Amanda Parrish|Middletown Transcript

Headlines November 12, 2020

Here are some of the top stories we're following for Thursday, November 12, 2020.

This Middletown teen is getting a jump on exploring a career in the medical field.

Makayla Boyd, a sophomore at MOT Charter High School, will be a delegate to the Congress of Future Medical Leaders Nov. 21-22.

The congress is an honors-only program for high school students who want to become physicians or go into medical research fields, according to a press release. The event is put on by the National Academy of Future Physicians with the goal to motivate top students from across the country to enter the medical field.

During the two-day Congress, Boyd will join students from across the country and hear Nobel Laureates and National Medal of Science Winners talk about leading medical research; be given medical school advice; and hear stories from patients who are living medical miracles.

This is a crucial time in America when we need more doctors and medical scientists who are even better prepared for a future that is changing exponentially. Focused, bright and determined students like Makayla Boyd are our future and she deserves all the mentoring and guidance we can give her, the press release said.

Boyd was nominated to represent Delaware based on her academic achievement, leadership potential and determination to enter the field of medicine.

More: Free COVID testing at Middletown High every Wednesday in November

Here is the original post:
MOT Charter student Makayla Boyd picked for Congress of Future Medical Leaders - Middletown Transcript

If you start applying it, and its wrong, and we have no ability to see that its wrong and to fix it, you can cause more harm than good, Jha said. The more confident we get in technology, the more important it is to understand when humans can override these things. I think the Boeing 737 Max example is a classic example. The system said the plane is going up, and the pilots saw it was going down but couldnt override it.

Jha said a similar scenario could play out in the developing world should, for example, a community health worker see something that makes him or her disagree with a recommendation made by a big-name companys AI-driven app. In such a situation, being able to understand how the apps decision was made and how to override it is essential.

If you see a frontline community health worker in India disagree with a tool developed by a big company in Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley is going to win, Jha said. And thats potentially a dangerous thing.

Researchers at SEAS and MGHs Radiology Laboratory of Medical Imaging and Computation are at work on the two problems. The AI-based diagnostic system to detect intracranial hemorrhages unveiled in December 2019 was designed to be trained on hundreds, rather than thousands, of CT scans. The more manageable number makes it easier to ensure the data is of high quality, according to Hyunkwang Lee, a SEAS doctoral student who worked on the project with colleagues including Sehyo Yune, a former postdoctoral research fellow at MGH Radiology and co-first author of a paper on the work, and Synho Do, senior author, HMS assistant professor of radiology, and director of the lab.

We ensured the data set is of high quality, enabling the AI system to achieve a performance similar to that of radiologists, Lee said.

Second, Lee and colleagues figured out a way to provide a window into an AIs decision-making, cracking open the black box. The system was designed to show a set of reference images most similar to the CT scan it analyzed, allowing a human doctor to review and check the reasoning.

Jonathan Zittrain, Harvards George Bemis Professor of Law and director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, said that, done wrong, AI in health care could be analogous to the cancer-causing asbestos that was used for decades in buildings across the U.S., with widespread harmful effects not immediately apparent. Zittrain pointed out that image analysis software, while potentially useful in medicine, is also easily fooled. By changing a few pixels of an image of a cat still clearly a cat to human eyes MIT students prompted Google image software to identify it, with 100 percent certainty, as guacamole. Further, a well-known study by researchers at MIT and Stanford showed that three commercial facial-recognition programs had both gender and skin-type biases.

Ezekiel Emanuel, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvanias Perelman School of Medicine and author of a recent Viewpoint article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, argued that those anticipating an AI-driven health care transformation are likely to be disappointed. Though he acknowledged that AI will likely be a useful tool, he said it wont address the biggest problem: human behavior. Though they know better, people fail to exercise and eat right, and continue to smoke and drink too much. Behavior issues also apply to those working within the health care system, where mistakes are routine.

We need fundamental behavior change on the part of these people. Thats why everyone is frustrated: Behavior change is hard, Emanuel said.

Susan Murphy, professor of statistics and of computer science, agrees and is trying to do something about it. Shes focusing her efforts on AI-driven mobile apps with the aim of reinforcing healthy behaviors for people who are recovering from addiction or dealing with weight issues, diabetes, smoking, or high blood pressure, conditions for which the personal challenge persists day by day, hour by hour.

The sensors included in ordinary smartphones, augmented by data from personal fitness devices such as the ubiquitous Fitbit, have the potential to give a well-designed algorithm ample information to take on the role of a health care angel on your shoulder.

The tricky part, Murphy said, is to truly personalize the reminders. A big part of that, she said, is understanding how and when to nudge not during a meeting, for example, or when youre driving a car, or even when youre already exercising, so as to best support adopting healthy behaviors.

How can we provide support for you in a way that doesnt bother you so much that youre not open to help in the future? Murphy said. What our algorithms do is they watch how responsive you are to a suggestion. If theres a reduction in responsivity, they back off and come back later.

The apps can use sensors on your smartphone to figure out whats going on around you. An app may know youre in a meeting from your calendar, or talking more informally from ambient noise its microphone detects. It can tell from the phones GPS how far you are from a gym or an AA meeting or whether you are driving and so should be left alone.

Trickier still, Murphy said, is how to handle moments when the AI knows more about you than you do. Heart rate sensors and a phones microphone might tell an AI that youre stressed out when your goal is to live more calmly. You, however, are focused on an argument youre having, not its physiological effects and your long-term goals. Does the app send a nudge, given that its equally possible that you would take a calming breath or angrily toss your phone across the room?

Working out such details is difficult, albeit key, Murphy said, in order to design algorithms that are truly helpful, that know you well, but are only as intrusive as is welcome, and that, in the end, help you achieve your goals.

