Maggie attends ENA workshop with Christine Marshall

Christine Marshall, RN, invited me to attend an item writing workshop for certification exams. The meeting was held in Wilmington, Delaware. I met lots of her colleagues and at the conclusion of the two day meeting in January, I couldn't wait to get back to sunny California!

Where should Maggie go on her next vacation?

Here I am taking a look at Jan Grabowski's photo taken in front of Castle Mespelbrunn near Wurzburg Germany. It looks so atmospheric!! When I talked to Jan more, I found out that she is the Lead Library Technician at Burlew Medical library and has been at St. Joseph Hospital for  33 years!! This is definitely one more location to add to my vacation "bucket list". Help me decide by voting on this blog!

Dropping in on the Medical Pulmonary Unit

On my recent visit to the Medical Pulmonary Unit on the 3rd floor of Building 1 I had the chance to meet some wonderful nurses and staff, including (from left) Nursing Manager Cathy Leong, RN; Nagla Abdel-Magied, RN; Jae Kim, RN; Yvonne Shaver, RN, and Judi Demers, Hospitalist Clerical Assistant.

Since her arrival this past September, Judi De Mers has strengthened the link between the hospitalists and primary care physicians. She explained, “The main focus of my position is to communicate with the primary care physicians any pertinent information about their patients’ discharges from the hospital. Daily, physicians will call me to let me know that a particular patient will be discharged on that day. I will go to the patient’s room and visit with them if they are able to speak with me. I will call their PCP right there in the room and make a follow up appointment for them. So far, the patients that I have scheduled appointments for have been very appreciative. If I am unable to communicate with any patients, I attempt to contact their family members and will either schedule an appointment for them or I will remind the family member to call the PCP on that day and set up an appointment for the patient, depending on what the family member prefers that I do.”

Outpatient Surgery meets Maggie

I met so many friendly and helpful techs, nurses and doctors while visiting the Outpatient Surgery department. Thanks, everyone, for making me feel so welcome and sharing all the great work you are doing!

Here I am with RNs Amee Cuevas, Cory Celeste and Ana Ferrer; and (below) observing a case with Bariatric Surgeon Sami Hamamji, M.D. In 2009 St. Joseph hospital became a Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence.

The team provided lots of evidence of Nursing Excellence!

Maggie impressed with how they roll on Orthopedics Unit

Was I ever impressed with all the good work the Orthopedics Unit is doing, and clearly I’m not the only one! Their ranking by U.S.News & World Report (in 2007, 2008 and 2009) as one of America’s top 50 hospitals for Orthopedic Care is one of several accolades they’ve received. In these pictures (clockwise from left) Orthopedic Nursing Manager Robert Garcia explains the pain scale to a recent patient who had knee replacement. One of their valued staff nurses shares how Nursing continues to practiced shared governance and has honed the Total Joint Replacement Patient Instructions, most recently with new information on preventing constipation. Muriel Morse and Robert stand in front of a Certificate of Achievement given by the hospital’s Board of Trustees for their Total Joint Replacement Clinical Excellence. And, I’m thrilled to see all of the Thanks for Caring notes from coworkers and patients as evidence of the many Sacred Encounters happening here every day!

PubMed adds even more changes in February 2010

I stopped by Burlew Medical Library to find out what happened to PubMed ( the major medical literature database). Pubmed looked so different that I hardly recognized it. Julie Smith informs me that the National Library of Medicine embarked on a MAJOR Pubmed redesign in October 2009. Then, based on the input of librarians and users, they further refined the Pubmed interface in February 2010. While you will need to accustom yourself to these changes, I think most of you will agree that the new redesign is more user friendly and offers some great new features.

First, Julie wants me to remind everyone that they should always access PubMed through the library's website. This SPECIAL link (rather than the generic Pubmed link) authenticates SJO and CHOC users and allows them access to full text articles which the library has linked on PubMed.

So-- what are some of the PubMed changes?

A new LIMITS page link is available directly above the search box on all PubMed pages, including the homepage. The homepage will also include a link to the Clipboard if citations have been placed in the clipboard.

