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Informationist Conference

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Speakers and Facilitators

The following speakers and facilitators have been confirmed for the Informationist Conference.

Speakers who have provided presentations in advance are denoted with Presentation icon. Presentation links are available below, along with the speaker's biographical information.

This page was last update October 13, 2010.

To top of page Edward M. Bednarczyk, Pharm.D.Presentation icon

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Edward M. Bednarczyk, Pharm.D., is research assistant professor, Nuclear Medicine, Department of Nuclear Medicine, SUNY-Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, and clinical assistant professor, Pharmacy Practice, Department of Pharmacy Practice, Amherst, NY.

To top of page Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, Ph.D., FAAN, FACMI

Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, Ph.D., FAAN, FACMI, is the Lillian L. Moehlman Bascom professor, School of Nursing and College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Brennan received a masters of science in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Following seven years of clinical practice in critical care nursing and psychiatric nursing, Dr. Brennan has held several academic positions. She developed and directed the ComputerLink, an electronic network designed to reduce isolation and improve self-care among home care patients.

Dr. Brennan currently directs the HeartCare initiative, a Web-based home care support service for patients recovering from cardiac surgery. Dr. Brennan is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics, and an elected Member of the Institute of Medicine. She served as president of the American Medical Informatics Association (1999-2001) and serves as founding associate editor for its prestigious publication, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

To top of page Christopher Chute, M.D., Dr.P.H. Presentation icon

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Dr. Chute received his undergraduate and medical training at Brown University, internal medicine residency at Dartmouth, and doctoral training in Epidemiology at Harvard. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Medical Informatics. He became Head of the Section of Medical Information Resources at Mayo Foundation in 1988 and Division Chair of Medical informatics Research in 2002, where he is now professor of medical informatics and associate professor of epidemiology.

As a career scientist at Mayo, Dr. Chute's NIH and AHCPR funded research in medical concept representation, clinical information retrieval, and patient data repositories have been widely published. He was Vice-chair of the ANSI Health Information Standards Board through 2001, and is now Convener of ISO TC215/WG3 on Healthcare Concept Representation, co-chair of the HL7 Terminology Committee and a member of the NIH Medical Informatics Study Section. He has chaired IMIA WG6 on Medical Concept Representation since 1994. He previously co-chaired the CPRI WG on Terminology and the series of National Conference on Clinical Terminologies. Additional information is available at http://mayoresearch.mayo.edu/staff/chute_cg.cfm.

To top of page Frank Davidoff, M.D. Presentation icon

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Frank Davidoff, editor emeritus, Annals of Internal Medicine, received his M.D. degree from Columbia University in 1959. His residency and fellowship training (endocrinology) were at the Massachusetts General Hospital. For eight years, he was director of the Diabetes Unit at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, during which time he was recipient of an NIH Research Career Development Award.

He served on the faculty of Harvard Medical School from 1965 to1974, where he was associate professor of medicine from 1971 to 1974. He then was appointed professor of medicine at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine (1974-1987), where, in 1974, he was chief, Division of General Medicine, a position he held until 1982. From 1982 until 1987 he was chief, Department of Medicine, New Britain General Hospital, New Britain, CT. In 1987 he became senior vice president for education at the American College of Physicians and remained in that position until his appointment as editor, Annals of Internal Medicine, on March 1, 1995. He retired as editor on July 1, 2001, and is now an editorial consultant.

Dr. Davidoff has been the principal investigator of research grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Fund for Medical Education, the Commonwealth Fund, the Pew Charitable Trust, and the American College of Physicians-American Society for Internal Medicine Foundation.

Dr. Davidoff was certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in 1966. He is a founding member of the Society of General Internal Medicine and a member of the American Federation for Clinical Research, the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He is a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and of the American College of Physicians.

