April is Occupational Therapy Month! According to the Cleveland Clinic, occupational therapy (OT) is a treatment that helps patients improve their ability to perform daily tasks and activities to be as self-sufficient as possible. Many patients receive OT after injuries or trauma that impact their ability to perform everyday tasks such as getting dressed, cooking meals, taking medications, and shopping for groceries.
We’re especially excited to highlight occupational therapy this year as we approach the graduation of GW’s inaugural class from the Occupational Therapy doctoral program! To celebrate Occupational Therapy Month, today’s post will highlight some occupational therapy resources available at Himmelfarb Library.
Occupational Therapy Research Guide: Find links to useful OT databases, journals, textbooks, professional resources, and more on our OT guide!
Disability and Rehabilitation: This journal publishes articles on rehabilitation in practice, rehabilitation policy, assessment procedures, and education and training.
Occupational Therapy International: This open access journal publishes research and review articles that provide evidence-based recommendations for OT practice.
Skills for Practice in Occupational Therapy: This book is a great resource for OT students and new practitioners. It covers a wide range of topics, including decision-making, evidence-based practice, research skills, and leadership and management.
Databases such as PubMed, CINAHL, and Scopus can be helpful in finding research articles about OT. If you have questions about Himmelfarb’s OT resources or recommendations of titles to add to our collection, reach out to us at himmelfarb@gwu.edu.
Happy Occupational Therapy Month from Himmelfarb Library!
[Note: Himmelfarb has replaced this copy with the 2021 edition]
With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hatby Oliver Sacks.
About the Book: In short, fascinating chapters – many of them originally published as articles – Sacks records the case studies of his neurological patients. Told with erudite whimsy, these case studies incorporate Sack’s knowledge of philosophy, from Nietzsche to Goethe to Wittgenstein, and his humane spirit. Many chapters expand the original article with a postscript that further defines the neurological condition (like Korsakoff’s Syndrome) and connects Sack’s research with similar cases and increased insights.
Reasons to Read: Oliver Sacks is the kind of author I’d recommend to almost anyone. These cases are like Poe, Lovecraft, Kafka, and Philip K. Dick, except more astonishing because of their reality. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat could be enjoyed both by readers that want to ponder the philosophical implications of these cases and those who simply want to read something interesting.
Reasons to Avoid: Primarily, if you had to decide between An Anthropologist on Mars (also highlighted in the Rotation) and The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, I recommend the former. With only seven case studies in Anthropologist, Sack has much more space to develop the patient’s story and the background of their condition. But, both books are great.
Louis Wade Sullivan at Spotlight Health Aspen Ideas Festival 2015. Creative Commons image.
The Rotation is proud to continue our observance of Black History Month with a look at the life of Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, MD, the founding Dean of Morehouse School of Medicine, and the second African American appointed as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Louis Wade Sullivan was born in 1933 in the rural town of Blakely, Georgia. From an early age, Wade knew he wanted to be a doctor thanks to the influence of Dr. Joseph Griffin, the only Black doctor in the region. According to Sullivan’s memoir, Breaking Ground: My Life in Medicine (available in print and e-book at Himmelfarb Library):
...neither Blakley nor any of its surrounding towns had a black doctor or a black hospital. If you were sick enough that you needed medical attention, you could do without and let nature take its course, you could go to one of the local root doctors, … or you could go to the white doctor, but that meant going around back and sitting in a separate waiting room, which people considered demeaning. It meant you were acquiescing to the so-called universal presumption of black inferiority. That was a constant black people had to put up with in Blakely, as they did all over the South, but they didn’t like it.
The other option was that you could go to Dr. Griffin, who treated patients at his twenty-five-bed hospital in Bainbridge. Having Dr. Griffin take care of you was more in keeping with your dignity. It was also something of a statement of independence, tinged with defiance. It meant that there were some things at least, that you would not put up with if you could help it (Sullivan, Chanoff, &Young, 2014).
