About Me:
I’m a medical librarian. I have a graduate degree in library and information science (MLIS) from the University of Pittsburgh, where I focused on medical librarianship. I currently work in a prominent academic medical center library, where I was promoted from the paraprofessional ranks and am now a Library Fellow (I worked there while obtaining my degree). I serve as Editorial Assistant (and now Electronic Resources Reviews Editor) for the Journal of the Medical Library Association and handle clinical questions for medical center, including the diabetes clinic, inpatient internal medicine, and the order set teams. I was trained to answer clinical questions through a combination of in-house training modules and supervised rounding in our Level I Trauma Center. I have also worked with our digital library, budget, weeding, our management contract of another medical library, proposal-writing, reference and circulation, web updates, staff training, job candidate screening and interviews, and other projects.

Previously, I worked as Program Assistant and then Communications Coordinator for a non-profit organization focused on promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency. We also worked on mitigating the health effects of dirty power sources. I handled technical problems, website management, database management (10K+ records in a Filemaker Pro database I periodically customized), distribution of emails, faxes, and press releases to donors, members, and activists, politicians, and news outlets, and served as co-editor of the quarterly newsletter. On occassion, I did public outreach at events. See how that ties in to librarianship?

Prior to my graduation from Oberlin College (where I was a geology major), I worked as a Student Assistant and then Student Manager of the Oberlin College Science Library. I received a Metcalf Award for outstanding library service. As a result, I have a lifetime membership to the Friends of the Oberlin College Library. Also while at Oberlin, I took an EXCO course entitled, “Menstrual Health and Politics.”

Why Women’s Health?:
I like technology, and wanted to play around with blogging. I had (and still have) an interest in women’s health, and at the time was taking a course [#326] in Vanderbilt’s graduate nursing program on women’s health issues. (As a project for this course, two colleagues and I created an online tutorial for nursing students on how to search popular databases for women’s health literature.) I knew I needed a focus, and focusing on a health topic is a good continuing education exercise for me. I think a lot of women are underinformed about their bodies, their health, and the policies affecting their health choices, and I hope to use this blog to provide a source of information about those topics.

Aside from the blog, I also currently serve as a member of the Board of Directors for the Vanderbilt Center for Health Services, “a group of community service projects whose goal is to support people working at the grassroots level to take control of their physical, social, political, and environmental health. The four main projects within the Center today are the Student Community Health Coalition, the Maternal and Infant Health Outreach Worker Program (MIHOW), the South Nashville Family Resource Center, Service Training for Environmental Progress Project (STEP), and the Community Health Emphasis Program.”

The Mission Statement:
The purpose of Women’s Health News is to provide information and commentary on current women’s health topics, including policy, legislation, news, and events, as well as to point readers to additional useful resources online. The overall mission for this site is to help women (and other humans) become better informed about all aspects of women’s health.

Intended Audience:
Women’s Health News is written primarily for an English-speaking adult audience. Although resources and information are sometimes presented that are relevant to teens, the blog is not written with an eye on protecting children from adult content or language. I hope that women of all stripes, patients, medical librarians, patients, feminists, healthcare providers, a few of the menfolk, et al can find something useful here.

The Comments Policy:
Comments are expected to be civil. They are also expect not to be spam. If you post a glowing comment about how awesome my blog is, but link to your internet drug site or other venture, it will be deleted. All comments are subject to deletion at my discretion. Copy/pasted propaganda that doesn’t actually make an argument will be considered spam and deleted, because I don’t have time for your nonsense. I don’t delete them just because I personally find the argument offensive (UNLESS you just keep repeating some bullshit we’ve already gone over, and it’s factually inaccurate. Really, I am not that patient), but may for any other reason. If I get tired of the same thing over and over, I’ll delete it. If you can’t find the caps lock button, I’ll delete it. If I get tired of a specific commenter’s antics – boom, gone. Finally, comments that include information that is known to be medically inaccurate may be deleted.

Also, I’m happy to have people contact me through the comments page with sites they’d like me to look at, or leave a comment on a *related* post with a link to a site and why they think I should look at it. Comments that simply link to your unrelated site (aside from the linking of your name) with no explanation (i.e. spam) will be deleted, regardless of what you’re linking to.

Can I Send You My Film, Book, or Other Material to Review?
Please do, but send me an email first so I can give you my address. The item should be women’s health, general health, healthcare policy, or otherwise related to the content of this blog. I will not guarantee that the review will be positive, or even posted, and all reviews will mention that the item was provided for review (as opposed to found to be of interest by me independently).

Can I Link to You?:
Yes. Without reservation. I think attempts to prevent links or deep-linking are intellectually dishonest and a hindrance to the benefits of online media.

Disclosures:
This blog is not financially supported by any entity and does not include advertising; it is the sole work of the author. Where samples or materials are provided for review, this will be noted.

Privacy Policy:
Emails to the author will be kept private unless otherwise permitted by the sender. Identifying information is never shared with others. Searches leading to this site will occasionally be listed in blog posts providing resources related to those searches, but identifying details of the searcher will not be released.

Disclaimer:
The author of this blog is not a physician, and this blog is not intended to replace regular healthcare. Please check with your clinician regarding your personal healthcare decisions, and seek immediate care in emergencies. Also, please note that medicine is an ever-changing field, and studies which seem to demonstrate or disprove an idea may be contradicted by future studies. Finally, sometimes I just get smarter about things, and something I said in the past seems kind of silly. That’s life.

A Final Note:
The opinions expressed here do not represent those of my employer. This blog is my work, independent of my actual paying job, and it is my responsibility alone.

-Rachel Walden, MLIS

Writing Elsewhere:
-Our Bodies Our Blog, the blog for Our Bodies, Ourselves
-JMLA Case Studies in Health Sciences Librarianship [blog]
-Walden RR, Jerome RN, Miller RS. Utilizing case reports to build awareness of rare complications in critical care. J Med Libr Assoc. 2007 Jan;95(1):3-8.
-Lyon J, Giuse NB, Williams A, Koonce T, Walden R. A model for training the new bioinformationist. J Med Libr Assoc. 2004 Apr;92(2):188-95.

Coverage:
-Advocacy for Women’s Health: Connecting People With Information [4/15/08] – Medscape interview prior to hosting Grand Rounds
-Hopkins restores access to health site: Limit on word ‘abortion’ faulted [4/5/2008] – Baltimore Sun article by Stephanie Desmon on the POPLINE controversy

Last update: April 6, 2009