South College Library Blog

Eating right can be difficult as a student, especially with a full course load, several exams to study for, and hours of assignments that keep piling up. However, we need to remember to prioritize our health. March is known as National Nutrition Month, so let’s look at how you can make smart food choices to keep your body happy and healthy. 

The image below visually represents what your plate should look like at each meal.

Copyright © 2011, Harvard University. For more information about The Healthy Eating Plate, please see The Nutrition Source, Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, www.thenutritionsource.org, and Harvard Health Publications, www.health.harvard.edu. 

Half of your meal should be comprised of fruits and vegetables. Potatoes do not count as vegetables due to their negative effects on blood sugar levels (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 2023).  

Whole grains such as brown rice, oats, barley, wheat, and quinoa should take up a quarter of your plate. These grains have a milder effect on blood sugar and insulin. 

The last quarter of your plate should be filled with protein. Fish, chicken, beans, and nuts are excellent sources of protein. Protein is often paired with vegetables or added to salads to create a filling high-volume meal. 

Eating healthy plant oils in moderation is good for you. Vegetable oils such as olive, canola, sunflower, and peanut are healthy oils. However, oils high in unhealthy trans fats should be avoided. 

Avoid drinking soda, dairy, and sugary beverages unless you can keep consumption between one and two servings per day. Water, tea, and coffee are the healthiest drinks to consume daily. 

To keep a clean bill of health, strive to incorporate exercise into your daily routine. Keeping your body in motion regularly will help you control your weight better. 

The healthy eating plate’s purpose is to encourage you to eat a high-quality diet. Eating foods with high nutritional values and pairing healthy eating habits with exercise will allow your body to function to the best of its ability.  

I highly recommend taking a close look at the library’s Nutrition subject guide for more nutrition information and resources. Don’t forget to keep yourself straight by maintaining a healthy plate! 

Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. (2023, January 31). Healthy eating plate. The Nutrition Source. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/  

The votes are counted and we have the winners!

Congratulations to UpToDate, our winning database. This trusted resource, known for its concise and evidence-based clinical information, earned the top spot narrowly defeating our other excellent databases. UpToDate proved to be a favorite among many South College students and faculty.

Congratulations, too, to Ashley Thomas, one of those UpToDate supporters, whose name was randomly selected as the winner of our $10 Amazon gift card! 

Here's what some of you had to say about UpToDate:

• "I use this database for learning about recommendations for treatment and diagnosis."
• "Finding the most up to date and accurate information regarding the medical field is difficult. UpToDate makes it easy."
• "UpToDate's mobile app makes it incredibly convenient to access the latest medical research on the go. Perfect for quick reference during clinical rounds."

A Big Thank You to All!

We appreciate everyone who participated in March Madness. Your votes help us understand which databases are most valuable to you, and that helps us continue to provide the best possible resources.

Did you know that the South College Library provides students, faculty, and staff access to over 100,000 eBooks? Find eBooks related to your academic studies, personal interests, and self-improvement. Do you enjoy reading fiction books? The library’s collection includes novels, collections of short stories, and poetry too. 

Blood, Powder, and Residue: How Crime Labs Translate Evidence into Proof by Beth Bechky 

The findings of forensic science—from DNA profiles and chemical identifications of illegal drugs to comparisons of bullets, fingerprints, and shoeprints—are widely used in police investigations and courtroom proceedings. While we recognize the significance of this evidence for criminal justice, the actual work of forensic scientists is rarely examined and largely misunderstood. Blood, Powder, and Residue goes inside a metropolitan crime laboratory to shed light on the complex social forces that underlie the analysis of forensic evidence. Drawing on eighteen months of rigorous fieldwork in a crime lab of a major metro area, Beth Bechky tells the stories of the forensic scientists who struggle to deliver unbiased science while under intense pressure from adversarial lawyers, escalating standards of evidence, and critical public scrutiny.  

