National Medical Librarian Month Impact Story: Stephen Clancy

Submitted by: Stephen Clancy

Working behind the scenes, it’s easy to be overlooked, but health information professionals play a pivotal role in healthcare, research, and education. Collaborating with medical librarians directly influences the quality of patient care and the advancement of medical knowledge.

This week we have a story from Stephen Clancy, Research Librarian for Health Sciences and Nursing Science (Retired) at Library, University of California, Irvine, California.

Before my retirement in July of 2023, I had been with the University of California Irvine Libraries since 1981 as a research librarian for the health sciences. Previous to this I was the Assistant Director of the Health Sciences Library at the Kaiser Permanente hospital in Bellflower, California. I graduated from the UCLA School of Library and Information Science in 1980.

For most of my career at UC Irvine, I worked with the Medical School students and faculty, as well as the staff and faculty of the UCI Medical Center providing instruction and research assistance.

As with other librarians, I also worked the reference desk handling all sorts of questions, on all sorts of topics!

For about the last 10 years before my retirement in June 2023, I worked closely with the Bill & Sue Gross School of Nursing. This was the highlight of my entire career and was a complete joy!

Since 2005, I was also a member of the University of California’s “California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP)” in the capacity of medical literature researcher. CHBRP is an impartial organization tasked with evaluating the medical effectiveness, cost impact, and public health impact of bills related to health insurance benefits and provides analyses of proposed mandates and repeals to California’s State Legislature, so that they have all the scientific evidence required to make informed decisions.

In honor of National Medical Librarian’s Month, we will share stories about how the work you do has made an impact.