How Being a Nurse Prepared Dr Patricia Flatley Brennan to Be NLM Director

Being a nurse before being the director of the National Library of Medicine allowed Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, PhD, a greater appreciation and understanding of the need for information at the point of care and a need to provide patients with information to practice self-care and self-management.

Transcript

How will your experiences as a practicing nurse help inform your work as the director of the National Library of Medicine?

My practice in nursing was in intensive care nursing and psychiatric nursing, and it provides 2 inspirations that drive my work here. The first is I understand the criticality of information at the point of care, particularly under emergency circumstances. So it makes me very aware of the importance of having a large repository of information that is the evidence for healthcare but also effective ways to deliver at the point of need.

The second is through my practice in psychiatric nursing I learned the importance of patient engagement and the importance of ensuring the participant in care had the kind of information he or she both needed to participate as a partner in care and also self-manage. So I recognize that our resources, while they're largely built by biomedical scientists for the practice of professional care, they need to be translated and made accessible for individuals for self-care and self-management.