WebJunction

I'm Curious, George…

It's not surprising, given the high cost of health care and the problems with HMOs, that lots of our patrons come in with medical questions. Since we naturally feel responsible for serving our community, we've come up with a list of responses. Here are just a few samples:

• If someone comes to the reference desk and says, "When I drink coffee I get a sharp pain in my eye," we say: "Have you tried taking the spoon out of the cup?"
• If someone comes to the reference desk with a cucumber up his nose, a carrot in his left ear, and a banana in his right ear and says, "What's the matter with me?" we say: "Looks like you're not eating properly."
• If someone comes to the reference desk and says, “I feel like a pair of curtains”, we say: “Just pull yourself together.”

These responses have worked pretty well, but they don't quite cover the full range of conditions. And (believe it or not) some of our more paranoid staffers think we might get in hot water for dispensing medical advice! So George, I'm wondering if you have any suggestions for dealing with the steady stream of needy people who show up at the desk. Sometimes we just don't have snappy answers to their medical questions.

Kildare-less in Kennebunkport

Dear KinK,

I can see that you're taking the “doctor, doctor” role very seriously at your library. Pretty soon your reference desk staff will be showing up at work in white lab coats and stethoscopes. Forget the Physicians' Desk Reference--I hope they're consulting the invaluable Alternative Medical Dictionary, where you'll be able to add these definitions to your repertoire:

• Cerebral hemorrhage: the thinking man's hemorrhage.
• Hysteria: the funniest illness of them all.
• Rett syndrome: Sufferers of this condition lose the ability to care about anything. In answer to any question, they simply reply, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

Having spent half my life behind the reference desk, I do have some recommendations for keeping your staff out of hot water! It's actually no laughing matter for library staffers to avoid any appearance of dispensing medical (or legal) advice to patrons. The first and foremost guideline is to inform patrons that you cannot give medical advice. Beyond that, tap into your best reference desk training to conduct a sensitive interview with the patron, locate multiple sources, and identify the authority and credentials of each source--all this without analyzing, interpreting, or advocating for any of the content. If you need a dictionary to help you decipher medspeak, this one won't have you rolling on the floor, but it will get you from A to Z with the more common medical terms.

Proceeding cautiously, you certainly can assist your patrons in finding information by pointing them to the wealth of resources available to help them make informed choices. With the beleaguered reference staff in mind, WebJunction focuses this month on Tackling Tough Patron Questions, with the emphasis on responding to requests for health and legal information. You'll find a variety of links to reputable online resources. There are some outstanding, librarian-selected Web sites, like the Michigan eLibrary or the Librarian's Index to the Internet.

We also tackle the slightly altered truism “Librarian, inform thyself” with guides for building reference skills in this area and for instilling a bit of information literacy in your patrons along the way. There's even a new forum on Health Information Services, where you can find peer support for meeting the challenges and sharing the solutions to consumers' health information needs.

Now I've got one for you:

Doctor, Doctor what did the x-ray of my head show?
Absolutely nothing!

And when it's time to restock your supply of bad doctor jokes, check out these laughs!

Patient-ly yours,

George

If you’re curious and have a question for George, send an email to community@webjunction.org . 

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