HSLS Librarians Assist in a Clinical Emergency
Although it’s unlikely you will ever find a librarian in an operating room, HSLS librarians do assist in clinical emergencysituations. In July, a patient at the UPMC Presbyterian emergency room and trauma center faced losing an arm following an industrial accident in which the patient’s arm was trapped in a meat grinder. Members from the Department of Emergency Medicine and the trauma team turned to the MEDLINE database to identify a 1975 article published in the Journal of Trauma. This article, depicting a similar meat grinder, presented a case in which a patient’s arm was successfully extricated without further damage to the remaining viable tissues. As the UPMC patient was being rushed to the operating room, a call to the Falk libraryin adjoining Scaife Hall put HSLS librarian Renae Barger in motion to retrieve the Journal of Trauma article. A short time later, a member of the healthcare team returned to the library to report that the patient had undergone emergency surgery to amputate the irreparable portion of the arm; however, as a result of the article, the meat grinder was successfully removed without sacrificing additional limb length.
Fortunately, most clinical encounters are not this dire. Nonetheless, keep in mind that HSLS provides valuable information resources and services to support you at all stages of clinical decision making.
--Renae Barger
