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Librarians Make the Worst Patrons

Have you ever heard the saying "doctors make the worst patients"? Well, something similar can be said for librarians. For two years I worked in a medical library in a position where I had ample time to play with the expensive and extensive medical databases we subscribed to. I would browse the drug database in AccessMedicine to discover the funky side effects of drugs I'd never heard of. I felt like a ninja learning the intricacies of MeSH to effectively search PubMed for hard to find research articles. But did I bother researching conditions I personally suffer from or anything relevant to me?

Part of the reason I've been trying to get into posting here more often is because I've been dealing with some nagging health issues and blogging can be done whenever I happen to feel less yucky, so I can feel involved in librarianship even if working a 9 to 5 job has been a little challenging. I've been trying to avoid bringing it up here, but I've realized that part of the reason I haven't had time to post is precisely because so much of my energy is going to dealing with health issues. The thing is, a lot of that work has a strong overlap with librarianship. So if being a better librarian will help me manage my health better, then that sounds like a win-win situation.

I'm still not going to go on at length about my health problems. Frankly, they're kind of boring, and definitely a little icky. What I will be posting about however, are the struggles that face anyone suddenly needing to learn more about the medical conditions that they or loved ones suffer from and tools and strategies for making those needs a little less daunting.

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