A librarian working with doctors to save lives
In this new video, we follow Nasra Gathoni for a day in her job as Librarian at the Aga Kahn University library. Nasra talks about her experience, explaining us how she is helping doctors find the right scientific information through the Research4Life programmes.
The head librarian at the Aga Khan University hospital, Nasra Gathoni, believes that librarians need to team-up with doctors to improve healthcare in Africa.
In a new inspiring video, Nasra — who was also part of the “Unsung: Heroes” series — talks about the key role that librarians play supporting the work of doctors and researchers to help them find evidence based-information in the new digital age.
“I get calls from doctors saying, ‘they have a patient with this very rare case and they are not sure how to handle it. I can’t do what the doctors are doing but they also can’t do what I am doing. We need to work together for the good of the patient.”
15 years ago, when she began her undergraduate studies, Nasra never though she would become a librarian, she worried that “traditional librarianship would be boring”. An internship at a hospital library, with access to online health and biomedical journals through Research4Life, transformed her view of the profession.
Today, Nasra finds her job “very addictive”. She organizes trainings with doctors and nurses from different parts of Kenya and serves as AHILA (Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa) President.
This story is part of the “Unsung Heroes: Stories from the Library” case study collection. Read more stories from Research4Life users.
