Nicole's post re book reviewing was terrific, but I have a small caveat. I
think that the virtue of IBCLC qualification is that it takes people from
all backgrounds, not just medically-trained people: the cross-disciplinary
perspective is great, and for someone like me to be an internationally
recognised educator of healthworkers when quote" you're not even a nurse"
end quote indicates the validity of the IBLCE decision not to discriminate
arbitrarily against any applicant. When I read as requirement, "Registered
Dietitian or equivalent" for a review of a book written by Registered
Dietitians I feel uneasy. I'd rather we deliberately utilised the
cross-disciplinary perspective in reviews, so that books written by
dietitians get reviewed by research scientists or doctors but not
dietitians, books by doctors get reviewed by non-doctors, and so on. This
is because as an "outsider", not a medically-trained person (and not
eligible for membership in some self-defined LC groups as a result: what
does that say about respect for IBLCE?) I see very clearly how people's
professional disciplines shape their information base and interpretation of
information. I acknowledge this myself as a professionally-trained
historian: historians training insists that we should. Doctors and
dietitians training rarely does. Some JHL reviews have been far from
satisfactory if viewed from te perspective of another discipline, but
understandable because written by someone too close to the ideas presented.
MaybeJHL should request 2 copies for review, and  commission two reviews,
one of same professional group and one from another group altogether, and
compare the result? Just an idea. MM