Beyond Horses to Zebras: Sicca Syndrome

Abstract

Librarians may have unique opportunities to apply their professional skills in areas of medicine that involve rare diseases. There appears to be an unaddressed clinical need for comprehensive but concise information about rare disease states. Although most common diseases are easily found in ready reference sources, rarer entities are seldom well addressed therein. Also, different specialty areas of medicine often do not effectively communicate cross-disciplinarily and, thus, may miss important clues to pathology that a finely honed search may reveal. A broad and comprehensive search by a professional librarian may uncover possible diagnoses and potential treatment strategies heretofore unconsidered. “Sicca syndrome” is a term used to describe pathologic involvement of the mucosal membranes and is considered a rare disease. Using “sicca syndrome” as an example, this work attempts to demonstrate that medical librarians can fill a market niche by combining in-depth search strategies with concise synopses to develop original articles that fill an important and often unaddressed need.

Keywords:

• keratoconjunctivitis sicca
• medical librarians
• mucosal
• sialadenitis
• sicca
• Sjögren syndrome
• xerophthalmia
• xerostomia

Notes

¹PMIDs and PMCIDs have been included to expedite researchers' use of content.