Dr. Davidoff has served on Study Sections of the National Institutes of Health and advisory panels of the American Board of Internal Medicine, the Association of American Medical Colleges (Conflict of Interest), the National Academy of Sciences, the National Board of Medical Examiners, the National Library of Medicine (PubMed Central), and the National Research Council. He has also served on the editorial board of the Journal of General Internal Medicine and has been a manuscript reviewer for the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Journal of General Internal Medicine. He has published more than sixty original papers and book chapters on a range of subjects including lipid metabolism, diabetes, molecular pharmacology, medical education, publication and research ethics, and medical decision making and editorials on a variety of topics related to clinical medicine, medical editing, and the environment of medical practice. He is the author of the book of essays Who Has Seen a Blood Sugar? Reflections on Medical Education.

To top of page Steven Desiderio, M.D., Ph.D.

Steven Desiderio, M.D., is investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD. Further information is available at http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/institute_cell_engineering/experts/stephen_desiderio.html.

To top of page Ellen Gay Detlefsen, D.L.I.S.

Ellen Detlefsen is a tenured faculty member in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, with joint appointments in the Center for Biomedical Informatics and in the Women's Studies Program. She was educated at Smith College and Columbia University and holds her doctorate from the Columbia University School of Library Service. Her areas of expertise and teaching competence include biomedical and health sciences information, medical informatics, and resources and services for special populations such as patients and health care consumers, and the aging and their caregivers. She will be awarded the Medical Library Association's Lucretia McClure Award for Excellence in Education at MLA, 02 in Dallas.

Detlefsen is an active member of the Medical Library Association, past chair of the Medical Library Education Section, and past chair of the Pittsburgh Regional Chapter. She currently serves on the national Chapter Council of MLA, and she completed a term on the national MLANET Editorial Board. She gave the keynote address for the Upstate New York/Ontario Chapter in 1998 and has taught or co-taught continuing educaton courses for the North Atlantic Health Sciences Libraries Chapter, Mid-Atlantic Chapter, Pittsburgh, and Hawaii-Pacific chapters, as well as at the national MLA meeting. She also teaches CME courses for the American College of Psychiatrists.

Recent publications by Dr. Detlefsen include articles on the education of "informationists," Web materials in women's health, the information behavior of health professionals, and changes in library education in response to a changing health care and medical school environment. Her paper on "Education for Health Sciences and Biomedical Librarianship: Past, Present, Future" won the l988 Ida and George Eliot Prize from the Medical Library Association, a prize which recognizes the year's "most distinguished contribution to the literature of medical librarianship."

Dr. Detlefsen is currently project director for the Highmark Minority Health Link initiative, which seeks to build minority-sensitive consumer health materials for health care consumers in the African American communities of Western Pennsylvania. This project is supported by a grant to the Department of Library and Information Science from Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, two master's students will be appointed as Highmark Fellows during each year of the project.

In 1996 and 1997, she was co-principal investigator on a National Library of Medicine Planning Grant for the Education and Training of Health Sciences Librarians. Together with Dr. Louise Su, she was also co-principal investigator for a 1996 Department of Education Institute Grant on Life Sciences Reference and Research; she and Dr. Margaret Kimmel were Co-Principal Investigators on a 1997 Department of Education Institute grant on Library and Information Sources and Services for Seniors and their Caregivers.

To top of page John N. Evans, Ph.D. Presentation icon

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Dr. John N. Evans is senior advisor at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. He served as executive dean of the College from 1991 to 2001. He is responsible for technology transfer, clinical trials, and strategic initiatives. As executive dean he was responsible for the overall academic mission of the College. He has been a member of NIH Study Sections and served on numerous editorial boards of journals. His research interest is lung cell biology, particularly the control of smooth muscle cell growth.

To top of page Valerie Florance, M.A., M.L.S., Ph.D. Presentation icon

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Valerie Florance, Ph.D., is a program officer in Extramural Programs at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). She is responsible for a portfolio of grants that includes Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems (IAIMS), NLM's resource grants, and several categories of informatics research grants. Before coming to NLM in February 2001, she was project director for better_health@here.now at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and principal investigator of IAIMS: The Next Generation, N01-LM-9-3523, a contract between AAMC and the National Library of Medicine.