For AI to achieve its promise in health care, algorithms and their designers have to understand the potential pitfalls. To avoid them, Kohane said its critical that AIs are tested under real-world circumstances before wide release.

Similarly, Jha said its important that such systems arent just released and forgotten. They should be reevaluated periodically to ensure theyre functioning as expected, which would allow for faulty AIs to be fixed or halted altogether.

Several experts said that drawing from other disciplines in particular ethics and philosophy may also help.

Programs like Embedded EthiCS at SEAS and the Harvard Philosophy Department, which provides ethics training to the Universitys computer science students, seek to provide those who will write tomorrows algorithms with an ethical and philosophical foundation that will help them recognize bias in society and themselves and teach them how to avoid it in their work.

Disciplines dealing with human behavior sociology, psychology, behavioral economics not to mention experts on policy, government regulation, and computer security, may also offer important insights.

The place were likely to fall down is the way in which recommendations are delivered, Bates said. If theyre not delivered in a robust way, providers will ignore them. Its very important to work with human factor specialists and systems engineers about the way that suggestions are made to patients.

Bringing these fields together to better understand how AIs work once theyre in the wild is the mission of what Parkes sees as a new discipline of machine behavior. Computer scientists and health care experts should seek lessons from sociologists, psychologists, and cognitive behaviorists in answering questions about whether an AI-driven system is working as planned, he said.

How useful was it that the AI system proposed that this medical expert should talk to this other medical expert? Parkes said. Was that intervention followed? Was it a productive conversation? Would they have talked anyway? Is there any way to tell?

Next: A Harvard project asks people to envision how technology will change their lives going forward.

Sign up for daily emails to get the latest Harvardnews.

View post:
Risks and benefits of an AI revolution in medicine - Harvard Gazette

The Department of Internal Medicine is pleased to announce the following appointments and promotions to Professor of Medicine. Michael P. DiGiovanna, MD, PhD, and Emily Wang, MD, were promoted to Professor of Medicine. Robert Bona, MD, was newly recruited to Yale and appointed Professor of Medicine.

Co-Director, Pre-Clerkship CurriculumPharmacology Thread LeaderCo-Leader, Genes & Development Master CourseMD: Yale School of MedicinePhD: Yale School of Medicine Residency: Yale New Haven HospitalPostdoctoral Fellow: Yale School of MedicineFellowship: Yale New Haven Hospital

Michael P. DiGiovanna, MD, PhD, attended Yale School of Medicine earning an MD and a PhD in pharmacology. He completed his post-graduate training at Yale, with an internship and residency in internal medicine, a research post-doctoral fellowship, and a clinical fellowship in medical oncology. His clinical specialty is breast cancer oncology; he conducts both clinical and laboratory-based research into the treatment and of breast cancer. He has had a leadership role in medical education in the school, overseeing a large component of the medical student curriculum.

What does your promotion mean to you? The promotion is a much-appreciated acknowledgment from peers that the work one does is valued.

What was the first thing you did when you found out you were promoted to professor? I shared the good news with family.

What are you proud of most thus far in your career? Being able to contribute substantially in all three areas of the academic medical center mission: patient care, research, and education.

What is your favorite part of academia? Translating new research results into practice.

Tell us a fun fact about yousomething people may find surprising. I'm a highly trained musician. In college I double-majored in biochemistry and music. Also, I play mens league ice hockey two nights per week (when a pandemic doesnt result in rink closure).

Director, SEICHE Center for Health and JusticeHealth Justice Lab research program leadCo-founder, Transitions Clinic NetworkMD: Duke University Medical Center Intern: University of California, San FranciscoResidency: University of California, San FranciscoMAS: University of California, San Francisco

Emily Wang, MD, directs the SEICHE Center for Health and Justice, a collaboration between Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School. The Center works to stimulate community transformation by identifying the legal, policy, and practice levers that can improve the health of individuals and communities impacted by mass incarceration. She also leads the Health Justice Lab research program that investigates how incarceration influences chronic health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and opioid use disorder. As an internist, she cares for many individuals with a history of incarceration and is co-founder of the Transitions Clinic Network, a consortium of 40 community health centers nationwide employing community health workers with histories of incarceration. Wang recently co-chaired the National Academy of Sciences consensus report on decarcerating correctional facilities during COVID-19.

What does your promotion mean to you? I am hoping that students, residents, people starting out at Yale will see my promotion as a sign that a career grounded in social justice in an academic medical center is possible, rewarding, and joyful.

What was the first thing you did when you found out you were promoted to professor? I told my family.

What are you proud of most thus far in your career? am most proud when my team and community thrive: when patients who have been out of prison for a decade are meaningfully employed and reunited with family, when medical students go on to become physician leaders caring for justice-involved patients, when fellows land jobs in academia and the public sector contributing to the science and practice of decarceration, and when my team members succeed in changing the practices, policies, and culture of our institutions to support people impacted by mass incarceration.

What is your favorite part of academia? That I am able to work on something that I care so deeply about.

Fun fact about yousomething people may find surprising. Favorite song to karaoke: Livin on a Prayer

Director, Benign Hematology ProgramMedical Director, Hemophilia Treatment CenterMD: SUNY Upstate Medical Center Residency: Rhode Island Hospital, Brown UniversityFellowship: UConn School of Medicine

Originally from New York, Robert Bona, MD, and his wife, Georg'Ann, currently live in New Haven and are long-time residents of Connecticut where they raised their three children. Before to coming to Yale, Dr. Bona was a founding faculty member of the Frank H. Netter School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University. He previously was Professor of Medicine at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, where he served as the hematology oncology fellowship program director, chief of the division of hematology oncology, and hemophilia treatment center director. He has had a strong interest throughout his career, in medical education and clinical hemostasis and thrombosis.