Sullivan’s father was the town of Blakely’s only African American mortician, and often used his hearse as an ambulance to transport black patients who did not have other means of transportation to Dr. Griffin’s hospital to receive the medical care they needed (Sullivan, Chanoff, &Young, 2014). Sullivan recalls being “completely taken by how a doctor could help very ill people get better. … I wanted to be exactly like Dr. Griffin” (Sullivan, Chanoff, &Young, 2014).
Sullivan studied pre-med at Morehouse College (Harvard College, 2020). He graduated from Morehouse in 1954 - the same year as the historic Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that declared school segregation unconstitutional (Talesnik, 2016). He then started medical school at Boston University School of Medicine, where he was the only African American student in his class, and only one of three African American students in the medical school (Talesnik, 2016). He graduated third in his medical school class in 1958 (Harvard College, 2020).
He completed his medical training at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, where he was the first Black intern at the institution (Talesnik, 2016). During his time at Cornell Medical Center, Sullivan completed a fellowship in hematology. He followed that up with a pathology fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and a hematology fellowship at Harvard’s Thorndike Laboratory at Boston City Hospital (Sullivan, Chanoff, &Young, 2014). One of his most notable research studies looked at the correlation between alcoholism and its impact on the human-blood-forming system (Rees & Labosier, 2023). In 1966, Sullivan became the co-director of Hematology at Boston University Medical Center, in 1967, he founded Boston University Hematology Service at Boston City Hospital and directed the Boston Sickle Cell Center (Rees & Labosier, 2023).
In the mid-1970s, Sullivan returned to Morehouse to help establish and serve as the founding dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine (Harvard College, 2020). The Morehouse School of Medicine became “the only four-year medical school organized for black students in the 20th century, joining Howard University School of Medicine and Meharry Medical College, which had been founded in the 19th century” (Talesnik, 2016). In 1976, Sullivan partnered with Dr. Walter Bowie, and Anthony Rachal to found the Association on Minority Health Professions Schools (AMHPS) to promote a national minority health agenda and “quantifying the health status and health personnel needs of the minority community” (Association of Minority Health Professions Schools, n.d.).
In 1989, Sullivan was appointed as the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) by President George H.W. Bush becoming only the second African American to serve in this position (Harvard College, 2020). During his time as Secretary of HHS, Sullivan spearheaded the creation of the NIH Office of Minority Health, which is now the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), as well as the appointment of Dr. Bernadine Healy as the first female director of the NIH, Dr. Antonia Novello as the first female and Hispanic surgeon general, and the first female HHS chief of staff (Talesnik, 2016). One key accomplishment of Sullivan’s time as Secretary of HHS was getting new standardized nutrition labels on packaged foods to help Americans make healthier choices, which received pushback from the FDA and the Department of Agriculture over concerns of potential harm to the dairy and cattle industries (Talesnik, 2016). Sullivan stated that grocery stores have “become a Tower of Babel and consumers need to be linguists, scientists, and mind readers to understand the many labels they see” before the new standardized food labels were adopted (Institute of Medicine US Committee on Examination of Front-of-Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols, 2010).
When his term as Secretary of HHS ended, Sullivan returned to Morehouse School of Medicine to serve as two-time dean and president of the school (1980-1989 and 1993-2002) and was named President Emeritus in 2003 (Morehouse School of Medicine, 2025). Sullivan has served in numerous other leadership roles during his career including the Co-Chair of the President’s Commission on HIV and AIDS (2001-2006), Chairman of the President’s Commission on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (2002-2009), and currently serves as Chairman and Founder of the Sullivan Alliance to Transform the Health Professions (Harvard College, 2020).
Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Examination of Front-of-Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols, Wartella, E. A., Lichtenstein, A. H., & Boon, C. S. (Eds.). (2010). Front-of-package nutrition rating systems and symbols: Phase I report. National Academies Press (US).
