Into the Trenches: Collaborating with Medical Students

Objective: After the successful implementation of a study room project to increase medical students’ use of the library’s physical spaces, the liaison librarian for the School of Medicine was challenged to increase medical students’ use of the library’s anatomical models collection. Working closely with the Instructional Design Librarian and second year medical students, a partnership was formed to provide students with a unique opportunity to actively engage in collection development. Methods: First, the liaison librarian to the School of Medicine, Instructional Design Librarian, and second year medical students worked to identify items in the library’s anatomical models collection that would be useful for first year medical students. During this process, we identified gaps in the library’s current anatomical model collection and with end-of-year funding during 2015-2016 fiscal year, additional models were purchased to ensure availability of library resources to support the anatomy curriculum. Finally, the librarians got to work developing orientation guides for each of the identified models to provide a customized study experience for first year medical students. Results: By identifying relevant anatomical models targeted at specific pieces of the anatomy curriculum, the library’s anatomical model usage has more than doubled during the 2016-2017 fiscal year. Conclusions: Integrating the medical students into the library’s collection development procedures resulted in an increase in the use of library’s anatomical model collection. Relationships were forged that will help the library identify medical students’ future needs. The success of this pilot project spread and the librarians are now involved in similar projects to integrate the library's anatomical models into the anatomy curriculum for Physician Assistant Studies, Nursing, and the Anatomy & Physiology undergraduate courses