What does your appointment mean to you? I'm humbled and honored to be appointed at this level at the Yale School of Medicine.

What was the first thing you did when you found out about your appointment? I told my wife who offered congratulations: That is really an accomplishment you should be proud of!

What are you proud of most thus far in your career? I think I have made a difference in the lives of patients and their families either through medical knowledge and application or by being present for them during times of need.

What is your favorite part of academia? Being a piece of the educational mission of a medical school has been extremely gratifying. I enjoy teaching and learning from students, residents, fellows, nurses, social workers and others involved in the care of patients. Career advising and being able to share some of my experiences with trainees in order for them to make decisions about their careers is also very gratifying.

Fun fact about yousomething people may find surprising. I'm trying to learn to play guitar. I started taking lessons a few years ago, which have been interrupted due to the COVID pandemic. Also, I coached my kids baseball/softball teams for almost 20 years--great fun!

Read the original:
New Professors Within the Department of Internal Medicine - Yale School of Medicine

RENO, Nev.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Nevadas Medicaid health plan has committed $75,000 to fund a new University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine (UNR Med) initiative called See It To Be It. This initiative will connect aspiring physicians from populations that are underrepresented in medicine and from medically underserved communities with medical students and physicians from similar backgrounds. By supporting pre-med students as they navigate the medical school admissions process, the program will support UNR Med and Anthems shared commitment to preparing a diverse workforce of physicians. In turn, a more diverse medical workforce will be positioned to deliver more equitable healthcare services to multicultural, multiracial and socioeconomically diverse populations as well as to medically underserved communities.

Physician shortages are at an all-time high across the United States and have reached unprecedented levels in Nevada, especially in communities of underserved areas, said UNR Med Dean Thomas L. Schwenk, M.D. The See It To Be It initiative is intended to have a direct impact on developing a pipeline of physicians who have the cultural competency to build strong doctor-patient relationships and influence positive change in diverse communities. We believe this initiative will build a solid foundation for the future of our state, and we cannot thank Anthem enough for making the program possible.

According to a report from the Association of American Medical Colleges, the United States could see an estimated physician shortage of up to 139,000 physicians by 2033. Nevadas physician shortage is one of the most severe in the nation, with the state ranking 48th for physician-to-patient ratios. Nevada is also the fourth fastest growing state in the U.S., with Black and Latinx populations leading that growth. However, the number of practicing physicians in Nevada is not occurring at the same pace as the population growth, which will likely cause more access to care challenges, especially in fast-growing communities of color, in rural Nevada and among Nevadas tribal communities.

Several studies have demonstrated that patients from diverse backgrounds are more likely to form trusting bonds with and benefit from having doctors who come from their own communities and can identify with their stories and experiences, said Lisa Thompson, M.D., Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Nevada Medicaid medical director and Health Equity Task Force leader. Anthem has made a commitment to identifying Nevada-specific health disparities, so we can introduce solutions that create more equitable healthcare experiences, enhance healthcare accessibility and improve health outcomes. Anthems collaboration with UNR Med on the See It To Be It initiative is just one example of how we are delivering on our commitment and living our mission to improve lives.

The See It To Be It initiative includes four elements:

Anthem recognizes the complexity of health and is committed to developing unique solutions that address the needs of the communities we serve, said Lisa Bogard, president, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Nevada, Medicaid. By offering innovative solutions and addressing barriers, we can make healthcare simpler, more accessible, more equitable and help improve the health of our state.

The See It To Be It initiative is expected to launch at the start of the 2021/2022 academic year. UNR Med has already hosted its first statewide meeting and invites physicians, community members and anyone interested in developing a diverse medical workforce, to become members of the See It To Be It community. UNR Med Outreach and Recruitment Coordinator, Andre Lawson and UNR Med Director of Admissions, Tamara Martinez-Anderson, will manage the initiative with support from a second-year medical student intern, Abel Edossa, and involvement by UNR Med Student Interest Groups. For more information, contact UNR Med at officeofadmissions@med.unr.edu.

About Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Nevada

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Nevada helps improve healthcare access and quality for more than 600,000 Nevadans by developing innovative care management programs and services. Anthems top priority is the health and well-being of its members and enabling access to comprehensive healthcare. Through health education and community outreach programs, members are empowered to choose and sustain a healthy lifestyle. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield is the trade name of Community Care health Plan of Nevada, Inc., an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Anthem is a registered trademark of Anthem Insurance Companies, Inc. To learn more, visit http://www.anthem.com. Also, follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/anthemBCBS_news or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AnthemMedicaid/.

About University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine

The University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, Nevadas first public medical school, is a community-based, research-intensive medical school with a statewide vision for a healthy Nevada. Since 1969, UNR Med has trained more than 3,900 students, residents and fellows. UNR Med continues to improve the health and well-being of all Nevadans and their communities through excellence in student education, postgraduate training and clinical care, research with local, national and global impact and a culture of diversity and inclusion. For more information, visit med.unr.edu.

The rest is here:
Anthem Funds Initiative to Address Nevada's Physician Shortage, Support Nevada's Diverse Pre-Med Students and Promote Health Equity - Business Wire

Rahil Kheirkhah is on a mission.

Earning her medical degree from Rowan Universitys School of Osteopathic Medicine (RowanSOM) on May 9, she will head to a five-year general surgery residency program with the ChristianaCare health system in Newark, Delaware.

