Holman Biotech Intern QuickStart Guide: Home

The Little Staff Library by the Office Printer

This is an informal collection of reference books relevant to medical librarianship and related professional development located in the librarians' office here at Holman. It's a helpful resource, and with material on niche topics like searching grey literature, combatting online health misinformation, and various librarianship approaches, it's worth checking periodically to see if any titles are relevant to projects you are working on during your internship. 

Des Moines University Online Medical Terminology Course

https://www.dmu.edu/medterms/

A free online course helpful in learning medical terminology. It cumulatively teaches you the etymological roots, prefixes, and suffixes used to describe medical treatments and conditions, allowing you to decipher the medical meaning of unfamiliar terms you may come across during your internship. 

Research at Penn

 https://www.pennmedicine.org/research-at-penn

While Holman serves researchers in fields and specialties beyond those listed here, this website offers a solid overview of the types of medical research conducted by Penn Medicine.

Office of Research Integrity Interactive Videos

https://ori.hhs.gov/the-lab

https://ori.hhs.gov/research-clinic

Intended to act as ethics exercises for researchers, these choose-your-own-adventure style videos are also helpful for outsiders in understanding the various roles and power structures found in scientific and clinical research settings. Especially given recent discussions on paper retractions and biomedical research's replication crisis within academic librarian circles, these videos can shed light on the conditions that have led to these issues. Plus, the videos are just kinda fun and novel to play through. 

There are a lot of acronyms used here! Below is a list of some of the most used, translated for your benefit.

AAMC - Association of American Medical Colleges

CHOP - Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

HUP - Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania

JMEC - Jordan Medical Education Center

MLA - Medical Library Association

NIH - National Institutes of Health

NLM - National Library of Medicine

PSOM - Perelman School of Medicine

Image of the Holman Reading Room

PubMed Online Training

https://learn.nlm.nih.gov/documentation/training-packets/T0042010P/

PubMed and MeSH terms are the bread-and-butter tools of medical librarianship, and these tours and tutorials are essential introductions to these critical resources.

Cochrane Interactive Training

https://training.cochrane.org/interactivelearning

The Holman librarians do a lot of work pertaining to systematic reviews, and this training through Cochrane does an excellent job of explaining what SRs even are, the role of meta-analysis within the larger research ecosystem, the steps that go into conducting a proper SR, etc. 

Holman Librarians!

These tools are helpful, but by far the greatest learning tool available to you are the librarians around you! If you would like help learning a library tool, resource, or database, ask around the office. 

History of the National Library of Medicine

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/about/index.html

The National Library of Medicine is critical to American medical research, but it's role and existence separate from the Library of Congress can be confusing from an outside perspective. The history section of the NLM website provides context for this, breaking down how medical texts and information were disseminated historically, which explains the existence of things like PubMed and MeSH terms.

History of Medicine Collections and Online Exhibits from the National Library of Medicine 

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/index.html

Understandings of illness and effective treatment have vastly changed over time. While a fascinating topic, learning about the history of medicine can also contextualize why the medical systems Holman works alongside function the way they do. Additionally, UPenn being home to the first medical school in America makes this material feel even more present on campus.

Aside from facilitating modern biomedical research, the NLM holds a vast collection of historic medical materials, including digitized collections grouped thematically to help you explore different corners of medical history. 

Bates Center Nursing Through Time Timeline

https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc/nursing-through-time/

Given the large amount of work Holman does with students from the College of Nursing, this timeline is very helpful for understanding where nursing historical fit into the world of medicine, how that role has changed over time, and why the profession’s education is currently structured the way it is.