Clinical Medical Librarianship

Abstract

Clinical Medical Librarianship (CML) practices which principally aim to carry the medical and health sciences literature to patient bedside have been one of the most reliable solutions to information retrieval problems in regard to medicine and health. Today not only the relevant information, but also the reliable evidence found in the literature is required by doctors and health professionals to support their diagnosis, therapy or research decisions. Consequently CML also involves the principles of Evidence-Based Medical Librarianship (EBML) emerged from Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) practice. CML is generally achieved through the medical and health sciences librarian’s participation in patient rounds, morning reports or clinical, educational, departmental conferences and it focuses on providing the quality filtered information and evidence to doctors and health professionals, when and where they need them, in order to support their decision making, research and educational processes. This study aims to enlighten the Turkish medical and health sciences librarians particularly, about CML. To achieve this aim, definitions, programs and approaches, advantages and disadvantages of the services are introduced, besides the future applicability of the services in Turkey is discussed. The application of CML in Turkey depends on the existence of qualified medical and health sciences librarians who will be trained through continuous professional education programs on CML and EBML. When these librarians apply effective CML services in the line of EBML in Turkey it will be possible to see the positive effects on medical and health areas and on the profession of librarianship.