Bridging the gap between information, research and knowledge
Dr. K.B. Roberts, professor emeritus, has some practical solutions to information overload.
"We obviously can't know everything, but there is tested information about managing patients, and doctors can practice evidence-based medicine," he said in the first 30th anniversary lecture, given June 24 during the alumni reunion.
Describing his talk as "a rant at a time," Dr. Roberts said that even before the age of computers there was information overload. But while acknowelding that it is difficult to bridge the gap between information research and knowledge, the former John Clinch Professor of the History of Medicine had a proposal to help do just that.
Dr. Roberts proposed that Memorial establish a Centre for General Studies in Medicine, which would help to use information effectively in teaching and learning as well as research and health care delivery.
The membership of the centre would include four or five fellows -- students, investigators, outstanding doctors or faculty -- who would have a one year tenure. The fellow's job during that year would be to choose an important topic with information overload and then identify pathways between information and understanding that suggests how understanding may be kept current.
"At the end of the year the fellow will have persuaded others to behave in a more orderly manner and dicussed everything about her topic with everyone who will join in intellecutally, as well as taught where her knowledge and understanding would be valuable."
Dr. Roberts said each fellow would keep a practical and intellectural journal of the year at the Centre for General Studies in Medicine, considering how his or her work could be used and producing a paper for the centre under the topic of general medical studies.
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