Janna C Lawrence

The 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa provided an opportunity to improve our response to highly infectious diseases. We performed a systematic literature review in PubMed, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, EMBASE, and Web of Science of research articles that evaluated benefits and challenges of hospital Ebola preparation in developed countries. We excluded studies performed in non-developed countries, and those limited to primary care settings, the public health sector, and pediatric populations. Thirty-five articles were included. Preparedness activities were beneficial for identifying gaps in hospital readiness. Training improved health-care workers' (HCW) infection control practices and personal protective equipment (PPE) use. The biggest challenge was related to PPE, followed by problems with hospital infrastructure and resources. HCWs feared managing Ebola patients, affecting their willingness to care for them. Standardizing protocols, PPE types, and frequency of training and providing financial support will improve future preparedness. It is unclear whether preparations resulted in sustained improvements. Prospero Registration. CRD42018090988.

Professionals and trainees in the medical and scientific fields may receive high e-mail volumes for conferences and journals. In this report, we analyze the amount and characteristics of unsolicited e-mails for journals, conferences, and webinars received by faculty and trainees in a pathology department at an academic medical center. With informed consent, we analyzed 7 consecutive days of e-mails from faculty and trainees who voluntarily participated in the study and saved unsolicited e-mails from their institutional e-mail address (including junk e-mail folder) for medical/scientific journals, conferences, and webinars. All e-mails were examined for characteristics such as reply receipts, domain name, and spam likelihood. Journal e-mails were specifically analyzed for claims in the message body (for example, peer review, indexing in databases/resources, rapid publication) and actual inclusion in recognized journal databases/resources. A total of 17 faculty (4 assistant, 4 associate, and 9 full professors) and 9 trainees (5 medical students, 2 pathology residents, and 2 pathology fellows) completed the study. A total of 755 e-mails met study criteria (417 e-mails from 328 unique journals, 244 for conferences, and 94 for webinars). Overall, 44.4% of e-mails were flagged as potential spam by the institutional default settings, and 13.8% requested reply receipts. The highest burden of e-mails in 7 days was by associate and full professors (maximum 158 or approximately 8200 per year), although some trainees and assistant professors had over 30 e-mails in 7 days (approximately 1560 per year). Common characteristics of journal e-mails were mention of "peer review" in the message body and low rates of inclusion in recognized journal databases/resources, with 76.4% not found in any of 9 journal databases/resources. The location for conferences in e-mails included 31 different countries, with the most common being the United States (33.2%), Italy (9.8%), China (4.9%), United Kingdom (4.9%), and Canada (4.5%). The present study in an academic pathology department shows a high burden of unsolicited e-mails for medical/scientific journals, conferences, and webinars, especially to associate and full professors. We also demonstrate that some pathology trainees and junior faculty are receiving an estimated 1500 unsolicited e-mails per year.

One October night in 2000, six medical librarians drove up a mountain outside of El Paso, Texas, to see the lights. I sat immediately behind Teresa L. Knott, AHIP, the driver. On the way back down the mountain, I noticed that she occasionally used the van's handbrake while continuing to answer our questions about the sights. Another passenger, Linne' Girouard, remembers that Teresa's responses were informative but brief and perhaps less chatty than usual, which Linne' attributed to the lateness of the hour and the darkness of the road. Imagine our surprise when, as the van came to a stop at the first traffic signal on the edge of El Paso, Teresa pulled the handbrake and announced that the brakes had gone out while we were coming down the mountainside! All that had kept us from careening off the mountain were Teresa's skill with the handbrake and, more importantly, her poise. I can safely say that we were all relieved that it was Teresa driving and not one of the rest of us.

Technology and a collaborative nature, combined with the desire for more readily accessible information, have caused more libraries and librarians to consider becoming journal publishers. While the largest library-publishers have been providing their services for more than 15 years, resources are now more readily available to help libraries and faculty work together to publish new or well-established journals.

The cumulative index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) is a useful research tool for accessing articles of interest to nurses and health care professionals. More than 2,800 journals are indexed by CINAHL and can be searched easily using assigned subject headings. Detailed instructions about conducting, combining, and saving searches in CINAHL are provided in this article. Establishing an account at EBSCO further allows a nurse to save references and searches and to receive e-mail alerts when new articles on a topic of interest are published.

Do students need MEDLINE instruction? Do self-described knowledge and search skills match actual ability? To address these questions, librarians developed an assessment tool, a self-administered pre-test/post-test of eighteen skills and concepts taught in the MEDLINE class. By their own assessment, 70% or more of the medical and dental students learned something about each concept taught during the workshop. The study convinced faculty and students that the MED-LINE class is necessary. Librarians and associated faculty agree that the class is important and should continue to be mandatory