She is bringing extraordinary credentials to her patients: a doctor of osteopathic medicine degree as well as a doctoral degree in cell and molecular biology from Rowans Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, which she earned in 2020. Kheirkhah is only the second female DO/PhD in the schools history.

The Linwood resident has always wanted to be a doctor.

I dont think I ever considered doing anything else. I knew I wanted to help people, and being a doctor was the only thing I ever thought about, she said. My family taught me a very central tenet of my life, which is you want to live your life serving others and you want to live your life giving back and always listening to the people around you.

Her parents embodied this message as they fought to reestablish themselves in a new country. Her father was a family physician and her mother a science teacher in Iran. But after they arrived in the United States when Kheirkhah was 11, they worked diligently to build new careersher father as a nurse and her mother as a real estate agent.

New opportunities

After she began medical school, Kheirkhah discovered additional ways to help patients as well as her classmates.

She founded Humans of RowanSOM, a platform that showcased each person at the school with photos and short quotations.

Moved by a talk given by Dr. Robert Nagele, professor of medicine at RowanSOM, she was selected for a summer medical research fellowship after her first year.

When I worked with them in the lab, I loved what they were doing, she said. It was very cutting edge and innovative, like nothing Id ever heard about before.

This led her to earn her doctorate within three years, receiving the Deans Award for Excellence in Research in 2018. She worked on research to develop a blood test to diagnose early-stage Alzheimers disease, which would detect the disease before patients begin to show symptoms, enabling earlier treatment.

It was probably the best decision Ive made in my seven years at Rowan, she said. Working with them gave me a chance to not only grow professionally, but also grow personally.

In Nageles program, she learned to perform and analyze research and refine her abilities to take a critical approach to problem-solving. She also assumed leadership roles on projects.

It taught me to feel comfortable about questioning the material that Im taught, looking for answers and where the answers are coming from, and approaching situations in a very scientific way.

It made me more confident that when I am practicing medicine, Ill be learning skills and reading information that is scientifically sound and making decisions that are objectively beneficial for my patients, she said.

Nageles guidance was invaluable, according to Kheirkhah.

He taught me not to shrink away from a challenge and, more importantly, to become comfortable making big decisions and standing behind them, she said. He was an incredible mentor to have, and I feel very grateful to have been able to work with him.

Handling the pressure

After earning her doctorate, Kheirkhah returned to her medical studies. She plans to continue performing research in a clinical setting, and she was drawn by the teamwork and intensity of surgery.

Theres an immediacy and urgency that demands that you be completely present in that moment, Kheirkhah said.

When youre in the operating room, it can be unpredictable and intense, and that resonated with the intense unpredictability I had been feeling growing up as an immigrant for the last 17 years, she continued.

I feel like the person who I am now was formed under a very pressurized environment, which is very similar to how you are when youre in an operating room.

Based on her experience as an immigrant, she also believes she will be able to empathize and connect with patients who feel vulnerable.

Those individual one-on-one connections are really where you can make your mark, showing who you are and what your signature is as a doctor, she said.

Marcin Jankowski, DO, MBA, FACOS, associate clinical professor at RowanSOM and trauma surgeon at ChristianaCare, has observed Kheirkhahs strong drive to help others.

Rahil is unique in that not only has she found her passion for the field of surgery, she has also found her purpose by using that passion to serve others. To a mentor, there is nothing more rewarding than to witness your mentee go through such a profound transformation and ultimate realization. I am confident that she will make an excellent and caring surgeon.

Savoring every moment

Kheirkhah is grateful for the people she met at Rowan who supported and listened to her.

Your mentors are such a significant part of where you end up in life, she said. They nudge you in the right direction, and with the right people standing behind you, you can go so far.

She eagerly awaits the next step in her career.

Im going to the hospital of my dreams and Im doing the residency of my dreams, Kheirkhah said.

Im looking forward to being the best I can be and to take this opportunity in as fully as possible as time flies bysavoring every single moment. I just want to try to be as present as possible.

Go here to see the original:
Exceptionally driven: A Ph.D. and D.O. in hand, Rahil Kheirkhah eyes a future in surgery, research - Rowan Today

Veteran Duke scientist and executive R. Sanders Sandy Williams has been named interim Vice President for Research and Innovation effective February 1, President Vincent E. Price announced Thursday. He will succeed Lawrence Carin, who is leaving Duke to become the provost of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.

There are few people who know Duke as well as Sandy Williams, said Price. He has insight into every aspect of research at the university and Duke Health, from the laboratory bench to compliance and regulation, to the interface between academia and industry. I am grateful to Sandy for stepping back into a leadership role at Duke during this important transition period.

Price added that an international search for a permanent Vice President for Research and Innovation would be launched during the spring semester.

As interim Vice President, Williams will work closely with Provost Sally Kornbluth, Chancellor for Health Affairs A. Eugene Washington, deans and faculty to oversee a wide rangeofservices and activities, includingformulation ofresearch policy, compliance, scientific integrity,government agency interactions, the Office of Licensing and Ventures and coordination of research across the institution.

One of the countrys leading physician-scientists and biomedical executives, Williams most recently served as president of the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco and professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco from 2010 to 2018. His experience at Duke spans more than 50 years, including service as professor of medicine, Dean of the Duke School of Medicine and founding Dean of the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.

A graduate of Princeton and the Duke School of Medicine, Williams has also been chief of cardiology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and held fellowships at Duke, Massachusetts General Hospital, Oxford University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He is on the board of Amgen, Laboratory Corporation of America, and several early-stage biotechnology companies.

View post:
Former Medical School Dean R. Sanders Williams Named Interim Vice President for Research and Innovation - Duke Today

The School of Medicines Huntsville campus will expand the availability of clinical trials for residents of northern Alabama.

