Thanks to a Professional Development Grant from NCNMLG, I was able to cover the airfare to Aurora, CO where I attended a three-day immersion workshop on evidence based practice. The workshop titled “Supporting Clinical Care: An Institute in Evidence-Based Practice for Medical Librarians” covered a variety of topics relating to Evidence Based Practice, research design and so much more.

The “Institute” consisted of early morning large group lectures given by both new and seasoned Librarians guest instructors and faculty members from many institutions such as Dartmouth, Yale School of Nursing, UNC-Chapel Hill and of course Univ. Colorado-Anschutz to name a few.

The workshop emphasized the importance of understanding study designs, their strengths and limitations before one can formulate a good clinical question. The small group sessions provided an opportunity for collaboration, putting into practice the concepts covered in the large group lectures and team work. Small group was beneficial especially when critically appraising articles, performing searches and evaluating data. The lecture on assessing quality criteria in Qualitative research was especially helpful as was the chart comparing the principles of Qualitative and Quantitative studies side by side!!  (Acad Med 2013, v88n4p552).

The workshop will help me revisit a three-part series of presentations for our new nurses on finding and appraising EB information.

I highly recommend this 3.5 day intensive training! It’s one of the best professional training events I’ve attended. Thank you NCNMLG for your professional development award!