Until October 1998, she was director of Academic Computing at the University of Rochester Medical Center, a position that included responsibility for the Edward G. Miner Library and for Rochester's IAIMS planning initiative. Before moving to Rochester, Dr. Florance held various positions at the William H. Welch Medical Library, Johns Hopkins University. She began her health information sciences career at the Eccles Health Sciences Library, as editor of MEDOC: Computerized Index to Government Documents in the Health & Information Sciences. She has been a member of the National Library of Medicine's Biomedical Library Review Committee and was a member of the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences study that published its report "Networking Health: Prescriptions for the Internet" in June 2000.

While in Utah, Dr. Florance received graduate degrees in medical anthropology and library sciences. She completed her doctoral studies in information sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1995, she received MLA's Ida and George Eliot prize for her article " The Health Sciences Librarian as Knowledge Worker," coauthored with Nina Matheson. In 1997, she received the Eliot prize again for her article "Educating Physicians to Use the Digital Llibrary," coauthored by Sherrilynne Fuller, Robert Braude, and Mark Frisse. She is past editor of the Annual Statistics of Medical School Libraries in the United States and Canada, published by the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries.

To top of page Carla J. Funk, M.L.S., M.B.A., CAE

Carla J. Funk has been the executive director of the Medical Library Association (MLA) since 1992.

Ms. Funk previously worked for the American Medical Association (AMA) in several positions including director of medical student services, the women in medicine project, and the AMA library's automation and technical services. She has also been a consultant for the Suburban Library System in the Chicago suburbs and a public library director.

Active in several professional associations, Ms. Funk has been a president of the Illinois Library Association and been active in the American Library Association, American Association of Medical Society Executives, and the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE). She is also an adjunct faculty member for the Dominican University Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

Ms. Funk holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, a master's in library science from Indiana University, and a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University. She recently became a certified association executive granted through the ASAE certification program. She is a member of Beta Phi Mu, the library honorary society, and is listed in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the Midwest.

To top of page John Gallin, M.D.

A New York native, Dr. Gallin attended public school in New Rochelle, N.Y., graduated cum laude in 1965 from Amherst College and earned his M.D. degree at Cornell University Medical College in 1969. He was a medical intern and resident at New York University-Bellevue Hospital Medical Center from 1969 to 1971, and received training in Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1971-1974. In 1974-75 he returned to the New York University-Bellevue Hospital Medical Center as the Senior Chief Medical Resident.

Dr. Gallin is an active clinician, a researcher and an administrator. He served as Scientific Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1985-1994. During this period, Dr. Gallin oversaw all intramural activities for NIAID, including doubling of the research budget in response to the AIDS epidemic, introduction of a modern informatics program to NIAID and revitalization of NIAID's Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana. Since 1991 Dr. Gallin has been Chief of the Laboratory of Host Defenses, NIAID. His primary research interests focus on the role of phagocytes, the body's scavenger cells in host defense. When phagocytes fail to produce hydrogen peroxide and bleach a rare hereditary immune disorder, chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) of childhood, results. His laboratory has described the genetic basis for several forms of this disease and the use of interferon-gamma to reduce life-threatening infections in CGD. Dr. Gallin has authored over 290 research articles and edited the text books Inflammation [Lippincott Williams and Wilkins (1999)] and Principles and Practice of Clinical Research [Academic Press (2002)].

In 1994 Dr. Gallin was appointed to his current position as Director of the NIH Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center with a dual appointment as NIH Associate Director for Clinical Research. The NIH Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center serves the clinical research needs of 15 NIH institutes and is the largest clinical research hospital in the world. As the Director of the NIH Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center and NIH Associate Director for Clinical Research, Dr. Gallin has led the revitalization of clinical research at NIH. This has included implementation of changes in clinical research infrastructure with emphasis on training (establishment of a curriculum in clinical research) and utilization of telemedicine in clinical research.

