World Glaucoma Day

World Glaucoma Day

6th March-Glaucoma is a chronic and irreversible condition, and the second cause of blindness the world over. The global prevalence is rising! In this current era of technology and innovations, there are remarkable advancements in the ophthalmology sector as well. Well-designed, minuscule, and connected applications and instruments now make it possible to conduct eye examinations from anywhere in the world. This means that for an ophthalmologist, the scope and area of work are far more expansive, and the ability to reach out to underprivileged sections of society is enhanced. Remote approaches will also enable ophthalmologists to tackle emergencies when time…
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Health Sciences Librarians – II. Involvement in teaching students about EBM

Health Sciences Librarians – II. Involvement in teaching students about EBM

This is my second post about elevating Health Sciences Libraries and Librarians in India.  Here I would like to share an example from an article in the Journal of the Medical Library Association (USA) - about a study by a librarian and his medical colleagues.  (Read my first post here) This article discusses how a health sciences librarian conducted an introductory course on EBM for first year medical students and how he specifically did an intervention to improve their ability to "formulate an answerable question". Asking an answerable question is an art that one learns with practice and of course…
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Infodemic – the avalanche! Who can help?

Infodemic – the avalanche! Who can help?

The library's role in countering infodemics Walker P. J Med Libr Assoc. 2021 Jan 1;109(1):133-136 The World Health Organization recently labeled the COVID-19 pandemic as an 'Infodemic'. As the term suggests, an infodemic translates to an aggressive growth in the amount of information available regarding a topic of interest, so much so that a potential solution becomes more and more convoluted. This article divulges the massive growth in COVID data. It reads that, as of the 28th of August 2020, a simple search with the keyword 'COVID-19' provides 47,405 results in PubMed; 1,717 yields on bioRxiv.org; 6368 on medRxiv.org, and…
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