It’s time for many students to start studying for board exams. Whether you are studying for Step 1, PANCE/PANRE, or another board exam, Himmelfarb Library has plenty of great resources to help you feel prepared and ready to ace your board exams!
Exam Master uses question banks to prepare you for the USMLE Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, PANCE, and PANRE exams. Intended to simulate the experience of an actual board exam, Exam Master provides scoring feedback that helps you identify areas you need to focus on. Access is available from on-campus and via VPN from off-campus. Create a free personal account to access this great resource!
Case Files Collection
The Case Files Collection provides an interactive series of case scenarios that mimic real-life cases. Clinical cases, explanations, and quizzes will help you retain knowledge. Personalized functionality lets you track your progress through completed and unseen cases. Create a free MyAccess personal account using your @gwu.edu email address and start studying!
Himmelfarb Library has honored Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with numerous blog posts, and as we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. again today, we wanted to take a look back at some of our previous posts. These posts can serve as an opportunity to reflect on Dr. King’s life and legacy, celebrate the progress made toward continuing Dr. King’s work, and recommit to the work that still needs to be done.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is well known for his passionate and thoughtful speeches that examined racial discrimination in the United States, the negative impacts of poverty, and the need for communities to rally behind and support vulnerable populations. His iconic “I Have a Dream” speech focused on education, access to housing, racial desegregation, and building an equitable country. Dr. King also fought to end racial inequities in healthcare.
On March 25, 1966, Dr. King spoke at a meeting of the Medical Committee for Human Rights. While the full transcript of this speech has not been discovered, fragments were printed in newspapers. This speech addressed the harsh realities that people of color, particularly Black Americans, faced in America and urged listeners to educate themselves on these inequities and work to dismantle systemic oppression. It was during a press conference documented by the Associated Press before this speech that Dr. King is thought to have spoken one of his most famous quotes about health according to Professor Charlene Galarneau:
“We are concerned about the constant use of federal funds to support this most notorious expression of segregation. Of all forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death” (Galarneau, 2018, p.5).
Dr. King’s speech was a call to action encouraging people to educate themselves about the issues of racism and economic inequality and use this knowledge to establish and maintain inclusive communities. If you’d like to learn more about Dr. King’s speech to the Medical Committee for Human Rights, read the full post!
If we are to take up Dr. King’s call to action and educate ourselves on the issues of racism and economic inequality, last year’s post about honoring King’s legacy through self-education can be a great place to start! This post highlights resources that can help you learn about these topics so you can put that knowledge into action!
To learn more about these resources, read the full post!
References: Galarneau, C. (2018). Getting King’s Words Right. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 29(1), 5–8. https://doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2018.0001
With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World,” by Steven Johnson.
About the Book: A story of epidemiology in its infancy, Steven Johnson analyzes the cholera outbreak in 1854 and the key investigators unraveling the mystery of transmission. Balancing urban planning, biology, and politics, The Ghost Map explores the rise of ultra-dense urban communities and the trial-and-error discovery of basic civic needs, like waste management. It’s a book about ideas: both why we cling to bad ones and the consequences of doing so.
Reasons to Read: If you enjoy medical detective stories, Johnson provides an excellent one, assembling information into an efficient and intelligible chain of cause and effect while commenting insightfully on the history of disease. The book has no shortage of Victorian horrors, as well, if you want to further your gratitude for 21st century life.
Reasons to Avoid: well, it is fundamentally a book about poop (and ingesting it); "what cholera wants is an environment where people are eating other people's excrement” (Johnson, 2006, pg. 40). Scatological tolerances aside, it’s a book as much about urban planning and the competition of ideas as it is a straightforward disease narrative, compared to something like Pale Rider.
We hope you had a restful and relaxing Winter Break! We’ve enjoyed having so many of you in the library again during the first week of Spring Semester classes! It’s always fun to feel the buzz of excitement in the library at the start of a new semester!