Among Dr. Gallin's awards are the USPHS Distinguished Service Award, the Young Investigator Award of the American Federation for Clinical Research, and the Squibb Award of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. In 1988 he received an honorary Doctor of Science from Amherst College. In 1991 he received the USPHS award for orphan product development for his studies leading to the licensing of interferon-gamma to reduce infections in CGD. In 2001 he was recognized as the Physician Executive of the Year Award by the USPHS. Dr. Gallin is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.

Dr. Gallin is married to Elaine Klimerman Gallin (1966) and they have two children, Alice (an attorney, b 1968) and Michael (an architect, b 1970).

Further information is available at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/LabsAndResources/labs/aboutlabs/lhd/clinicalPathophysiologySection/Pages/gallin.aspx.

To top of page Nunzia Bettinsoli Giuse, M.L.S., M.D., AHIP Presentation icon

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Dr. Giuse is director of the Eskind Biomedical Library and associate professor of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN. Further information is available at http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/biolib/people/nunzia.html.

To top of page W. Ed Hammond, Ph.D. Presentation icon

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W. Ed Hammond, Ph.D., is Professor-emeritus, Community and Family Medicine and professor, Biomedical Engineering at Duke University, Durham, NC. He is in the process of joining the faculty of the Health Sectors Management division of the Fuqua School of Business. He has had extensive experience in the design and implementation of electronic patient records. He is a co-developer of The Medical Record (TMR), which functions in both inpatient and outpatient settings and is a clinical as well as a billing record system. He is also involved in the development of messaging standards and in the development of controlled vocabularies.

Dr. Hammond is president of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). He has served on the AMIA Board since its beginning and has served as Treasurer twice. He has twice served as the Chair of Health Level 7 and is currently co-chair of the Vocabulary Technical Committee and the Vice Chair of the HL7 Technical Steering Committee. He served as President of the American College of Medical Informatics. He served as Chair of the Computer-based Patient Record Institute and on the Board. He was a Chair of ACM SIGBIO for two terms. He is currently the Convenor of ISO Technical Committee 215, Working Group 2.

Dr. Hammond has served and is serving on a number of editorial boards and has served on a number of NIH review committees. He is a fellow of ACMI and of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He has published over 300 technical articles.

Additional information is available at https://www.dtmi.duke.edu/directory/Hammo001.

To top of page J. Michael Homan, M.L.S., AHIP Presentation icon

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J. Michael Homan is the director of libraries for Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation (1994-), and assistant professor of medical informatics, Mayo Medical School (1995-), in Rochester, Minnesota. His bachelor's degree is from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and his master's degree is from the Graduate Library School, University of Chicago. A post-masters internship was spent at the University of California, Los Angeles Biomedical Library. Mr. Homan served as president of the Medical Library Association from 2000-2001 and currently serves on the MLA Board of Directors as past-president for 2001-2002.

Homan served on the MLA Board of Directors from 1986 to 1988 and on the Board of Directors of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) from 1991 to 1994. He served as editor of the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association from October 1996 until April 2000 and was managing editor of books for MLA from 1990 to 1996. Her currently serves on the PubMed Central National Advisory Committee of the National Library of Medicine (2000-2003) and on the editorial board of Academic Medicine, official journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

To top of page Betsy L. Humphreys, M.L.S., AHIP Presentation icon

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Betsy L. Humphreys is associate director for library operations and assistant director for health services research information, National Library of Medicine, Bethsda, MD. Additional information is available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/od/roster/humphreys.html.

To top of page Carol G. Jenkins, M.L.S., AHIP Presentation icon

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Carol G. Jenkins, AHIP, is the director, Health Sciences Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and 2001/02 Medical Library Association president. Additional biographical information is available on MLANET at http://www.mlanet.org/about/leaders/president_01-02/pres_cv.html and in the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=34569

To top of page Marshall Keys, M.L.S., Ph.D.

