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“Pasteur at 200” Cushing Rotunda, August 24th, 2022 - January 20th, 2023  Join us at the Medical Library for our newest Rotunda exhibition! “Pasteur at 200” commemorates the work of French chemist Louis Pasteur, born December 27, 1822, along with his longer scientific legacy, which continues today. If you drink pasteurized milk, or take your pet for a rabies shot, Pasteur was the renowned chemist behind these innovations, among many others. Pasteur was celebrated in his lifetime for discoveries that helped propel changes in industry, science, and medicine. With his colleagues, he clarified the role of microbes in fermentation, and developed a process called pasteurization to prolong the shelf life for wines and beers. Pasteur also helped establish the laboratory development of vaccines in animals and humans, expanding on a larger germ theory of disease. By examining aspects of Pasteur’s work, this exhibition highlights how Pasteur remained in the public’s eye for centuries after his death, and how much of his legacy still resonates in our everyday lives. This exhibition was curated by Melissa Grafe, Ph.D, Head of the Medical Historical Library with contributions from members of the Medical and Historical Library teams, and the valued expertise of Bert Hansen, professor emeritus of History at Baruch College of CUNY. Many of the items on exhibit are drawn from The Bert Hansen collection of medicine and public health in popular graphic art. Image: “Hydrophobia” by Théobald Chartran for Vanity Fair, January 8, 1887. This lithograph shows Louis Pasteur holding two white rabbits, in reference to his experiments using rabbits for his rabies vaccine.  

Medical librarians have been extremely busy this summer orienting and educating new fellows, residents, and faculty members across the medical campus and Yale New Haven Hospital. These sessions give new and seasoned users the opportunity to meet their dedicated library liaison and receive a primer on the medical library’s numerous resources and services. Perhaps most importantly, these sessions establish medical librarians as partners in research, clinical, and educational endeavors, and help cultivate relationships that will last throughout each user’s Yale career. In June, first-year Surgery residents journeyed to the Medical Library’s large classroom to meet with Alexandria Brackett, Clinical Research & Education Librarian, and Melissa Grafe, Head of the Medical Historical Library, and learn about contemporary and historical library resources. Alexandria highlighted a variety of tools to help them in their practice and emphasized her role as liaison librarian in supporting their success. Melissa showcased many of the Medical Historical Library’s collections and shared tips and tricks for searching the archives. Over on Yale’s West Campus, Janene Batten, Research & Education Librarian for Nursing, met with new Yale School of Nursing (YSN) faculty members to suggest services and library resources that align with their curriculum. Embedded across all levels in the YSN curriculum, Janene regularly educates faculty and students about using evidenced-based resources like Scopus and PubMed, and point-of-care tools like ClinicalKey for Nursing, which are essential to the nursing profession. Back on Cedar Street, Melissa Funaro, Clinical Research & Education Librarian, visited the Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Child Study Center departments to familiarize fellows and residents with the myriad of services and resources the Medical Library provides. Melissa connected each department with their curated research guide and highlighted services such as literature searching, data management planning, and scholarly publishing to ensure new users were aware the many ways the Medical Library can assist in research and clinical practice. Kate Nyhan, Research & Education Librarian for Public Health, held an orientation session at the Medical Library for Yale’s Research Education Institute for Diverse Scholars (REIDS) on evidence synthesis methods, maximizing research impact, complying with funder public access policies, and choosing the right journals to disseminate their work. She also taught in the Summer Program in Environmental Health Sciences, which introduces rising college sophomores and juniors to environmental health and toxicology. Kayla Del Biondo, Simbonis Librarian for Public Health, and Kate also presented virtually and in-person to incoming Executive MPH students, Advanced Practice (AP) MPH students, new MPH, PhD, and MS students. Their sessions covered everything from health science databases to library spaces to historical materials. Kaitlin Throgmorton, Data Librarian for the Health Sciences, and Dana Haugh, Web Services Librarian, held virtual training sessions for Yale School of Public Health summer internship participants. Dana provided tips and tricks for creating effective PowerPoint presentations and Kaitlin gave an overview of best practices for incorporating data visualizations into their presentations. Additionally, Kaitlin taught an introduction to research data management seminar to the Yale Interdisciplinary Prostate Program (YIPP) and the OB/GYN residency orientation. Courtney Brombosz, Research & Education Librarian, headed to the Cohen Auditorium to give a library orientation for incoming medical students who choose to do research before they start medical school through the START@Yale program. Courtney introduced them to some of the key databases for conducting research and shared ways the Medical Library can help them throughout their career at Yale. Alyssa Grimshaw, Clinical Research & Education Librarian headed upstairs to the Beaumont Room to give a Grand Rounds presentation to the Urology Department titled “Connecting to Library Resources and Services.” The presentation covered library resources and services available to the clinical and academic Yale affiliates. Attendees also learned useful tips for searching medical databases, why citation management software is helpful in organizing and preparing their research, and how to take ownership of their author profiles after publishing. In the Medical Library's instruction classroom, Caitlin Meyer, Research & Education Librarian, taught multiple sessions for Physician Associate students to help with their thesis projects. The workshops helped students transform nascent thesis topics into focused research questions as well as develop search strategies for multiple literature databases. Sofia Fertuzinhos and Rolando Garcia-Milian, of the Medical Library’s Bioinformatics Support Hub, organized a hybrid teaching series entitled “Intro to Transcriptomics: from counts to functional analysis.” This series of seven workshops is designed for researchers interested in learning the basic steps for re-analysis of publicly available bulk-RNAseq data. It covers basic genomic data annotation concepts, databases where to find datasets for re-analysis, how to perform differential gene analysis, add gene annotations and perform gene pathway analysis, as well as tools to visualize the results. Additionally, Rolando and Sofia gave several orientation classes to new medical students and BBS graduate students. Terry Dagradi, Cushing Center Coordinator, gave dozens of tours of the Medical Library and the Cushing Center to groups of middle and high school students in programs around New Haven and Yale. Students enrolled in programs such as the Ulysses S. Grant Foundation, EduExplora, Horizons at Foote, Yale Pathways to Science excitedly followed Terry through the library while learning about Harvey Cushing, Phineas Gage, and saw real human brains for the first time. Finally, a cohort of medical librarians recently welcomed this year's incoming class of medical students to Yale and the Medical Library. Led by Courtney Brombosz, the group comprised Megan Nance (Access Services Librarian), Caitlin Meyer, Melissa Grafe, Zsuzsa Nemeth (Head of Clinical Research and Education), Sofia Fertuzinhos, and Lei Wang (Head of Technology and Innovation). Each librarian provided a brief overview of services and tools available to the incoming students and reiterated the Medical Library's commitment to supporting them throughout their educational journey.