Traveling with Service Animals: By Air, Road, Rail, and Ship Across North America by H. Kisor & C. Goodier 

The boom in trained service animal use and access has transformed the lives of travelers with disabilities. As a result, tens of thousands of people in the United States and Canada enjoy travel options that were difficult or impossible just a few years ago. Henry Kisor and Christine Goodier provide a narrative guidebook full of essential information and salted with personal, hands-on stories of life on the road with service dogs and miniature horses. As the travel-savvy human companions of Trooper (Kisor's miniature schnauzer/poodle cross) and Raylene (Goodier's black Labrador), the authors share experiences from packing for your animal partner to widely varying legal protections to the animal-friendly rides at Disneyland. Chapters cover the specifics of air, rail, road, and cruise ship travel, while appendixes offer checklists, primers on import regulations and corporate policies, advice for emergencies, and a route-by-route guide to finding relief walks during North American train trips. Practical and long overdue, Traveling with Service Animals provides any human-animal partnership with a horizon-to-horizon handbook for exploring the world. 

Literacy Workshop: Where Reading and Writing Converge by M. Walther & K. Biggs-Tucker 

The Literacy Workshop: Where Reading and Writing Converge is a first-of-its-kind resource that offers a practical process for creating an integrated literacy workshop using demonstration lessons that align with current curriculum standards. In this forward-thinking book, authors Maria Walther and Karen Biggs-Tucker share what they've learned over countless reading and writing workshops. The authors demonstrate how you can save valuable classroom time while still empowering students to uncover exciting connections in their learning – leading to stronger, more motivational readers and writers. By weaving the common threads of literacy learning together, you can increase the time your students spend engaged in authentic reading and writing. Inside you'll find the following: A clear, succinct explanation of the literacy workshop structure, how to get started, and how to determine the best time to begin the merge; 50+ demonstration lesson plans, appropriate for both primary and intermediate grade levels, that use strategies incorporating elements from recommended fiction and nonfiction anchor texts; Substantial, printable resources and online tools to help make this instructional shift as smooth as possible. From the big picture to small, helpful details, the Literacy Workshop will be your guide as you blur the lines between your reading and writing workshops - creating space for students to apply their learning and practice the habits, behaviors, and actions of literate and engaged citizens. 

Women in Science and Technology: Confronting Inequalities by Namrata Gupta 

Women in Science and Technology: Confronting Inequalities comprehensively explores women's status in the Science and Technology (S&T) domain by rigorously analyzing and interpreting extensive recent information on major areas such as engineering, medicine, physical sciences, biosciences and mathematics. The book forcefully demonstrates that gender-based differences and expectations play the determining role in limiting women's participation in S&T. These exist in various forms, from making subject choices in school and opting for specific disciplines in college to embracing specific career avenues such as scientific research. This book shows how the construction of gendered identities is perpetuated through a masculine culture in the informal environment of elite educational institutes and in major S&T workplaces such as academia and research laboratories, which serve together to exclude women from peer groups and opportunities for advancement. The book makes substantive recommendations for policy measures on college admissions, improvement of institutional and organizational environments, and recruitment and capacity building for women in S&T. It calls for substantially reducing the myriad societal and familial barriers through cooperation and understanding. 

Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland by Lady Jane Wilde 

Lady Jane Wilde was the mother of Oscar Wilde and an accomplished folklorist. She sought to preserve Irish culture through recording their enchanting myths, rituals and beliefs. This collection contains over 100 of these enthralling tales, from fairies stealing children to leprechauns promising gold. Each showcase the strange and mystical superstitions spread by Irish peasantry in the ancient tongue. Tales include • The Horned Women • The Fenian Knights • The Fairy Changeling • The Legends of the Western Islands. This edition includes a chapter on the ancient peoples of Ireland written by her husband Sir William Wilde which forms part of the original manuscript. Accompanying the text are beautiful illustrations by Stephen Reid from The High Deeds of Finn and a rare map of ancient Ireland. 

Kidney to Share by M. Gershun & J.D. Lantos 

In Kidney to Share, Martha Gershun tells the story of her decision to donate a kidney to a stranger. She takes readers through the complex process by which such donors are vetted to ensure that they are physically and psychologically fit to take the risk of a major operation. John D. Lantos, a physician and bioethicist, places Gershun's story in the larger context of the history of kidney transplantation and the ethical controversies that surround living donors. Together, they help readers understand the discoveries that made transplantation relatively safe and effective as well as the legal, ethical, and economic policies that make it feasible.  

