The Medical School Experience (MSE)

Kathel Dunn and Suzanne Crow, MSE Co-Chairs, Planning Committee
Planning Committee members:
Jeannine Creazzo, Andrea Markinson, Patricia Tomasulo, Gui Van Moorsel

The New York-New Jersey Chapter of MLA hosted a symposium, Medical School Experience, at the MLA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC in 2004. The Medical School Experience (as the Mini-Medical School for Librarians) was previously held for the members of the New York-New Jersey Chapter of MLA, with great success.

The New York-New Jersey Chapter is the proud recipient of the Majors Chapter Project of the Year Award for 2003 for the Mini Medical School for Librarians which was received at the MLA annual meeting in San Diego.

Patterned after the experience of medical students and residents, the Medical School Experience met both Chapter and MLA strategic goals in education and leadership of librarians. The Medical School Experience allowed librarians to learn and experience medicine and medical education and, at the same time, to place themselves in the shoes of their customers, understanding what they are focused on and what they are learning.

This web page serves as a resource for anyone wanting to do a similar program.

Needs Served
The Medical School Experience symposium addresses self-identified deficiencies in librarians’ content knowledge of the health sciences. In planning the New York-New Jersey Medical School Experience, the Chapter first responded to a members’ request for “courses that teach you medicine or science”. Additional discussion amongst Chapter members and a later formed Advisory Board identified areas where library staff in their home institutions were deficient or needed additional training. The combined self-identified deficiencies and the Advisory Board/managers’ identified staff deficiencies formed a strong needs assessment of the training needs of health sciences librarians.

Other library groups contacted the course co-directors about hosting a similar program in their areas, indicating a need for a Medical School Experience beyond the New York-New Jersey area. Other library groups included Rochester medical librarians, the Long Island Regional Library Council, the Health Sciences Librarians Association of New Jersey and the Philadelphia Chapter of MLA.

Purpose
The purpose of the proposed Medical School Experience is to address the subject content training needs as well as to focus participants’ attention on their customers – the library users. MLA members new to health sciences librarianship as well as support staff and other librarians will find the course beneficial.

Audience
The target audience is MLA members and attendees to the MLA Annual meeting but it is anticipated that this symposium can attract librarians from public, academic and special libraries.

Program
The program is a day-long symposium with the following areas covered:
* How Doctors Become Doctors: Undergraduate Medical Education & Hospital Structure and Graduate Medical Education
* Anatomy & Physical Exam and Diagnosis
* Physiology and Pathophysiology
* Pharmacology

Participants will be broken up into groups of 30, and will rotate through the curriculum, with each instructor speaking with each group. Each session will take place in an interactive framework of a talk followed by small group discussion. Where appropriate, case-based learning models will be used.

The agenda will be as follows:

Faculty will be selected based on their clinical or subject expertise as well as their skill as medical educators. Faculty will be asked to customize their talks to an educated audience composed of librarians who have a grasp of information resources and desire for a greater understanding of subject content. In addition, they will be asked to suggest methods of independent study of the subject matter beyond the talk.

Participants at Medical School Experience will receive a “Toolkit” that will include copies of speakers’ handouts, a bibliography prepared by the planners on the subjects discussed and with information about how to learn more, a quiz where participants can test their knowledge, the Brandon/Hill list or other appropriate library tools that can be better utilized after gaining subject knowledge, and information on hosting your own Medical School Experience.

Other library groups contacted the course co-directors about hosting a similar program in their areas, indicating a need for a Medical School Experience beyond the New York-New Jersey area. Other library groups included Rochester medical librarians, the Long Island Regional Library Council, the Health Sciences Librarians Association of New Jersey and the Philadelphia Chapter of MLA.

Medical School Experience
The Program – Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of the Medical School Experience learners will:
Overview: How Doctors Become Doctors & Graduate Medical Education/How Hospitals are structured
> Know the continuum of medical training
> Understand the process of medical student selection
> Be familiar with the differences between pre-clinical and clinical years
> Understand performance-based testing and other evaluation techniques in medical training
> Become familiar with nationwide statistics on medical education, medical school costs and demographics
> Know the continuum of graduate medical training
> Understand the process of choosing specialties
> Understand hospital structure
> Know how medical training is paid for in the United States

Anatomy & Physical Exam and Diagnosis
> Understand anatomic terminology
> Know the components of a complete physical examination
> Know the rationale for screening and the components of age-specific screening tests
> Become familiar with the variety, purpose and use of diagnostic laboratory tests.

Physiology and Pathophysiology
> Know how function is extrapolated from structure
> Understand the underlying design principles of the physical structure
> Understand the developmental aspects of physiological processes

Pharmacology
> Understand what drugs are
> Understand basic pharmacology and pharmacokinetics
> Understand the principles of prescribing
> Understand adverse events, toxicities, therapeutic concentrations, contraindications and drug interactions
> Understand pharmacological resources used by physicians