We’d like to take a minute to remind you that Himmelfarb Library is here to support you as you pursue your goals this term, so let’s review some ways Himmelfarb can help you make the most of the Spring Semester.
Library Hours
Himmelfarb’s regular operating hours are:
Himmelfarb Library
Reference Services
Consultation
Monday - Friday
6:00 am - Midnight
8:00 am - 8:00 pm
8:30 am - 5:00 pm
Saturday
8:00 am - Midnight
Not staffed
Not staffed
Sunday
8:00 am - Midnight
4:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Not staffed
Visit our Hours page to view any exceptions to our normal hours, such as holiday closures.
Study Zones
Himmelfarb is also a great place to study with numerous options to meet your needs and preferences.
Social Zone - 1st Floor: Our first floor is not quiet and is the perfect place to study with your friends, hang out, and be social, or take a study break with a game of chess, our current puzzle, coloring books, board games, or hula hoops!
Silent Zone - 2nd Floor: Our second floor is a silent floor reserved for graduate and advanced degree students. Silence is golden on this floor - it’s the perfect place to study if you need pristine silence to focus while you study. Don’t let the 4-person tables tempt you to be social - even whispering can disturb your fellow silence seekers.
Quiet Zone - 3rd Floor: Our third floor is a quiet study area, where whispering is acceptable, but please be respectful to others and keep things quiet.
Group Study Rooms: Our study rooms are located on the second and third floors and are great for studying with friends! Reserve your study room in advance to secure a room. These rooms aren’t noise-proof, so please keep conversations quiet so you don’t disturb others in the Silent and Quiet Zones!
Our Collections
Himmelfarb has extensive collections that include more than 125 databases, 6,700 e-books, and 6,500 journals, available 24/7 from on and off campus! Our print book collection, located in the basement-level stacks, is available for checkout. Most books can be borrowed for three weeks, with two renewals available if you need an item longer. To renew your items, stop by the first-floor service desk, call us (202-994-2962), or log in to your library account and renew online.
While we pride ourselves on our books and collections, Himmelfarb offers a lot of things you might not expect from a library. Take some time this semester to explore some of the more unique things Himmelfarb has to offer!
BodyViz: This interactive anatomy visualization tool is a fantastic way to explore and learn anatomy in a fun and exciting way!
Statistical Software: Some of our third-floor computers come equipped with statistical software including SPSS, Stata, SAS, NVivo, MATLAB, and Atlas.ti.
Tech Equipment:Our digital camcorders, digital voice recorders, and ring lights can be reserved in advance for your media-related projects.
Medical Gear: We have suture kits, an ultrasound machine, a blood pressure monitor, an ECG monitor, an iPhone otoscope, and a fitness tracker available for checkout!
Tech & Support: We have chargers for iPhones and MacBooks, USB-C to HDMI OUT and USB-C to USB-A IN adapters, HDMI cables, headphones, and dry-erase markers available for checkout. We also have free earplugs at the first-floor service desk!
Reference and Research Support
Himmelfarb is more than just a great space to study and fantastic resources! Our librarians and staff can help you find the resources you need for your studies and research. Whether you’re looking for the right book or journal article for an assignment, need help with a literature search or a systematic review, or want to learn how to organize your sources with RefWorks or Covidence, our reference librarians and staff can help!
Stop by the first-floor service desk to get help from our knowledgeable and friendly reference librarians and staff in person, or use our Ask a Librarian service to chat virtually. Our Ask a Librarian service is staffed by real Himmelfarb librarians and staff, so you can be sure you’re getting the help you need! You can also email us a question, or schedule a consultation with a reference librarian at himmelfarb@gwu.edu.