Richard C. Shelton, M.D.Internationally recognized physician-scientist Richard C. Shelton, M.D., is joining the Huntsville Regional Medical Campus of the UAB School of Medicine as its first director of Research, a new position to help establish clinical investigation and clinical trials in Huntsville.

Shelton is the Charles Byron Ireland Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology and founding director of the UAB Depression and Suicide Research Center. He joins the Huntsville campus March 1, 2021, as a professor of psychiatry and will continue to serve as director of the research center in Birmingham.

In Huntsville, Shelton will launch a new research affiliate of the Depression and Suicide Research Centers clinical trials program, which will bring new treatment interventions and therapeutic options to patients in Huntsville and north Alabama.

After establishing the program in psychiatry, campus leaders hope to expand the research enterprise to create a network of affiliated research sites in Alabama that will conduct research across a range of medical disorders.

We are excited to welcome Dr. Shelton and his wealth of knowledge to the Huntsville campus, said Roger Smalligan, M.D., dean of the Huntsville Regional Medical Campus. His expertise in psychiatry, along with his depth of experience developing and operating successful research programs, will be an incredible resource for north Alabama.

Shelton has over 35 years of research program experience, spending 26 years at Vanderbilt University before joining UAB in 2012. He and his colleagues have had more than 130 research studies funded by the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies, along with foundations and industry.

Sheltons research focuses on the development of new ways to treat and prevent depression and suicide. This work includes testing new treatments, prevention of serious mental illnesses and suicide, and identifying biomarkers of both disease and treatment response. Recent research studies include participating in two large-scale pharmacogenomics trials that study the effectiveness of ketamine and esketamine intranasal treatment in patients with resistant depression.

Huntsville is the most rapidly growing region in Alabama, and theres relatively little clinical medical research happening in the outpatient environment, Shelton said. With the growing population, there are needs we can address through clinical research. The presence of clinical trials will provide patients access to treatments and tests otherwise unavailable.

Shelton attended medical school at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He was then a resident at a Harvard Medical School-affiliated hospital in Boston. After residency, he was a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health Intramural Program in Washington, D.C., before joining the faculty of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Clinton Martin, M.D., regional chair of Psychiatry in Huntsville, says recruiting Shelton to the Huntsville campus will not only enhance the clinical research and patient care in Huntsville, but also enhance medical training. The campus trains third- and fourth-year medical students and is home to the Huntsville Internal Medicine Residency and Family Medicine Residency programs.

More here:
Shelton joins Huntsville Regional Campus as first-ever director of Research - UAB News

It may come as a surprise that medical school applications have surged in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That information was outlined by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in an October report.

The report states, At Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, applications for admission to the class of 2025 are up more than 35% compared to the same time last year. At Boston University School of Medicine, theyve risen by 26%. And at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, admissions officers have seen applications increase by 27%.

To further emphasize, the report says, In the past decade, the year-over-year increase has averaged less than 3%.

The number of applications submitted already shows a significant increase compared to the same time in 2019, according to Fox 7 News.

So far, there are more than 7,500 additional applicants nationwide, according to data from the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS), which processes submissions for most U.S. medical schools. Thats an increase of nearly 18%, according to AAMC.

Weve been experiencing a leveling off in recent years, so the large increase was quite surprising, said Gabrielle Campbell, AAMC chief services officer. Its also inspiring. In the past decade, the year-over-year increase has averaged less than 3%.

Why the increase? Some reports, as well as several of our member medical schools admission staff, according to a AAMC spokesperson, refer to the increased interest to work in the medical field as the Fauci effect, named after the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

AAMC speculates that some of the motivation is related to the coronavirus pandemic that brought forth the heroism that front-line healthcare workers have shown throughout the world.

So many people have seen that different groups in our country are facing such different effects from COVID-19 based on their ZIP code or their race. This year, applicants are motivated to get out there and fix societal problems, said Kristen Goodell, MD, associate dean of admissions at Boston University School of Medicine.

One would surmise that witnessing all the responsibility, stress and daunting experiences would have the opposite reaction and lower the appeal of entering the healthcare profession.

Geoffrey Young, Ph.D., AAMC senior director for student affairs and programs explains it this way, I make an analogy to the time after 9/11, when we saw an increase in those motivated to serve this country militarily. This certainly seems like a significant factor this year.

Young also gives a few more explanations to the phenomenon, We cant say for sure why so many more students have applied this year. Some students may have had more time for applications and preparing for the MCAT exam after their college courses went online. Some may have been motivated by seeing heroic doctors on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. There may be other explanations as well.

A few medical school applicants told AAMC:

We survey incoming medical school students every year and will be able to learn more about why this group of students decided to apply, though we wont have that data until next year, Young went on to say.

Read more:

Read this article:
Increased medical school applications during COVID-19 pandemic called the Fauci effect - PennLive

Most mornings, Dr. Sterling Malish replaces his home clothes with car clothes, then departs his Carmel home, bound for Natividad Medical Center. There, he changes into scrubs, plus a protective gown, gloves, an N95 mask, and a PAPR (Powered Air Purifying Respirator) mask. Then, he enters the COVID ICU for a 12-hour shift that usually runs long.

At the end of his day, Dr. Malish reverses his routine, abandoning his car clothes for the shower, followed by fresh home clothes, so he can greet his wife, public health professor Jennifer Nazareno, and two little girls, ages 7 and 4.

When Malish signed his contract with Natividad in February, COVID was not yet a pandemic. Based in Rhode Island, he had been serving as director of Pulmonary Critical Care and Sleep for Care New England, a five-hospital system. Yet, after enduring a lot of administrative changes, Malish, realizing he really missed clinical work, sought a professional change that would return him to hands-on critical care.

