General Library News

  The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is delighted to announce the appointment of our new director, John Gallagher. John joined the staff of the Yale Library in 1999 as a library services assistant in the Library Shelving Facility. He moved to the Medical Library in 2000 where he took the position of evening & weekend circulation supervisor, and was quickly promoted to the head of the circulation department. After completion of his Masters of Library Science in 2004, John was promoted again to the head of Access and Delivery Services. He was instrumental in pioneering and establishing the Scan on Demand service at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, which evolved into the Scan and Deliver service for the wider Yale Library system. He served as the library liaison to the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation and co-chaired the library’s joint Department Committee for Best Practices, a university-wide initiative to foster and promote better management/labor relations and collaboration through interest-based problem solving. During this time, John also chaired a management/labor Access Services Assessment Task Force that reduced check-in errors at all libraries. As deputy director for Public Services and later associate director, John oversaw the completion of a number of major medical library renovations, including a complete renovation of the Medical Historical Library’s rare book stacks and staff areas, the construction of a Secure Reading Room, and the construction of the Cushing Center. In 2012, John was selected to participate in the National Library of Medicine/Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries’ Leadership Fellowship Program. John's participation in this prestigious and highly competitive program gives testimony to the quality of his leadership abilities. Susan Gibbons, University Librarian and Deputy Provost for Libraries & Scholarly Communication commented, "John’s appointment is fantastic. Not only do we add a talented colleague to the library’s senior leadership team, but John’s career demonstrates the opportunities for career advancement at Yale University Library." Even with all his responsibilities, John has an open door policy and welcomes staff to share their thoughts, ideas and feelings with him. John is a mentor, teacher, friend and leader.  We welcome John as our new director!

(by Nathan Rupp and Melissa Grafe) Nearly 900 Yale School of Medicine theses are now available through Yale University’s online institutional repository known as EliScholar. These include “current” theses published in the last decade that have come out of embargo as well as several YSM alumni theses published as far back as 1952. These theses document the rich research done by Yale’s medical students, and can provide a starting point for current medical students embarking on their projects.  We’re also pleased to make this part of our collection more openly accessible to researchers in general, as the print theses are stored in locked stacks at the Medical Library.  Current YSM students can browse this collection for examples of what a YSM thesis looks like. For more information about accessing theses at the Medical Library, please see https://library.medicine.yale.edu/collections/thesis.

(Post authored by Terry Dagradi) Cushing operating at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital Photo by Dr. Walter Willard Boyd 1928-32 On October 1, 1926 at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, Harvey Cushing performed an operation—removal of a mass from a patient’s head -- using the first commercial electrosurgical generator developed by to William T. Bovie [1], an engineer employed at Harvard University. The Bovie unit passed high frequency alternating current into the body, allowing the current to cut or coagulate. The device drastically reduced the complications of bleeding during intracranial operations, further reducing the mortality rates during brain surgery. After 88 years this basic device remains a fundamental tool in the practice of surgery. When Cushing began his surgical career in the early 1900s, brain tumors were considered to be inoperable. At that time the mortality rate for a surgical procedure involving the opening of the skull was around 90%. Cushing dramatically reduced the mortality rate for neurosurgery to less than 10%, and by the time of his retirement from the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1932, he had successfully removed more than 2,000 tumors.[2] [1] Bovie, WT; Cushing, H (1928). "Electrosurgery as an aid to the removal of intracranial tumors with a preliminary note on a new surgical-current generator". Surg Gynecol Obstet 47: 751–84. [2] http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/980.html https://www.mjhlifesciences.com/ http://www.uptodate.com/contents/overview-of-electrosurgery