Himmelfarb Library’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee (DEI Committee) is proud to announce the release of the new LGBTQ+ Health Research Guide! The guide features resources that address LBGTQ+ healthcare in clinical and research settings and explores sexual orientation and gender identity barriers to accessing healthcare. You’ll also find general resources including links to LGBTQ+ health organizations at GW and in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area. Relevant books, e-books, and journals from Himmelfarb’s collection, educational resources about pronouns and preferred terminology, and podcasts to help you learn about LGBTQ+ healthcare are showcased in the guide.
Please note that some resources, such as e-books and journal collections, may require GW credentials to access.
The Researchers tab of the guide provides insight into useful MeSH search terms, links to helpful research-related guides, and information about conducting research. This tab also features published works related to LGBTQ+ health by GW authors in Himmelfarb’s Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC).
The DEI Committee wants this guide to be a high-quality resource relevant to our community, and we encourage our users to share relevant resources for inclusion in the LGBTQ+ Health Guide through our Resource Suggestion Form. If you are a member of a GW organization and would like your organization to be featured in this guide, or if you’re interested in partnering with the DEI Committee, please contact the current committee chair, Brittany Smith, at bsmith91@gwu.edu.
October is National Physical Therapy Month! This National Physical Therapy (PT) Month, we want to celebrate and acknowledge the fantastic work of Physical Therapists, Physical Therapist Assistants (PTAs), and PT educators. Himmelfarb Library is proud to provide resources to support PT research and learning to help further education and understanding within the field. Here are some great physical therapy resources provided by Himmelfarb Library:
Journals
Our journal collection includes some great PT titles! Here are just a few of what we offer:
American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation: This journal publishes cutting-edge basic and clinical research, clinical case reports, and in-depth topical reviews of interest to rehabilitation professionals.
Current Sports Medicine Reports: The official clinical journal of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), this journal focuses entirely on clinical sports medicine, including aspects of physical therapy such as training, prevention, and rehabilitation, and sport-specific illness and injury.
Journal of Physical Therapy Education: This journal publishes works of discovery, application, and integration and enriches academic and clinical PT education with evidence-based decision-making processes to prepare learners, support faculty and clinicians, and inform administrators.
Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Journal (PTJ): This leading journal for research in PT and related fields publishes content for clinicians and scientists using a variety of interactive approaches to improve patient care.
Databases can be a great way to find journal articles, practice guidelines, and reviews! The following databases are great for physical therapy-related searches:
DiTA, Diagnostic Test Accuracy: PT database includes primary studies and systematic reviews evaluating diagnostic tests used by physical therapists.
CINAHL: Authoritative coverage of nursing and allied health literature.
PubMed: Health sciences articles including clinical, basic sciences, and public health information.
Scopus: Interdisciplinary citation and abstract database.
Software & Tech Tools
Our PT collection is much more than just a collection of journals, databases, and books. We also have some great software, apps, and other digital resources to support PT teaching and learning!
BodyViz: Interactive 3D anatomy visualization tool that includes over 1,000 data sets from human and animal models in healthy and pathological states at different developmental stages.
With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers,” by Mary Roach.
With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers,” by Mary Roach.
About the Book: The book that launched Mary Roach's science-writing career, "Stiff" investigates the contribution of human cadavers to science [with studies ranging from humane to grisly to wacky; from crash safety to the physics of crucifixion], as well as human burial practices [including alternatives to burial or cremation]. Written with humor and respect – and without sacrificing the ethical questions – Roach follows her journalistic interest while guiding readers along the various labs, morgues, and fields of rotting corpses in the industry.
Reasons to Read: If you like books that make you say "dang" a lot (or your preferred utterance), if you want to take a steady (but never overly macabre) look at death (and maybe get a party fact about Victorian medicine along the way), or if you want to understand the reality of cadaver testing for you or your loved one.
Reasons to Avoid: If you like your books to be focused [Roach encompasses the history of anatomy, organ donation, crash and ballistics testing, embalming techniques, funeral practices, and more.], or if you'd rather dial down the wisecracks in books about death.
