We are thrilled to announce that a representative from the GW Writing Center will be providing in-person consultations at the Himmelfarb Library this semester!
A Writing Center consultant will be onsite every Tuesday from 4 pm - 6 pm, beginning October 10th. They can help you with a variety of writing assignments from research reports to cover letters to CVs.
The Writing Center service will be located adjacent to the first-floor Circulation Desk, in the alcove near the emergency exit. The service is free.
Walk-ups are welcome if there is availability, but appointments are recommended. To make an appointment, visit the Writing Center website.
If you are a first-timer, you'll see a link on the page that lets you register for an account. If you are an online student, or would simply prefer a remote consultation, you'll see an option to request a virtual consultation (appointments are available from 9am to 9pm, Monday through Friday, and 5pm to 10pm on Sundays).
In the meantime, check out the Writing Center's resource collection, including tips on citations, grammar, and quality research.
With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “Dopesick” by Beth Macy.
With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “Dopesick” by Beth Macy.
About the Book: “Dopesick” is an inside look at America’s opioid crisis through the lens of big pharma, drug dealers, addicts, and the communities desperately trying to save them. Taking a zoom-in-out approach, Macy contextualizes several families of drug abusers and dealers (which are fluid categories) into the overall opioid epidemic. This microcosm forefronts the human suffering of decisions made tucked away in boardrooms and sales offices.
What Makes it Essential: As a resident of Roanoke, VA since 1989, Macy’s reporting for The Roanoke Times positioned her to directly report on the disintegration of Appalachian communities (Weeks, 2022). Her 2012 book, Factory Man, covered the shuttering of Appalachian factories and helped her write the bigger picture of a broken community targeted by a predatory pharmaceutical company.
Reasons to Read: “Dopesick” takes an uncomfortable look at the strategies big pharma uses to target doctors and how easy it can be to follow incentives. Macy investigates their rationalization while also providing examples of people who stand up against the system despite facing the same pressures.
Caveats: While “Dopesick” discusses Purdue Pharma, it’s a book about the entirety of the crisis. For a deeper look into Purdue Pharma, Barry Meier’s “Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic” helps complete the picture.
Further Reading:
The Big Fix: Hope After Heroin, by Tracey Helton Mitchell - which Beth Macy calls the best book about heroin recovery that she’s read (available at the DC public library)
Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic, by Sam Quinones (available at Himmelfarb)
References:
Weeks, Olivia. (2022, February 4th). Q&A: Beth Macy on her Journey from Paper Girl to Hard-Hitting Opioid Journalist. The Daily Yonder. https://dailyyonder.com/qa-beth-macy-on-her-journey-from-paper-girl-to-hard-hitting-opioid-journalist/2022/02/04/
September is Sickle Cell Awareness month - a designation from Congress meant to boost attention towards the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, 2023). Affecting around 100,000 Americans, Sickle Cell Anemia is a genetic disorder that affects the shape of blood cells, causing them to “stack up” in capillaries and induce chronic pain and systemic health complications (2018).
While “staying aware” might feel irrelevant, for medical professionals, awareness itself actually contributes to bettering the lives of patients by recognizing the disease earlier, referring potential parents to the right tests, and helping prevent pain episodes through health regimens and palliative care. Knowledge helps save lives.
In 2018, congress passed the Sickle Cell Treatment Act, ratcheting up research through grants awarded by the Health Resources and Service Administration. The Cure Sickle Cell Initiative aims to “accelerate the development of genetic therapies to cure sickle cell disease,” specifically through hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Since abnormal hemoglobin (Hemoglobin S) causes the blood cells to be sickle shaped, replacing it will cause the body to create normal hemoglobin. Traditionally, this has only been possible through bone marrow transplant and was limited to younger patients with perfectly matching donors. Stem cell research could change that.
Today, medicine seeks to alleviate the symptoms of SCD. The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute provides a good list of the current medications. See the following excerpt (2023):
Hydroxyurea is an oral medicine that can reduce or prevent several SCD complications, such as acute chest syndrome, a need for blood transfusions and pain events.
Voxelotor treats SCD in adults and children age 4 and older. The oral medicine prevents red blood cells from forming the sickle shape and binding together. This may decrease the destruction of some red blood cells, lowering the risk for anemia and improving blood flow.
Crizanlizumab-tmca reduces the number of pain crises experienced by adults and children aged 16 and older. Given through an IV, the medicine helps prevent blood cells from sticking to blood vessel walls and causing blood flow blockage, inflammation and pain crises. In addition, L-glutamine has been shown to lower the number of pain crises in people ages 5 and older. Over-the-counter pain medicine, such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen, can be used to treat mild to moderate pain, but for severe pain, providers may prescribe stronger medicines called opioids.
Penicillin has been shown to help children with SCD. Taking it twice a day can reduce the chance of having a severe infection in the bloodstream.
Transfusions can treat and prevent certain SCD complications. Acute transfusions treat complications that cause severe anemia. Red blood cell transfusions increase the number of red blood cells and provide normal red blood cells that are more flexible than red blood cells with sickle hemoglobin. Regular or ongoing blood transfusions may help lower the chances of another stroke in people who have had an acute stroke.
Read the full article here ("New Treatment Options for Sickle Cell Disease Provide Hope").
Lastly, you can check out Himmelfarb’s current Sickle Cell Awareness Month Display near the elevator!
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (2018). Curing Sickle Cell Initiative.
Sickle Cell Disease Social Media Resources. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (2023).https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/education/sickle-cell-month/social-media.
With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Bolte Taylor.
With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Bolte Taylor.
