Healing Hardbacks
A Lifesaving Library Comes of Age
The year was 1966. There was no Internet. No fax machines. “Fast food” meant kids snatching peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the way to the tree house. Lyndon B. Johnson was president and a postage stamp cost five cents. MRI, CT, and PET scans did not exist; antibiotics were in their infancy.
Some call it a simpler time, but during this era, a vision for progress was taking shape. On rolling acreage near the Tennessee River in East Tennessee, big changes were occurring that would help people across the state and nation.
The University of Tennessee Memorial Research Center and Hospital, the predecessor of today’s UT Medical Center and UT Graduate School of Medicine, was but a decade old. During this exciting time for the hospital, forward-thinking people joined forces to form a new medical library; and in January 1967, the Howard P. Preston Medical Library opened its doors.
Howard Preston was chairman of the board of Hamilton National Bank of Knoxville when the bank made a generous gift to the library in his honor. The library was also funded that year by the combined gifts of several area families including the Prestons, Harry Lyon, Tom and Katherine Black, and others.
Because of those generous lead gifts, the Preston Medical Library and Learning Resource Center, a department of the UT Graduate School of Medicine, is now a nationally recognized academic medical library. Nearly double in size from its original facility, it assists healthcare professionals from not only the UT Medical Center but also hospitals and medical groups across the region and nation, 24 hours a day.
Today the Preston Library offers the Consumer and Patient Health Information Service, a public service available to anyone who desires medical information. And it is free. Those seeking medical information need only contact the library with their questions, and professional medical librarians will conduct confidential research on their behalf. While the information is not a substitute for medical advice or a physician’s diagnosis, it does give families and patients knowledge to help with their healthcare decisions and interactions with their medical team.
“The day I was diagnosed with celiac disease [a food intolerance that can lead to malnourishment, thyroid disease, and cancer], I was overwhelmed. I e-mailed Preston Medical Library, desperately searching for information and answers,” says Carolyn Acuff of Powell, Tennessee. “I had been seeking a diagnosis for six years, and within hours I received information that started me toward recovery.”
“Consumers can gather information about their health concerns and have more productive partnerships with their physicians,” says Preston Medical Library Director Sandy Oelschlegel. “We can compile information on symptoms and treatment of diseases, preventive medicine, medical tests, support groups, terminology, and more. With knowledge comes the ability to ask questions and understand the answers.”
The service is free to the public only because of generous gifts from grateful patients and members of the community. Joellen and J. Lynn Fordham epitomize those feelings of gratitude. The Fordhams of Lexington, Kentucky, have used the library’s resources for more than 20 years.
“I literally owe my life to the library staff,” says Lynn Fordham. “During four major medical crises in my life, I got information and help from the library. It provided, in each case, a sound basis for my decision on treatment that was lifesaving and life-prolonging. The library staff did more than supply helpful medical literature. They taught my wife how to find and survey health information.”
Grant funding pays for materials, mailing, and books, as well as educational outreach programs offered to community groups. Without this funding, the Fordhams, Acuff, and hundreds of others across the nation who use this service every year would not have the medical information they need.
The original donors could not have foreseen that gifts given generously to place books on shelves for UT physicians and researchers would one day grow to touch the lives of people across the nation.
But they understood a broader principle: seeds of goodwill, innovation, and knowledge planted in fertile soil can change lives and alter the world.
To contact the Consumer and Patient Health Information Service, a free public service from UT Graduate School of Medicine Preston Medical Library, call 865-305-9525 or send an e-mail to library@utmck.edu.
