Open Medicine

This week during our Social Media and Health class we were given an amazing guest lecture presentation by Dr. Anita Palepu! (You can follow her on twitter:  if you would like to find out more about her.)

Dr. Anita Palepu’s presentation described the importance of open access in medical research. As I am a master’s of science student, I would say I am beginning to be a journal article connoisseur (this could be good or bad).  However if you are not in a field that is related to research, you may not be as familiar with them. One of the reasons you may not be familiar with reading journals is because most of these scientific publications are locked away behind monthly subscription fees charged by the major publishing companies.  Unless you are lucky enough to be affiliated with an institution that pays these exorbitant fees it is highly unlikely you will have the ability to read any of them. This prevents you as a reader from having the ability to be highly informed considering the news stories we see written can do an amazing job of slanting and sensationalizing research.