Marshall Keys founded MDA Consulting after retiring from ten years as Executive Director of NELINET, Inc., the largest library organization in New England. He earned a Bachelor's degree in English from Rutgers College and Master's and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in English from Vanderbilt University. Dr. Keys also holds a Master's degree in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has worked as a college professor, serials librarian, reference librarian, library director, and academic dean. He has been active in a number of professional organizations and frequently writes and speaks on the impact of technology and social change on libraries.

Mr. Keys won the 1999 Emerson Greenaway Award, given by the New England Library Association for outstanding career contributions to librarianship. In July, 2000, he was named to the National Advocacy Honor Roll by the Association of Library Trustees and Advocates. The citation said, "Each time you listen to Marshall speak or read a column he wrote, you are challenged, energized, and proud to serve in the library profession." In September, 2000, he was named a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Studies. He was the keynote speaker at the ALTA meeting in San Francisco in June, 2001, and has given keynote speeches to the North Carolina Library Association, the Vermont Library Association, the Tennessee Library Association, and to many networks and other organizations.

MDA Consulting assists libraries and other information intensive organizations in developing strategic thinking. Clients have included Innovative Interfaces, Inc., the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Library of Michigan, Brown University, the University of Maryland, the Hartford Free Public Library, the University of Manitoba, Bridgewater State College, and a number multi-type systems, including the Northeastern and Central Regional Library Systems in Massachusetts, and the North Suburban Library System in Illinois.

Marshall Keys is a member of the adjunct faculty at the Simmons College Graduate School of Information and Library Studies and has recently given presentations for the New England Library Association, the Alberta Library Association, the University of Toronto, Plymouth State College, North Atlantic Health Sciences Librarians, the Cleveland Area Metropolitan Library System, and the NORWELD system in Ohio.

To top of page Nancy Langston, R.N., M.S.N., Ph.D. Presentation icon

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Nancy Langston, Ph.D., holds bachelor's (University of Arkansas, 1966) and master's (Emory University, 1972) degrees in nursing and a doctorate (Georgia State University, 1977) in education with a focus on administration in higher education.

Her scholarship and research lie in two broad and diverse areas of inquiry. The first is organizational structure and its effect on faculty lives and productivity and the second involves the factors affecting the quality of life of the elderly, particularly the institutionalized elderly. She has publications resulting from work in both of these areas.

Dr. Langston has been engaged in nursing education for many years, serving as a faculty member in six different nursing schools (five of which are in the southern region) and has experience in all types of nursing education programs, with the exception of Licensed Practiced Nurse education. She is currently a professor at the School of Nursing of Virginia Commonwealth University(VCU) located in Richmond, Virginia.

In addition to her appointments as faculty, she has a lengthy history of appointments to administrative positions within nursing programs. She served as associate dean for undergraduate programs at the University of Nebraska. In that position she held a joint appointment in the Department of Educational Administration and taught a course of faculty issues of higher education. After eight years at Nebraska, she became dean of the School of Nursing at University of North Carolina-Charlotte where she served for six years and she then moved to VCU in July, 1991.

Dr. Langton has a lengthy record of involvement in local civic organizations such as Civitan, the Charlotte hospice board, the Richmond free clinic board, and on the disaster management planning committee of the Richmond chapter of the American Red Cross. In addition she has an extensive history of involvement in professional nursing organizations at local, state, regional, and national levels. At the national level, she has served on several committees of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. For the National League for Nursing she served as the chairperson of the Council of Baccalaureate and Higher Degree Programs in the early 1990s and in September 2001, she completed a twoyear term as president of the association. In her role as president, she had the opportunity to participate in numerous and diverse committees and task forces and speak at numerous meetings, the majority of which are related to nursing and nursing education. That participation continues with such national activities as membership on the International Nursing Coalition for Mass Casualty Education, membership on an advisory task force for the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, the association that prepares the licensing exam and advises states on the licensing and regulation of nursing, and later this month she will serve on an expert panel on the nursing shortage at a meeting of the Academic Health Centers.

