Report No.

Medical Clinical Librarianship

This paper will discuss the role of Medical Clinical Librarianship in a clinical setting and why
librarians are being requested in the medical field.

Medicine is an evidence-based, where all the things happen in the hospital must be a
conscientious, explicit, judicious and reasonable use of modern in taking care of the patients. In
1971, Gertrude Lamb, a librarian, notices that there is a gap of information need between the
healthcare professionals and to the evidence-based literature. Because of her desire to help out
the healthcare professionals to deliver a better quality healthcare to their patient. Lamb
developed a concept and established the first Clinical Medical Librarianship program at the
University of Missouri-Kansas City-School of Medicine, to meet the clinical information needs
better. And in the following years, a lot of CML programs appeared and literatures also
published.

The functions of clinical medical librarians somehow similar to the functions of traditional
reference librarians. However, there is still a difference between traditional reference librarians
and a clinical medical librarian. Clinical Medical Librarians focused on the medical trends,
issues or anything about medicine, while reference librarian in the general info. Clinical medical
librarians brings the library to the users and they could also answer questions on the spot because
of direct interactions with the users.

Billie White a clinical librarian at Dignity Health, St. Joseph’s Hospital & Medical Center, in
Phoenix, AZ listed the six roles of Clinical Librarians;

● Attending the morning report,

● Rounding with clinical teams (when physicians are making the rounds, questions are
always raised),
● Closing the knowledge gap with the delivery of best-practices literature,
● Helping information users retrieve and manage relevant primary and secondary
information for patient care and research,
● Providing filtered evidence-based medicine (EBM) information on demand that gives
busy clinicians more time for patient care, and
● Being an information partner on research projects/teams.

There are some reasons why librarians are being requested to be part of a medical team. And
they also find out that there are barriers to evidence-based health care, these include the
following;

● Skill deficit
 There are some medical experts don’t have any idea how to get access to information.
CML can also become an educator, they can conduct training for the medical team and
other users about library skills.

● Access to resources
Many of our hospitals don’t have the ability to purchase soft and hard copy medicine
collection.

● Time
This is the biggest barrier for all the medical experts. They do not have enough time to
read and search for a certain illness. So that librarian is badly needed because they can
provide evidence-based literature for them.

● Institutional support
Not all the institutions can support the library financially.

Reference:

Masic, I. et al.(2008.). Evidence Based Medicine – New Approaches and Challenges. Acta
Inform Med, 16(4), 219-225. doi: 10.5455/aim.2008.16.219-225

White, B. (2013). Do You Have a Clinical Librarian on Your Team? SGIM FORUM,36(5).
Retrieved February 1, 2019.