Health Information Literacy in Canadian Medical Curricula: An Opportunity for Librarians?

ABSTRACT

As medical and other health professional school curricula evolve to include new outcomes centered on the patient, librarians can and should take the opportunity to integrate the subject of health information literacy into program objectives. This article identifies justification for the importance of teaching health professionals about health information literacy and reports on the findings of an exploratory survey to determine what is already being done in Canadian medical schools in this regard. It is concluded that more research is required to address how to teach information-gathering for patient education, as well as methods for communicating and disseminating patient-appropriate information.

KEYWORDS:

• Health information literacy
• consumer health
• Canada
• medical schools
• curricula
• library instruction

The author thanks Jim Henderson and Erica Burnham, McGill Library, for their contributions in the design and conduct of the survey. The preliminary results of the survey were presented at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Health Libraries Association, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, May 2006.

Comments and suggestions should be sent to the Column Editors: Grace Ajuwon (E-mail: [email protected]); Peggy Fong (E-mail: [email protected]); and Amanda Ross-White (E-mail: [email protected]).