To top of page Rosalind K. Lett, M.S.L.S., AHIP

Rosalind Lett, M.S.L.S., AHIP, is the Library Director, Meharry Medical College Medical Library, Nashville, TN. Ms. Lett's CV is available here . [PDF], 83KB

To top of page Joanne G. Marshall, M.L.S., M.H.Sc., Ph.D.

Joanne G. Marshall is currently dean and professor at the School of Information & Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Further information is available at http://ils.unc.edu/~marshall/.

To top of page Richard G. McCarrick, M.D., M.H.A., M.Sc. Presentation icon

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Dr. Richard G. McCarrick, M.D., M.H.A., M.Sc., is senior associate dean at New York Medical College. Since 1996, he has been the chair of the Education and Curriculum Committee of the School of Medicine and the chair of the Graduate Medical Education Committee of the New York Medical College Consortium of affiliated teaching hospitals. His prior experience includes serving as the associate chairman of the Department of Psychiatry as a residency and fellowship program director, and as physician-in-chief of an 800 bed psychiatric hospital.

Dr. McCarrick is certified in psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, forensic psychiatry, administrative psychiatry, addiction medicine and pain management. He is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Medicine. His residency was done at the University of Pennsylvania and his fellowships were done at Johns Hopkins University.

To top of page Julie J. McGowan, M.A., M.L.S., Ph.D., AHIP Presentation icon

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Julie J. McGowan, M.A., M.L.S., Ph.D., AHIP, holds a Ph.D. in medical education, a master's in medical iconography, and a master's of Library Science. A professor of knowledge informatics and of pediatrics, she serves as associate dean for information resources and educational technology at Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. McGowan holds adjunct professorships in the Schools of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences and is an affiliated scientist at the Regenstrief Institute. Formerly associate dean for health sciences informatics and library resources at the University of Vermont(UVM), she is jointly responsible with Dr. John Evans, executive dean of the UVM College of Medicine, for the development of VTMEDNET, the first comprehensive, statewide health information network in the country.

Dr. McGowan serves on the Board of Directors of the Medical Library Association and the IAIMS Consortium and is chair of the Group on Information Resources of the Association of American Medical Colleges. She has been principal investigator of a number of grants involving information outreach and was recently awarded funding to create the National Outreach Mapping Center, a project of the National Library of Medicine and the National Network of Libraries of Medicine.

Dr. McGowan is the author of numerous publications and her research interests include the use of clinical decision support systems and telemedicine for rural health care delivery, the impact of applied medical informatics curricular constructs on information acquisition and decision making, the educational outcomes of learning technologies, and the technology evaluation, economic impact, and human factors involved in the implementation of medical informatics applications.

To top of page K. Ann McKibbon, M.L.S.

K. Ann McKibbon, M.L.S., is a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh/McMaster University.

To top of page Kathleen Burr Oliver, M.S.L.S., M.P.H.

Kathleen Burr Oliver, M.S.L.S., M.P.H., associate director of the Welch Library, is responsible for the Welch Library's communication and liaison programs. Ms. Oliver serves as member of the Johns Hopkins Ad Hoc Committee on Literature Searches. Created by the vice dean for research in July 2001, the committee is charged with developing 'a practical standard for literature searches with specific reference to adverse events'. The committee developed and is currently testing peer-reviewed guidelines for literature searches for use by investigators and institutional review boards.