About the Book: “My Stroke of Insight” is a memoir and patient advocacy book by the neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor who suffered (and recovered) from a stroke caused by an arteriovenous malformation. The book reconstructs the morning of the hemorrhage, her experience of the stroke, and her complete recovery.
What Makes This Book Invaluable: The book provides a rare first person account of a stroke from someone with the training and vocabulary to analyze their own experience. Dissolving her sense of self, the stroke gave Taylor eight years to reimagine the meaning of consciousness and self.
Some Caveats:
It’s worth noting that Taylor’s experiences are anecdotal (just one puzzle piece of the overall picture), and therefore, her experiences won’t relate to every stroke victim.
Moreover, Taylor reports her experience of the stroke in almost mystical terms and relates feelings of oneness (observed by contemplative traditions worldwide) with right-brain neurological activity. It’s important to separate her experience from her conclusions and to maintain a receptive - but critical - eye for both.
Reasons to Read:
For the future physician, the book provides a striking reminder of what it’s like to be a patient. The second half focuses on her eight year recovery, the difficulties faced, and her accumulation of little victories, which culminates in advice for better patient care (see Appendix B).
For the philosophically inclined, Taylor’s experience raises fascinating questions about the relationship between physiology and consciousness and how disruptions can help reveal how the brain works.
Fun Facts: Beyond the TED Talk, “My Stroke of Insight” has also been adapted as a ballet called Orbo Novo by the Cedar Lake Ballet Company.
If you’re a new student, or if our article about Himmelfarb’s technology options caught your eye, you may have heard that SMHS, GWSPH, and GW Nursing faculty, staff, and students can 3D print for free.
But if you’ve never submitted a 3D printing request before, it might seem a little daunting. Fortunately – it’s super easy!
All you need to do is find the STL file you want to print (think of the STL as the digital blueprint for the print job), submit the file (or the URL of where to find it) using our Submission Form, and then let Himmelfarb staff take over. We’ll format the file and print it out for you.
But where do I find an STL file?
Fortunately, there are a number of high quality free 3D printing libraries available: NIH 3D Print Exchange, Thingiverse, or the Zortrax Library. I recommend starting with Thingiverse (Thingiverse is your friend). You can find almost anything you want just by querying their database and downloading the file.
3D printing has a myriad of applications for the medical field. For medical students, it allows the visualization of the (almost invisible) by modeling molecules, or it can create bone models such as flexible spines or 3D printed skulls. For more information on the process of printing through Himmelfarb, check out our 3D Printing Research Guide. We hope to collaborate with you soon!
New to Himmelfarb? Check out these tips for getting the most out of your library experience!
The Floors Breakdown (Noise and Availability)
Different floors have different roles in Himmelfarb.
1st Floor: group study area. Here you’ll find many 4-person tables and rolling white boards. Food and conversation are fine, as is catching up with colleagues on the sofas and chairs near the elevator.
2nd Floor: grad student quiet(est) study area: the second floor is a quiet area primarily for graduate students. Study carrels abound, both open and closed as well as shared study tables near the windows.
3rd Floor: the main floor is a quiet study area, while the Bloedorn Technology Center provides areas for collaboration including the Body Viz area and the tables with anatomical models. The SMHS IT Helpdesk is housed on this floor, as well as computer labs.
These computers are programmed with software useful for medical students – including statistical software. You can see the complete list here.
3rd Floor study options: open tables and study carrels
Want a Study Room? Reserve in advance.
Our 28 study rooms can be reserved online here. Reserving in advance is always your best bet to get a room, but if you’re on site, you can reserve through the above link or by scanning the QR code outside the study rooms, which will take you to the reservation form.
Reservations are for 4 hours blocks, and can be made a week in advance. All rooms have monitors and white boards for use.
Study hard, but be courteous to others!. The study rooms, although closed off, are still on a quiet floor.
AV Equipment to Borrow
To enhance your study experience, Himmelfarb has a plethora of AV equipment to borrow:
Expo Markers and Eraser (for the white boards - both in the study room and on the first floor)
Remote Controls (for the study room monitors)
HDMI, VGA, VGA to HDMI adaptor, etc. (ibid)
MacBook and iPhone chargers
Headphones
All of these can be checked out at the first floor Circulation desk. Just ask your friendly neighborhood Circ assistant!
Need a Break?
Studying until the pages blur? Take a break at our Healthy Living Collection located on the 1st floor! We have board games, coloring books for a Zen moment, weights, and an always-ongoing puzzle table. Delve into fiction or deepen your understanding of medical history with both our humanities and take a book/leave a book collections, found in our first floor alcove.
Healthy Living Collection - 1st floor near the Wepa printers
July is UV awareness month! In July, it’s important to balance the benefits of sunshine while maintaining healthy skin practices. July especially is a month of extremes: for those of us with the option to stay inside, overexposure during barbeques and parties might bookends days or weeks spent indoors because of sweltering temperatures, humidity, or even this summer’s poor air quality from wildfires.
Beyond vitamin D production, sun exposure is associated with systematic health benefits including blood pressure regulation, mood improvement, and a decreased likelihood of many different cancers (Hoel et. Al, 2016). But of course, UVA has a strong causal link with photoaging, and UVB with sunburns and melanoma, so balance is needed.
The “right” amount of sun depends on the time of year (see UV index map), geographic location, and skin pigmentation. However, a good rule of thumb is if you’re going to be outside and exposed to the sun for longer than 15-30 minutes, put on some sunscreen. Any exposure long enough to cause sunburn is too long. The American Academy of Dermatologists has great materials for decoding sunscreen labels, understanding the SPF of different clothing, and avoiding common sunscreen problems.
It’s important as well to reapply every couple of hours to avoid overexposure and to maximize health and fun!
