The interlibrary loan system will be down for scheduled server maintenance on May 19 from 8 a.m. until approximately 10 a.m. During this time, users will be unable to request materials or retrieve PDFs. We do apologize for any inconvenience.

By Teri Hartman

Visual abstracts are summaries in a graphical form that engage your readers by highlighting key findings or arguments of your research article. Visual abstracts make it easy to communicate and amplify your research on journal sites, social media, and DigitalCommons. 

Primers on visual abstracts:  

• Dr. Abbey Fingeret, Associate Professor, UNMC Department of Surgery, Division of Surgical Oncology, has a tutorial in Thrive on creating visual abstracts.  
• Dr. Andrew M. Ibrahim, Chief Medical Officer of HOK and Resident Surgeon at the University of Michigan, has written an open-source primer on creating visual abstracts. 

Examples of published visual abstracts include those in Chest  and Journal of Graduate Medical Education. Journals and publishers offer templates and instruction on creating visual abstracts, such as Medical Education at Wiley 

You can see how other researchers are using Twitter to share their research using visual abstracts. Search for #visualabstract – note that you don’t have to have a Twitter account to see these results. 

Consider creating a visual abstract to attract more attention to your next research article. 

Janet Gilsdorf, MD, will present at the 13th annual Richard B. Davis, MD, PhD, History of Medicine Lecture on April 22 from noon to 1 p.m.

Dr. Gilsdorf will share stories based on her book, “Continual Raving: A History of Meningitis and the People Who Conquered It.” The book tells how scientists across the 19th and 20th centuries defeated the deadly brain infection meningitis — not through flawless research but through a series of serendipitous events, misplaced assumptions and flawed conclusions. The result shows not just how a disease is vanquished but how scientific accomplishment can sometimes occur where it is least expected. 

The event will be hybrid, with limited in-person attendance at the Wigton Heritage Center atrium and online via Zoom. Registration for Zoom is required. Dr. Gilsdorf will hold a book signing after the event. 

The library will hold a drawing for Dr. Gilsdorf’s book, and people can enter the drawing through April 20. Winners will be notified by email on April 21.

Dr. Gilsdorf, an alum of the UNMC College of Medicine, is the Robert P. Kelch Research Professor Emerita in the University of Michigan Department of Pediatrics. She is an infectious diseases physician at C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she participates in the diagnosis and management of pediatric patients with complex infectious diseases and in the clinical training of medical students, pediatric residents and pediatric infectious diseases fellows.

She has published more than 100 articles of original research, most centering on the epidemiology, molecular characteristics and pathogenesis of Haemophilus influenzae. She is a past president of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society and received the PIDS Distinguished Physician award in 2012.

She also is the author of “Inside/Outside: A Physician’s Journey with Breast Cancer” (U of Michigan Press) and “Ten Days” (a novel from Kensington Books). She has published several personal essays in the Journal of the American Medical Association Emerging Infectious Diseases, Health Affairs and The Examined Life. In 1999, she was awarded the Journal of Internal Medicine Award for Prose.

The Richard B. Davis, MD, PhD, History of Medicine Lectureship brings national experts to the UNMC campus to discuss the history of medicine, in support of special collections at the McGoogan Library, including rare books and works on the history of medicine. The lectureship is supported through an endowed fund given by the late Richard B. Davis (1926-2010), MD, PhD, who was a UNMC faculty member from 1969 to 1994 and professor emeritus of internal medicine at UNMC. Dr. Davis and his wife, Jean, provided support for the lectureship out of his longstanding interest in the history of medicine.

Mark Darby, instructor in the UNMC College of Nursing, will present at McGoogan Library’s next speaker series on April 11 at noon. Darby will present on his book “Pharaoh’s Midwives.”

This event will be virtual. Registration for the Zoom event is required.

Darby has been a nurse for almost 40 years and is certified in family and mental health as a nurse practitioner. He is the co-leader of the UNMC College of Nursing’s creative writing project and has been editor of “Journal of Nurse Jocularity” for the past eight years.

Darby self-published “Pharaoh’s Midwives” to answer the question: Are the Hebrew midwives in Exodus 1:15-21, named Shipporah and Puah, Hebrew or Egyptian? And why does that make a difference in the context of the racial tensions of society today?

The McGoogan Health Sciences Library is hosting an author reading on March 30 at noon with Amy Haddad, PhD.

Dr. Haddad will be reading from her poetry collection, “An Otherwise Healthy Woman.” The event will be hybrid, with limited in person attendance in the Wigton Heritage Center atrium and availability on Zoom. Registration is required for the Zoom link.

Dr. Haddad’s book will be on sale and a signing will take place after the reading.

Dr. Haddad is a poet, nurse and educator at Creighton University, where she holds the rank of professor emerita. Her poetry and short stories have been published in the American Journal of Nursing, Janus Head, Journal of Medical Humanities, Touch, Bellevue Literary Review, Pulse, Persimmon Tree, Annals of Internal Medicine, Aji Magazine, DASH and Oberon Poetry Magazine, along with the anthologies “Between the Heart Beats” and “Intensive Care: More Poetry and Prose by Nurses” from University of Iowa Press and “Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies” from Kent State University Press.

Her poetry chapbook, “The Geography of Kitchens,” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021. The University of Nebraska Press is publishing her first poetry collection, “An Otherwise Healthy Woman,” in 2022. She is an alumna of the UNMC College of Nursing.