Paunline Beam wrote:

    ..." Medical librarians also have an important role to play in providing
good quality consumer health information for those who do not want (all)
their information mediated by professional caregivers, or who want more
information than the basics that time strapped caregivers often can provide.
We should be educating patients on how to access CHI, and how to identify
accurate, authoritative information. The consumer is then responsible for
self education with information that we make accessable"

I don't think that Medical Librarians want more than that.  We provide
information to doctors and nurses so that they can do their job better.  We
work with nurses to provide information that he/she can pass on to the
patient.  I prefer to have the nurse or physician refer the patient/family
to us for information - it helps to know what type of information is needed;
patient etc are often rather vague about what ails them or about what the
doctor/nurse said.

We don't want more, just don't look forward to being overlooked, put down or
bypassed altogether.  And esp. not just give it away...