Prior to this position, Ms. Oliver was responsible for the educational programming of the library, and, in that role, led the development and presentation of several web-cast lectures available on the library's website. The library ranks high among AAHS libraries in number of educational sessions offered each year. Before coming to Hopkins in 1998, Ms. Oliver managed a number of small scientific and medical libraries including those of NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratory, American College of Cardiology and AMA Washington Office as well as serving as reference librarian and search analyst at the NIH Library, Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association, and UCLA's Biomedical Library. She was a project director for Georgetown University's Public Services Laboratory for a literature review of a cost of illness study, and developed topic specific web resources for the public radio documentary group, Soundprint. Her public health training focused on maternal and child health policy, planning and evaluation, and her undergraduate degree is in biology and chemistry.

To top of page T. Scott Plutchak, M.L.S., AHIP

T. Scott Plutchak has been director and associate professor, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham since 1995; editor of the Journal of the Medical Library Association (formerly Bulletin of…) since 1999; and is a Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals.

Mr. Plutchak was formerly associate director and then director of the Health Sciences Library at St. Louis University following a stint at the National Library of Medicine as a library associate and then as a technical information specialist.

Mr. Plutchak holds a master's degree in library science from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

To top of page Paul M. Schyve, M.D. Presentation icon

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Paul M. Schyve, M.D., is the senior vice president of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. From 1989 until 1993, Dr. Schyve was vice president for research and standards and, from 1986 until 1989, he was the director of standards at the Joint Commission. Prior to joining the Joint Commission, Dr. Schyve was the clinical director of the State of Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities.

Dr. Schyve received his undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He completed his medical education and residency in psychiatry at the University of Rochester, and has subsequently held a variety of professional and academic appointments in the areas of mental health and hospital administration, including as Director of the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Chicago. Dr. Schyve is certified in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He has published in the areas of psychiatric treatment and research, quality assurance, continuous quality improvement, health care accreditation, patient safety, and health care ethics.

To top of page Jean Shipman, M.S.L.S., AHIP

Jean P. Shipman is Director of the Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences, VCU Libraries, Virginia Commonwealth University. She also serves as part of the senior administrative team of the James Branch Cabell Library, VCU Libraries. She is chair of the Medical Library Association's (MLA) Informationist Task Force and serves as Secretary of the MLA Board of Directors. She was Associate Program Chair of the 2001 MLA annual meeting. She is also a Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals.

Prior to her directorship position, Jean was the Associate Director for Information Resources Management at the Health Sciences Libraries, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. Before that, she was the Resource Management Coordinator for the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Southeastern/Atlantic Region. She started her professional career at the Johns Hopkins University Welch Medical Library and was a library manager for the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, Baltimore, MD.

Jean has a Masters of Science in Library Science degree from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio and a BA from Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA.

To top of page Kent A. Smith, M.A.

Kent A. Smith is deputy director of the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, MD. Further information is available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/archive//20050209/od/roster/smith.html.

To top of page Michele R. Tennant, M.L.I.S., Ph.D. Presentation icon

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Michele R. Tennant, Ph.D., M.L.I.S., is an assistant university librarian with the University of Florida(UF) Genetics Institute and Health Science Center Libraries(HSCL). Dr. Tennant received her Ph.D. in biology from Wayne State University and an M.L.I.S. from the University of California, Los Angeles. From 1995-2001, she served at the HSCL as a cataloging/reference librarian and liaison to the basic scientists in the colleges of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. In late 2001 she commenced her new assignment as "bioinformatics" librarian. In this capacity, she teaches researchers, clinicians, and students how to use fact-based and bibliographic resources, provides consultations and liaison services, and is the selector for the library's collection in the subject areas of genetics, molecular biology, and bioinformatics.

Over the last four years, Dr. Tennant has striven to bring genetics subject-knowledge to her fellow medical and science librarians through continuing education courses, consultations at their institutions, and publication. Dr. Tennant is a member of a seven-person team (librarians and scientists) developing educational materials and a weeklong course in the use if National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) resources. She is a member of the U.F. Genetics Institute Executive Board, chair of the Special Libraries Association's Biomedical and Life Sciences Division, past-convener of the Medical Library Association's Molecular Biology and Genomics Special Interest Group, and a senior member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals.

