A recent study published in the Maternal and Child Health Journal explored the association between pacifier use during sleep and SIDS. Pacifier Use and Sids: Evidence for a Consistently Reduced Risk examines "the association between pacifier use during sleep and SIDS in relation to other risk factors and to determine if pacifier use modifies the impact of these risk factors."

Citing studies which have shown that pacifier use during sleep decreases the incidence of SIDS, GWUMC faculty members Rachel Y. Moon, Diane Choi Yang, and Heather A. Young as well as Kawai O. Tanabe and Fern R. Hauck used data drawn from the Chicago Infant Mortality Study (CIMS) which include 260 SIDS deaths and 260 living controls to try identify additional factors which might increase or decrease the risk of SIDS.

You can read the entire article Himmelfarb Library's online journal collection, and also explore more articles on this topic by searching PubMed or MEDLINE.

Himmelfarb Library is pleased to announce the launch of a new institutional repository called GWUMC Research Commons. The repository is intended to serve as a place for you to preserve and share your work with colleagues here at GWU, and with the scholarly community at large. The GWUMC Research Commons runs on a Dspace platform, hosted by the Washington Regional Libraries Consortium (WRLC) called ALADIN Research Commons. Himmelfarb Library provides additional information about the Research Commons.

We would like to encourage faculty to submit research posters, conference presentations, working papers, departmental newsletters and other materials that are not otherwise easily available.

• You submit your materials to the library via an easy to use submission form. We will create collections for your department and post the materials on the ALADIN Research Commons site.
• We will notify you when it's posted. You can search and look for your submissions, and those of your colleagues at GWU's portion of the main ALADIN research site. (PLEASE NOTE: The appearance of the pages may change as a new version of the site is launched later this fall).
• This is a great way to expose your work to the wider scholarly community
• You retain your authorship rights and can specify how your work can be cited or used by choosing a license that works for you.

Questions? Please contact Leah Pellegrino at mlblcp@gwumc.edu.

Perspective: Successfully Negotiating the Clerkship Years of Medical School: A Guide for Medical Students, Implications for Residents and Faculty an article by GWUMC faculty members Larrie Greenberg, MD, and Benjamin Blatt, MD was just published in Academic Medicine.

As medical students transition into the clinical setting they approach a new level of learning that, if prepared for, will improve their performance and clinical experience. The authors examine this new level of learning and "propose a five-stage model, based on the Kolb Cycle, to help students negotiate the learning challenges of the clinical years." The article breaks down the cycle into five stages and addresses each in depth. These stages include (1) preparing for the clinical setting, (2) experiencing the clinical setting, (3) reflecting on the experience, (4) conceptualizing new approaches, and (5) testing new approaches. Through understanding the five stages students are encouraged to take control of their learning and become outstanding physicians.

This article is one of three interesting articles by GWUMC faculty in the current issue of Academic Medicine. Please also read:

• A Call for Culture Change in Academic Medicine by Dean Jim Scott and colleagues
• Are We Teaching Racial Profiling? The Dangers of Subjective Determinations of Race and Ethnicity in Case Presentations by Kimberly Acquaviva and Matthew Mintz