Come visit the newest exhibition featured in the Medical Library’s Hallway space! Highlighted on the walls of our newest exhibition are posters reflecting activism on behalf of women, children, and the HIV/AIDS community, dating from 1970-1998. These posters provide snapshots of larger efforts by activists to challenge the status quo and promote the welfare of people who needed action from government and industry groups. The Historical Library houses over 2,000 posters reflecting the history of medicine and health broadly, including materials related to activism and social movements. Featured posters include AIDSGATE, 1987, from the Silence = Death Project, criticizing President Ronald Reagan’s lackluster response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic that roared through America and the world in the 1980s. Don’t Iron While the Strike is Hot, 1970, created by Mary Ann Lupa, was used in support of the Women’s Strike for Equality, a nationwide demonstration marking the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage. Lupa was Chicago’s National Organization for Women (NOW) chapter president and one of the organizers of the Women’s Strike for Equality in Chicago.  

   Images from the Bert Hansen Collection of medicine and public health in popular graphic art Like audiences today, 19th-century readers of popular magazines and newspapers learned about public health initiatives and medical discoveries through articles and imagery. The Medical Historical Library team digitized over 500 images from The Bert Hansen Collection of Medicine and Public Health in Popular Graphic Art (Ms Coll 67), representing the earliest works in a very large collection that contains materials from 1850-2010. The new digital collection contains chromolithographs and wood engravings from 19th-century magazines like Harper’s Weekly, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Puck, Judge, and Scientific American on topics including cholera, diphtheria, polio, tuberculosis, vaccinations, Pasteur’s treatments for rabies, hospitals, mental asylums, unsafe foodstuffs, and public sanitation. There are numerous illustrations using medical imagery in political satire.  These diseases and topics continue to resonate with audiences today, particularly in the COVID-19 era.  Bert Hansen discussed the collection in his recent talk, "Picturing Public Health-Turning Points in Public Health History Conveyed through Prints." The effort to digitize these images and make them freely available worldwide was generously funded by the Arcadia Fund. You can also find other Arcadia-funded digitized texts, including incunables, medieval and Renaissance medical and scientific manuscripts, Yale Medical School theses and early Arabic and Persian books and manuscripts, through our digitized collections page or through Cushing/Whitney Medical Library site on Internet Archive, as part of the Medical Heritage Library.

    With the Russian invasion of Ukraine showing no signs of easing, violent assaults continue to wreak havoc and devastation on civilians in Ukraine and refugees in neighboring countries. In an effort to help those who are suffering, the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is working with the Franciscan Bridge of Help to deliver desperately needed medical supplies to hospitals in Lviv, Ukraine. Father Norbert M. Siwinski of St. Michael’s Parish of Bridgeport, Connecticut, created the Franciscan Bridge of Help after he connected with Bishop Edward Kawa in Lviv, which is near the border with Poland. The initiative establishes a direct path between Bridgeport and Lviv to help those affected by Russia’s military operations. All donated medical supplies are sent, with the help of a Polish shipping company, to Lancut, Poland, where the supplies are then transported to Bishop Edward in Lviv. On March 7, a donation box was placed near the Medical Library’s circulation desk and, in just two days, three boxes were filled with donated medical and surgical supplies. Student worker Anna Baker, YC ’22 translated medication labels into both Ukrainian and Russian so those overseas could read the ingredients and dosages, while Thomas Shao, YSPH ’22 helped pack boxes. “I am glad my language skills were able to come in handy here,” said Baker. “This war feels deeply personal to me and while it feels like nothing I can do could be enough, I hope that this helps at least some. I also hope that this medical supplies drive is an opportunity for others who feel powerless to do anything to help.” This war feels deeply personal to me and while it feels like nothing I can do could be enough, I hope that this helps at least some. - Anna Baker YC '22 The first shipment of supplies was sent to Lancut, Poland, on March 10.  St. Michael’s Parish is also collecting monetary donations for Ukrainian relief efforts through Venmo: @stmichaelbpt Items Needed: sterile gauze, sterile packing materials, different kinds nitrile gloves IV catheters, large gage- G18 or close tourniquets nasopharyngeal airway Chest seal (asherman, halo, other) decompression kit (chest air release system) CPR face shield IV kits surgical needles, and suture material medical scissors antibiotic creams Acetaminophen 1000mg dose Meloxicam 15mg dose Antibiotics: gatifloxacin 400mg or other oral antibiotics for trauma use Tylenol for Adults and Children Ibuprofen Neosporin Bandages Aspirin 325mg This article is also viewable on the Yale School of Medicine website.