1. No rock stars involved: Capturing the interest of first-year
medical students in a health information literacy session
Carla Hagstrom, Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto,
carla.hagstrom@utoronto.ca
Heather Cunningham, Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto,
h.cunningham@utoronto.ca
As part of their curriculum, first-year medical students at the University of Toronto are
required to attend a 2-hour health information literacy session presented by UofT
medical librarians and Toronto hospital librarians during their Structure and Function
segment. The session consists of an introduction to medical and health sciences
resources and hands-on exercises.
Evaluations are distributed at the end of the session. The librarians who oversee the
content of the session review the comments to see how the content might be
improved. Two years ago, a number of students suggested that it would be helpful if
they knew what resources would be most useful to them in their first year. To that
end, a call for volunteers was sent to second and third-year medical students, asking
them to participate in a video that would be used in future instruction sessions.
Two students were selected, one in second year medicine and one in third. Each was
filmed while discussing the resources they found most useful and what resources
they wish they had known about in first year. The volunteers were given a gift card
for coffee as a token of appreciation.
As a result, the content of the session was adapted to cover many of the resources
mentioned in the video.
The video was well-received by the next set of first-year students, and is now
available in the libguide for the Structure and Function course.