He got what he wanted.

I received a call from my friend, Dr. Chad Medawar, whom I had met during our pulmonary critical-care fellowship at UC Irvine, telling me about an opening at Natividad, he said. Having moved from Los Angeles to Rhode Island five years before, it had always been our plan to come back to California.

Malish and his family moved to the Peninsula in July, just as Natividad was experiencing a dramatic surge in COVID cases.

In my first week at Natividad, everyone was telling me how in the previous five years, theyd never seen the hospital so busy, said Malish. But, Im a pulmonary critical care physician. I could have accepted a job anywhere this year and, most likely, it would have been the same scenario.

At Natividad Medical Center, Dr. Malish and his colleagues spend their shifts in isolation within the COVID ICU, where communication is essential and ongoing, yet requires three times the energy, he says, behind all the personal protective equipment and against the sounds of medical equipment in use.

COVID patients are the sickest patients in the hospital, he said. Their care requires a lot of communication among the medical specialties treating them. Were always thinking three steps ahead. We have to think whats the worst that could happen to this patient, and then be prepared for when it does.

The hospital also has to plan for a surge of new patients, says Malish, which is happening now. He reports more than 60 COVID patients admitted to Natividad as of last week and the number continues to rise. Twelve of those patients, he says, have been in the ICU.

Then there is the added layer, he said, of having to communicate with families, desperate for information about their loved ones, whom they cant visit. This is extremely difficult to explain to all these people were trying to protect.

Despite his desire to return to critical-care medicine, Dr. Malish never imagined he would be called to practice pulmonary medicine during a pandemic. He finds it both exhilarating and exhausting to provide the level of care required by COVID.

Its almost an extension of emergency medicine, he said. I went into critical care because of the acuity of care, and the needs of the patients. I like having to think through the physiology of these patients to figure out how to make them better.

And theres no textbook for COVID, he says. Theyre writing it as they work.

Although each day in the COVID ICU can well exceed the scheduled 12-hour shift, on their days off, Dr. Malish and his colleagues check in on one another to see if they need to provide back-up support.

COVID is something were all dealing with throughout the hospital, he said. A lot of camaraderie and teamwork comes through, and we know were definitely all in this together.

After spending their first 14 years in Texas, twin brothers Sterling and Haven Malish followed their fathers job to Hawaii, where they graduated from high school before returning to the mainland to study the history and sociology of science, with a minor in biology, at the University of Pennsylvania. The appeal was the interdisciplinary approach to science, says Malish, which encouraged students to think outside the box.

While trying to decide whether or not to go to medical school, he said, I spent a summer doing health economics research and realized, although it was interesting work, I couldnt sit in an office all day. I wanted to see the people I was affecting through my work.

Upon graduation from college, the twins returned to Hawaii to attend medical school at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine. Following their residency at USC Medical Center LA County, Sterling Malish went on to UC Irvine to pursue a fellowship in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine, while his brother pursued the same fellowship at USC.

It was at UC Irvine that Dr. Malish met his colleague, Dr. Chad Medawar, before moving on to the University of Michigan to pursue a fellowship in sleep medicine. His brother completed the same fellowship through the Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education, and now practices the same specialties of medicine as his twin, in North Dakota and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Ive heard that twins either turn out somewhat similar or make it a point to differentiate themselves, Malish said. It always helped to have a trusted study buddy. Everything we studied enables us to pivot in different directions and relates to what we need to address, particularly during this pandemic.

This holiday season, Sterling Malish and his family spent time tucking into their Carmel home, having traded a large house in the snow for a cottage by the sea, in a Hallmark town with no street addresses. Although they couldnt gather with relatives, they took comfort in trading travel for toys and traditions among their family of four.

We havent had a whole lot of downtime this year, Malish said. Weve been in a tag-team situation, with my wife compensating for my long hours at the hospital, and my giving her a chance to rest when Im home. Just to have time to relax as a family this Christmas was incredibly rejuvenating.

As he returns his attention from Christmas to COVID, Malish gives credit to the respiratory therapists, nurses, and the rest of the staff who have put their lives on hold to work long hours and take on extra shifts in their efforts to save other lives.

We have so many patients and not enough nurses, he said. Our states ability to take care of COVID patients is only as good as the available staff. I read that we hit ICU bed capacity on Christmas. Were placing a lot of hope on the vaccines.

Dr. Malishhas received his first dose of the COVID vaccine, as part of the first tier of recipients, which includes those who serve in health care settings and have potential for direct or indirect exposure to patients or infectious materials, as well as residents of long-term care facilities. In a couple of weeks, he will come in on his day off to receive the second dose.

You really dont want to be high on the vaccine list, he said. Those who make that list are among our most vulnerable populations.

Read the original:
Moving onto the frontline: A Bay Area doctors story - East Bay Times

Researchers with UNDs biomedical sciences department have identified two new members of the superantigen family that, when combined with a common helper molecule, showed significantly higher cure rates in and long-term survival of animals with solid tumors compared to other immunotherapeutic agents now deployed clinically.

Dr. David Terman, one of the lead researchers on the project and an adjunct professor at UNDs medical school, said this work is a definitive step forward to add to the arsenal of immunotherapeutics that can potentially combat solid tumors.

We're talking about cancers of the lung, breast, colon, to some degree application here to kidney, and, in our case, melanoma, he said. The problem is an enormous problem.

The work of Terman and David Bradley, an associate professor at UND, was recently reported in the prestigious Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

Terman and Bradley have spent about seven years working on the research.

Superantigens are a class of bacterial-based antigens that induce an overactivation of the bodys immune system. Superantigens trigger the white blood cells known as T-lymphocytes or T-cells that help the body generate the inflammatory response that fights infectious organisms and cancer.