In honor of Women’s History Month, this blog is dedicated to notable women who have made significant contributions to the health care field, as well as women who paved the way in their professions. 

Mary Seacole (1805 – 1881) 

Mary Seacole was a Jamaican woman who started taking an interest in nursing when she was 12, helping her mother run a boarding house that housed sick and injured soldiers. During the Crimean War, she requested to join Florence Nightingale to help treat wounded soldiers but was turned down. In lieu of that, she went to Crimea to bring medical supplies and opened a hotel near the battlefields, which was designed for soldiers to rest and eat a hot meal. The money earned would go right back to treating and helping sick and wounded soldiers. Soldiers lauded her work, and she earned many medals for her bravery. 

Elizabeth Blackwell, MD (1821-1910) 

Elizabeth Blackwell attended Geneva Medical College and graduated in 1849.  In doing so, she became the first woman in the US to earn a medical degree. She was denied from over 10 medical schools and rejected a professor’s suggestion to disguise herself as male to gain admittance. She struggled to find work after her graduation but then in 1857, she co-founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. She eventually went on to become a professor of gynecology and publish several books with the hope of inspiring more women to enter the health care field.   

Rebecca Lee Crumpler, MD (1831-1895) 

Rebecca Lee Crumpler was the first African American woman in the US to earn a medical degree. She attended the New England Female Medical College in Boston, Massachusetts and is the only Black graduate in the school’s history. She treated formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, working with other Black physicians, while experiencing rampant racism due to being in the postwar South. She published a book in 1883, offering medical advice to women and children. 

Susan LaFlesche Picotte, MD (1865-1915) 

Susan LaFlesche Picotte was the first Native American woman in the US to earn a medical degree, graduating from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1889. She credits her inspiration to become a physician to watching a sick Native woman die because a local white doctor refused to provide her care. After graduating, she returned home to provide health care to the Omaha people and was responsible for around 1,300 patients. Before her death, she opened a hospital in the remote reservation town of Waterhill, Nebraska. 

Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) 

Margaret Sanger pioneered the pill form of birth control and spent her life trying to legalize birth control and make it widely accessible for women. After watching her mother die from the strain of eleven births and seven miscarriages, she devoted her life to finding a contraceptive that relieves women from unwanted and repeated pregnancies. She coined the term “birth control” in 1914 and in 1921 she founded the American Birth Control League, which is the organization that pre-dated Planned Parenthood. In 1960, her work with Gregory Pincus and Katharine McCormick led to the FDA approval of Enovid, which was the first oral contraceptive.  

Virginia Apgar, MD (1909-1974) 

Virginia Apgar graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1933, where she pursued anesthesiology, eventually becoming the first director of the university’s division of anesthesia in 1938. She is the founder of the Apgar score, the gold standard for determining a newborn’s health. Before this score was devised, doctors had little guidance when assessing infants in their first hours of life. Beyond that, she also was vice president for medical affairs at the March of Dimes, where she brought the public’s attention to issues such as how to prevent birth defects.  

Joycelyn Elders, MD (1933-present) 

Joycelyn Elders became the first African American surgeon general in 1993 and the second woman to hold the position. After attending the University of Arkansas Medical School as the only woman in her class, she then went on to become the first board-certified pediatric endocrinologist in the state. After being surgeon general for just a year, she then became a faculty researcher and professor at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and spent her years advocating for those who have limited access to health care.  

Antonia Novello, MD (1944-present) 

Antonia Novello became not only the first woman surgeon general, but also the first Hispanic surgeon general. She grew up in Puerto Rico and her congenital digestive condition is what motivated her to pursue medicine. She went the public health route, working for the National Institutes of Health before becoming surgeon general in 1990. While in that role, she focused on protecting youth and addressing underage smoking and drinking.  

Kane, P. (2021, September 27). Mary Seacole facts for kids. National Geographic Kids. https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/history/general-history/mary-seacole/  

Public Broadcasting Service. (n.d.). Margaret Sanger (1879-1966). PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-margaret-sanger-1879-1966/  

Weiner, S. (2020, March 3). Celebrating 10 women medical pioneers. AAMC. https://www.aamc.org/news/celebrating-10-women-medical-pioneers