To top of page William F. Walsh, M.D. Presentation icon

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William F. Walsh, M.D., is professor of pediatrics, attending neonatologist, and chief of nurseries at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology, Nashville, TN. Dr. Walsh joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in 1992 after serving twenty years in the Air Force, retiring as the senior neonatologist. He serves as chief of nurseries at Vanderbilt, coordinating neonatal clinical care. His research interests include nitric oxide to reduce pulmonary hypertension, surfactant for meconium aspiration, and determining the role of infectious diseases in neonatal morbidity.

To top of page Linda A. Watson, M.L.S., AHIP

Linda Watson has been director of the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library at the University of Virginia Health System since May 1990. At the university, she has been involved in a number of health system wide informatics activities, including serving as co-principle investigator on an NLM IAIMS Planning Grant. She is a lecturer in the School of Medicine's Department of Health Evaluation Sciences.

Her previous library positions include five years at the Texas Medical Center Library in Houston, Texas, from 1985 to 1990 and ten years at the National Library of Medicine from 1976 to1985. She began her medical library career as a library associate in NLM's post-graduate internship program in 1975.

Linda has been active in the Medical Library Association for many years and is a Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals. She was program chair for MLA's annual meeting in 1995 and served on the MLA Board of Directors from 1996 to 1999 and as Treasurer in 1997 to1999. She is currently president-elect.

Linda has her master's in library science from Simmons College in Boston and her bachelor's from the University of Connecticut. She also attended Georgetown University.

To top of page Diane Wolf, M.S.L.S., AHIP Presentation icon

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Diane G. Wolf, M.S.L.S., AHIP, is the associate director, Medical Libraries, at the Christiana Care Health System in Delaware, where she has been a hospital librarian for over twenty years. In the 1970s, she served with the Mid-Eastern Regional Medical Library Service based at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Ms. Wolf is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, received a master of library science from Columbia University, and is a Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals.

Throughout Ms. Wolf's career, she has had teaching responsibilities, both formal and informal. Her students have included medical students, physicians, librarians, library assistants, and office staff. In 1996, she developed and taught an MLA Continuing Education Course, "Strategic Positioning for Hospital Libraries and Librarian." Ms. Wolf works closely with the Christiana Care organizational development team, developing and teaching classes in time management and the valuable office professional. She also serves on health care system committees addressing such topics as clinical decision rules, patient safety, and career development.

Included in her responsibilities as associate director are reference services, the clinical librarian program, interlibrary loan services, and production of newsletters. In addition to the library newsletter, she produces "EBM News from the Medical Libraries" and a monthly publication designed to alert hospital managers to important items from the medical literature.

Recent professional association activities have included participation in the MLA Mentor Program Task Force and service on the board of the Hospital Libraries Section (HLS)/MLA. She was chair of the HLS Professional Development Committee and has served on the HLS Nominating Committee and on the HLS Program Committee. Ms. Wolf served as chair of the Philadelphia Regional Chapter/MLA and served the chapter in many other capacities.

Her most recent journal publication is" Hospital librarianship in the United States: At the Crossroads," Jmed Libr Assoc 2002 Jan;90(1):38-48. This publication is part of the informationist symposium, "Patient-Centered Librarianship: The Informationist and Beyond." In the fall of 2001, she spoke at the Upstate New York/Ontario Chapter of Medical Library Association Annual Conference on the topic, "Hospital-Based Clinical Librarianship in the Electronic Era."

Ms Wolf is the recipient of the Christiana Care Health System's Gold Award for Service Excellence. She has also received the Chapter Achievement Award from the Philadelphia Regional Chapter/MLA.

For further information about content of the invited Informationist Conference, please contact Jean Shipman, jean.shipman@utah.edu, or Carla Funk, funk@mlahq.org.

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