Dear HPD Alumni,
Thank you for your inquiry into access to the medical databases offered by the HPD Library. It is true that once you graduate from HPD, you no longer have access to the majority of HPD Library databases, although as an alum, you do have access to most of the general databases offered by NSU Libraries. The reason for this lies with the contractual agreements and licensing we must enter into with our medical database vendors. Their stance is that they are in business to sell their products to medical/health professionals on an individual basis. As a result, they will not grant us permission to allow access to these products unless we pay the equivalent of an individual subscription for each of our alumni. As you can imagine, the costs to us would then be astronomical. As HPD Library already spends over $2,000,000 per year for access to medical/health databases and journals for our students and faculty, it is not financially feasible for us to pay for alumni access as well.
I hope that as a health professional you do have access to electronic resources at your new workplace. I would suggest you consider becoming a preceptor or clinical faculty to current HPD students. That group of medical/health professionals who teach our students in a clinical setting are considered a part of our community and receive access to all of our resources to assist with the training of our students. If you would like more information on this partnership, I will be happy to help you.
I agree that this seems unfair from your standpoint, but we are restricted by these for-profit companies and the limits that they put on their products and licenses.
Please let us know if I can be of further assistance.