Immunotherapy has changed the management of the most treatment-resistant human tumors, such as melanoma, lung, breast and colon cancer, Terman said.

Those cancers have been treated with chemotherapy in the past, Bradley said, but chemo often includes various side effects. Immunotherapies began to burst on the scene in the past five years, he said.

There are ways to deal with cancer, but the reality is most treatments for cancer are not particularly effective, if you look at the big picture numbers, Bradley said. This is providing another avenue to deal with a really big problem, the No. 2 killer (in the world).

Previous superantigens deployed in clinical trials of patients with advanced cancer failed to reach their potential largely due to their excessive toxicity and the widespread presence of neutralizing antibodies in human blood that blocked the superantigens from exerting their tumor-killing function, Terman said.

Unlike their earlier relatives, our new superantigens showed a low incidence of such disabling antibodies, he said.

Researchers were able to eradicate the toxicity noted with other superantigens by combining the new superantigens with a partner molecule known as HLA-DQ8. In other words, the pair demonstrated that, when combined with a molecule that helped reduce toxicity, their superantigens curtailed toxicity and also served as lightning rods attracting the bodys own T-cells to the tumor and destroying it in more than 80% of mice.

Bradley added that the anti-tumor mechanism of the superantigens appears to be long-lasting and that it also served as a vaccine that prevented the development of tumors and withstood subsequent challenges with live tumor cells.

The tumor killing seemed to be an ongoing response that continued for quite some time, he said, noting how the mice were at least 400 days post-treatment, which is the equivalent to more than 60 human years, without experiencing any recurrence of cancer.

Pending FDA approval, the team is on the cusp of clinical trials in humans. Trials are planned to be carried out collaboratively with UND and a team at the University of Washington in Seattle later this year.

Go here to read the rest:
UND medical researchers publish study on new way to treat solid tumor cancers - Grand Forks Herald

The Altrui Foundation was founded by Wharton first year Sourish Jasti. (Sourish Jasti)

A Penn first-year co-founded the Altrui Foundation, which has helped facilitate the distribution of $15,000,000 worth of unused medication to underserved communities in just four months.

The Altrui Foundation transfers unused medications from manufacturers to charitable organizations so they do not become wasted. The organization was founded by Wharton first-year Sourish Jasti, senior at St. Pauls School in Concord, N.H. Shreya Kavuru, and St. Pauls School junior Rahul Kavuru.

After hearing from an executive in the pharmaceutical industry about the problem of manufacturers destroying billions of dollars worth of unused medications each year and the large underserved community in need of medication, Jasti said the team was inspired to take on this project.

The Altrui Foundation is led primarily by young college and high school students and is advised by a board of business, tech, and pharmaceutical industry professionals.

The Altrui team is working with companies including Rising Pharmaceuticals and Ingenus Pharmaceuticals to redistribute unused medications that they manufacture through charity organizations.

The foundation works with charities to help these underserved communities both domestically and internationally. One organization is Kingsway Charities, a Christian charity that supplies medicines all over the world.

They have mission trips that they plan out, Jasti said. They are able to take certain amounts of medicine to the doctors that go on the mission trips and go to these places and supply it there.

While the medications that Altrui facilitates are unable to be sold at pharmacies like CVS, they are usable and unexpired medications that help communities, such as the uninsured, and communities after natural disasters, Jasti said.

In addition to preventing the destruction of usable medications, the Altrui Foundation also has a sector called Altrui Education that helps mentor high school students applying to college. Altrui Educations mentorship program hopes to break the systematic systemic barriers that contribute to the cyclic nature of poverty, violence, and addiction, according to its website.

The team said their organization is unique because most of their mentors are students who recently applied to or started college.

It gives a different perspective than a counselor or a parent, said Princeton University first-year and Altrui Education Manager Maxime Lahlou. It is someone who just applied and can relate to the stress of applying.

The Altrui founders believe that the youth of their team across both the medical and educational sectors is an asset. Engineering first-year and Altrui member Justin Zhang said he believes their youth has added to the success of the venture.

We are inspired and passionate about what we do, Zhang said. We are really committed to this initiative going far. This is not a short term kind of spiel that will end when COVID-19 ends. We plan on continuing for years to come. I think having that motivation and commitment helps the organization run.

These students also solicit advice form Whartons Management Clubs Applied Management Program and the Altrui Foundations Advisory Board.

Gopichand Katragadda, a member of the Altrui Advisory Board and CEO of artificial intelligence technology startup Myelin Foundry, said he is impressed by the foundation and enjoys his advisory role.

I am very happy that the team has come together in this manner to contribute to society, Katragadda said. They could pick a huge money-making opportunity. [But they] are doing all that they do free of cost with a passion to serve humanity. I think there should be more such organizations, and I am happy to be a part of this.

Get our newsletter, Dear Penn, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.

Moving forward, the foundation hopes to serve as the link between more charities and pharmaceutical companies with leftover medication.

First-year student at New Jersey Medical School and Altrui member Swathi Pavuluri said she has learned much from the experience of being on the Altrui medical team and admires the younger people she is able to work with.

I am really grateful to be a part of this. I hoped that I would be a part of something like this in the future, but as a med school first year student I am able to be a part of something that is making such a profound impact on both a medical level, which I am professionally interested in, and on a social level," Pavuluri said.

See more here:
Wharton first year distributes $15M in unused medicine to charities through new foundation - The Daily Pennsylvanian

Visit the News Hub

In mouse study, loss of molecule contributes to disease while surplus reduces symptoms

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found, working in mice, that when the FoxO1 gene is knocked out, the animals develop osteoarthritis. But when levels of the FoxO1 molecule are increased, the animals exhibit less cartilage damage.

