky Anderson at (858) 822-4760 or vkanderson@ucsd.edu.

MedEdPORTAL Web Confererence

Learn about MedEdPORTAL from the comfort of your home or office by participating in a 45-minute interactive web conference training workshop.

The online training workshop will consist of an overview of the MedEdPORTAL system and provide examples of the various types of materials published and available for free to educators and students around the globe. Participants will learn about the submission and peer review processes as well as the criteria used to evaluate the scholarship of published resources. The workshop will also address issues associated with intellectual property and explain how MedEdPORTAL staff help potential authors address those issues.

The online workshop is scheduled for:

March 17, 2008 at 11:00 AM North American Eastern Standard Time (EST)

To participate visit the MedEdPORTAL www.aamc.org/mededportal and click on the Online Training Workshop ‘Registration’ link.

If you have questions or need further information please contact Michael Saleh at msaleh@aamc.org or call 202-828-0449.

MedEdPORTAL is a free online publication service provided by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) that offers peer reviewed dissemination of high quality medical education teaching resources. MedEdPORTAL publications include tutorials, virtual patients, cases, lab manuals, assessment instruments, faculty development materials, etc. MedEdPORTAL published resources are available for free to educators, administrators, students, and the general public around the globe. MedEdPORTAL is receiving on average 2 new submissions per day and has received over 1,300 submissions thus far.

CSI Biomed

Another CSI TV show? Not quite. The UCSD Biomedical Library has a new display in the breezeway: “Forensic Science: Where Science Meets Law.” Forensic science is a broad discipline that covers many areas including gunshot wounds, fingerprints, forensic entomology, drug abuse, and cybercrime, just to name a few.

One of the display cases focuses on historical aspects of forensic science (prehistoric to 1900) and another deals with modern forensics. Each one has a timeline that shows the progression of forensic developments. A number of the library’s forensic science books are on display, as well as a description of the superb online resource, FORENSICnetBASE/LawENFORCEMENTnetBASE, which contains over 160 full-text forensic science and criminal justice handbooks (UCSD connections only).

Come over and see this fascinating display which will be available for about three months. Kudos to Penny Coppernoll-Blach and David Newbold for planning the display, and to Erik Matwijkow for rendering it so artistically.

Socioeconomic Status Gradients Among Mexicans in the US and Mexico

Dr. Alberto Palloni will give a talk, “Socioeconomic status gradients among Mexicans in the U.S. and in Mexico: A new twist to the Hispanic paradox on health outcomes,” on Wednesday, March 12, at 3:30 PM in the Deutz Conference Room at the Institute of the Americas Complex.  Dr. Palloni is currently the Board of Trustees Professor in Sociology and is a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.  He is co-principal investigator of two large research projects collecting information on elderly persons in Mexico (MHAS) and Puerto Rico (PREHCO).  He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California.  His current research interests include the relationship between early health status and social stratification and inequality and poverty in the United States, determinants of health and mortality disparities among ethnic groups in the United States, families and households in Africa and Latin America, aging and mortality in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the application of mathematical and statistical models to the study of health and mortality determinants, fertility, social stratification, and the spread of disease, in particular for HIV/AIDS. 

There is no cost of admission.  The event is open to the public.  For driving directions, please visit the Center’s website.  For additional information, call Mr. Greg Mallinger at (858) 822-1696 or email him at gmallinger@ucsd.edu   

This seminar is jointly sponsored by the UCSD Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, Center on Pacific Economies and the Division of International Health and Cross Cultural Medicine.

Nature Protocols Online!

We now have subscriptions to some additional Nature and Cell journals — including Nature Protocols – hooray!

 The new titles include:

• Cell Host & Microbe
• Cell Stem Cell
• ISME Journal
• Lab Animal
• Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine
• Nature Clinical Practice Rheumatology
• Nature Protocols