Nunzia B. Giuse, M.D., M.L.S., A.H.I.P.

Director of the Eskind Biomedical Library
Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics
Professor, Department of Medicine

Full CV

Nunzia B. Giuse, M.D., M.L.S., A.H.I.P., is Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and in the Department of Medicine, and Director of the Eskind Biomedical Library (EBL) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Prior to coming to Vanderbilt in 1994, Dr. Giuse established herself as an independent researcher in the area of multi-center medical knowledge base acquisition strategies while at the University of Pittsburgh. From 1988-1995 she conducted a systematic sequence of investigations of medical knowledge base methodologies that represented a significant contribution to the emerging field of medical informatics. This work has been described in a series of publications in the Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care Proceedings, Methods of Information in Medicine, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, and the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA). While at the University of Pittsburgh, she was Co-Principal Investigator, Project Director, or Principal Investigator on a number of research grants sponsored by the National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM) and by the Computer Assisted Medical Diagnosis and Therapy Foundation. Since coming to Vanderbilt, Dr. Giuse has served as Principal Investigator for the NLM-funded grant projects "Integrating Health Science Librarians into Biomedicine" (1995-1996), "AIDS Information Outreach Project" (1995), "Information Access for Public Health Professionals" (1999-2001) and "A Scalable Model to Empower Digital Library Users" (2002-2003). Dr. Giuse was also an active participant in Vanderbilt's Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems activities (1995-2000).

Dr. Giuse plays a central role in the Informatics Center's information outreach activities and has developed initiatives that integrate the library more centrally in the VUMC’s clinical and research activities. Members of her staff developed and continue to coordinate the medical center’s portal to electronic information, the EBL Digital Library. She is very active in organizing the continuing training and professional development of the Eskind Biomedical Library professional and paraprofessional staff, pioneering the application of models from the adult learning research literature. To develop and evaluate an educational pathway drawing on the EBL's librarian intern training program as well as on a partnership with a long-distance degree-granting program, the Institute of Museum and Library Services has funded a three year grant titled "A Health Sciences Librarian Pre-Professional Integrated Learning Model" (2003-2006), for which Dr. Giuse was the Principal Investigator.

She has also pioneered the idea of actively involving EBL librarians in VUMC clinical activities, initiating the Clinical Informatics Consult Service (CICS) concept at Vanderbilt, and has gained international recognition for this work. To evaluate the success of this model, NIH/NLM funded a three-year, RO1 grant, "The Clinical Informationist: Does the Model Work?" (2003-2006) for which Dr. Giuse served as Principal Investigator. To further investigate the role of the informationist, EBL was awarded an 18-month contract in March 2004 from the Medical Library Association (MLA) to develop a report detailing roles, skills, required education and practice parameters for individuals acting as Informationists or Information Specialists in Context (ISIC). In addition to EBL's well-recognized clinical informationist program, Dr. Giuse is also actively pursuing initiatives to integrate library-provided evidence within informatics tools. Dr. Giuse is also co-investigator on the Vanderbilt Reynolds Geriatrics Education Center (VRGEC) grant, a five-year project funded by the Donald W. Reynold's Foundation (2006-2010).

In recognition of her distinguished record of accomplishment and innovative approaches to libraries and information provision, Dr. Giuse was recently asked by the leadership of the Meharry Medical College (MMC) to orchestrate the transformation of the MMC Library from a traditional service model to a leading-edge information center. Dr. Giuse and the EBL team accordingly developed a comprehensive management plan focusing on integrating electronic information resources into MMC's infrastructure, developing staff skills and advanced information services, and showcasing Meharry's rich archival history. Upon completion of the core objective s of this plan, EBL has transitioned to a long-term consulting model with the MMC Library and continues to provide advanced staff training and digital library and collection development advice. To recognize Dr. Giuse's and the EBL team's efforts at MMC, Dr. Giuse was awarded (Fall 2007) MMC's President's Meritorious Service Award.

Dr. Giuse's accomplishments are celebrated in the National Library of Medicine's exhibit on women in medicine titled "Changing the Face of Medicine." She was also named Fellow of the Medical Library Association in 2006 in recognition of her advancements in the health sciences librarianship field.

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Last modified: Tuesday, 06 November 2007