Adding limits--the Limits link is much more visible at the top of each page now. You can limit by age group, time limits, type of article etc. Caveat: Your limits will continue to apply to your searches  in your search session unless you remove the limit parameters.

Please note that you can also use the pre-set FILTERS on the right hand side which allow you to restrict your search to journals available at Burlew Medical Library, review articles, English language etc.
Another very cool feature occurs when you are doing a basic , textword search. Off to the right will be a list of articles that have just the words you entered in the TITLE of the article.

Thanks Julie for all the tips and tricks about the new PubMed. Of course, I know that I can always count on the fact that the expert library staff will do my lit searches for me. All you need to do is call, email or use the online lit search form on the library website!!

Where should Maggie go on her next vacation?

I heard that Julie Smith, Library Manager, went to Iceland in June 2009. Here's me sneaking into her photo. It looks like a cool place to me. Of course there are so many places to consider. What do you think?  Should I go to Iceland? Julie tells me that this photo was taken in the Þingvellir National Park which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Did you know that there are more sheep than people in Iceland? Julie says that if you like amazing scenery and friendly people without the crowds, you'll like Iceland. It's like Yellowstone National Park on steroids!! Give me your input by completing the poll on the top, right hand side of our blog.  THANKS

Learning about Literature searches at Burlew Medical Library

TGIF!! Decided to drop by Burlew Medical Library to expand my initial orientation and learn more about doing literature searches. I learned so much, my head is swimming!!

1. Did you know that, Burlew Medical Library will assist you in your hunt for nursing or medical information in any way possible? As experienced Medical Librarians, they are trained in the art of expert literature searches. They can even help you define your topic when you haven't clarified exactly what you're looking for. 
2. Librarian mediated searches for SJH/CHOC are free services to all SJH/CHOC staff. So whether you need information for patient care, research, job improvement, continuing education, personal/family health issues or even for SCHOOL, Burlew Medical Library will search the topic for you. They are pretty darn quick and will email a PDF of the search to you. This enables you to access some of the full text on your own.
3. So how do you request a lit search? The preferred manner would be to call the library at 714 771-8291 or 18291 and request a lit search. The advantage of this method is that the library staff have the opportunity to interview you and find out all the parameters of your topic. You can also use the "Request a lit search" online form on the library's website or send Julie Smith an email.  Remember, as brilliant as the librarians are, they are NOT mind readers. The more information you can give them, the better job they can do on your lit search. For clinical research questions, it's always a great idea to use the PICO format for structuring your question.
4. Of course, you can also try to do the lit search yourself. All of the library's research databases are centrally located on the library web site under "Research databases". If an additional id and password is required to use the database, you will be receive this information once you have entered the password protected section of the library web site. Library staff do conduct classes and are happy to  sit down with you and give you a hands on introduction. I only have time for a few general caveats here:  A. if you want to search PubMed, be sure to use the PubMed link on the library website. This special link authenticates you as a SJO or CHOC user so that you can access the full text that has been linked here for your convenience. For CINAHL, go to EBSCO databases and then select CINAHL. Burlew Medical Library has preconfigured CINAHL to encourage you to do an "advanced search" whereby you utilize Subject headings and not just textwords. They have also added in many handy limiters including "Burlew Library Journals", "full text", "research article", "peer reviewed", age group limiters and more.  They have also linked an amazing amount of full text journal articles in the database so often you can go straight from your search to the full text article. Of course, many lit searches really do require the skills of an expert librarian. Did you know there is an "Ask the Librarian" feature at the top of the EBSCO search page? If you're having trouble in the middle of a search, you can click on this and your search strategy will go to Burlew's librarian for review. She will get back to you with suggestions as to how to search your topic more completely and often will also complete the search for you.

St. Joseph Hospital in Orange and Children's Hospital of Orange County are to be commended for offering these incredible library and research services to their staff!!  Well that's enough for now-- next time I'll report to you about some special features, tips and tricks available through CINAHL