Osteoarthritis is one of the most common problems associated with aging, and although there are therapies to treat the pain that results from the breakdown of the cartilage that cushions joints, there are no available therapies to modify the course of the disease.

However, working in a mouse model of the disorder, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a molecule previously linked to diabetes, cancer and muscle atrophy also seems to be involved in the development of osteoarthritis and may be a useful treatment target.

When the gene involved, FoxO1, is knocked out in mice, the animals develop osteoarthritis. But when the researchers increase the levels of the FoxO1 molecule in mice that are developing osteoarthritis, the animals exhibit less cartilage damage.

The study is available online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Osteoarthritis, or joint degeneration, is a disease that affects more than 32 million people in the U.S. alone but that does not have a medical therapy to alter its progression, said senior investigator Regis J. OKeefe, MD, PhD, the Fred C. Reynolds Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and head of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. A better understanding of the fundamental processes involved in osteoarthritis and the degeneration of cartilage is required if were going to be more successful in treating this very common and very expensive disorder.

OKeefe said that commonly, people with osteoarthritis have suffered knee injuries that damaged the knees meniscus. Over time, arthritis then can develop in the joint.

Unlike skin or bone or other organs that can regenerate in response to injury, cartilage has very little regenerative potential, he said.

However, when the mice in these experiments had elevated levels of the FoxO1 molecule, osteoarthritiss progress was slowed or even reversed. The researchers believe the molecule interferes with cartilage damage and the development of arthritis by enhancing a process called autophagy in the arthritic joint. Autophagy is the bodys way of clearing out damaged tissue. In these experiments, the researchers found that autophagy was disrupted in the mice with reduced levels of FoxO1 and that the process was enhanced in animals with higher levels of the molecule.

In other words, maintaining a higher level of autophagy seemed to be beneficial to maintaining these cartilage cells and, thus, maintaining a healthy knee joint, said co-corresponding author Jie Shen, PhD, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery.

OKeefe said that raises the possibility of delivering FoxO1 to arthritic joints through nanotechnology as a way to regulate autophagy and keep joints healthier.

In mice with injuries that typically progress to become osteoarthritis, the knee joints still appear normal about a week after injury, OKeefe explained. But when we measure autophagy in the cartilage after injury to those same knee joints, although the joints themselves look fine, the autophagy process already is shut off. The injury completely turns it off, and once autophagy is off, the cartilage begins to degenerate.

He said if FoxO1 can alter that process in people, protecting cartilage from damage as it does in mice, it eventually may be possible to prevent or delay millions of future knee and hip replacement surgeries.

Wang C, Shen J, Ying J, Xiao D, OKeefe RJ. FoxO1 is a crucial mediator of TGFB/TAK1 signaling and protects against osteoarthritis by maintaining articular cartilage homeostasis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nov. 16, 2020.

This work was supported by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Grant numbers R01 AR069605, T32 AR060719 and P30 AR057235.

Washington University School of Medicines 1,500 faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals. The School of Medicine is a leader in medical research, teaching and patient care, ranking among the top 10 medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

See more here:
Gene that protects against osteoarthritis identified Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis - Washington University School of Medicine...

When COVID-19 restrictions reduced his work schedule, Sam Smith turned to another time-consuming task: applying to medical school.

Hed always wanted to go into medicine, Smith said. But what was happening in the world had a big impact on the kind of medicine he hopes to practice. Now, Smith said, he wants to specialize in infectious diseases.

The experience of the last year makes me think, theres probably going to be another pandemic in the future, said Smith, 25, who has an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder and moved to Somerville, Massachusetts when his girlfriend started Harvard Law School. So I want to be on the front lines of the next one.

Even as college and university enrollment overall has dropped this fall, Smith is part of a wave of what officials say is an all-time record number of applicants to medical school.

The number of medical school applicants is up 18 percent this year over last year, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, or AAMC, driven by the example of front-line medical workers and high-profile public health figures such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Renewed attention to inequities in the delivery of health care has also played a role.

Its unprecedented, said Geoffrey Young, the AAMCs senior director for student affairs and programs, who compares it to the response to another traumatic moment in American history: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

After 9/11, there was a huge increase in the number of men and women that were entering into the military, Young said. So far in my lifetime, at least, and for as long as Ive been in medical education, thats the only comparison that I could make.

The Stanford University School of Medicine reports a 50 percent jump in the number of applications it received this year over last year, or 11,000 applications for 90 seats. New York Universitys Grossman School of Medicine says its seen a 4 percent increase, but that comes on top of a 47 percent rise last year after the medical school made tuition free; this year, it has more than 9,600 applications for 102 spots. The Boston University School of Medicine says applications are up 27 percent, to 12,024 for about 110 seats.

Whats been happening this year is that more of the people who had at some point thought about medical school decided to stick with it, said Dr. Kristen Goodell, associate dean of admissions at the BU School of Medicine. And that, I think, may have a lot to do with the fact that people look at Anthony Fauci, look at the doctors in their community and say, You know, that is amazing. This is a way for me to make a difference.

Medical school admissions officers have come up with a name for this. They call it the "Fauci Effect."

Ryan Chahal, who is also applying to medical school, is among those inspired by Fauci, he said.

"There definitely was a Fauci Effect for me, said Chahal, 25, who lives in Tampa, Florida. People who are interested in medicine are interested in evidence and evidence-based approaches to things, and he has been very evidence-based.

Fauci said hes gotten hundreds of letters from people telling him they want to practice medicine.

Its very flattering, he said in an interview via Zoom with GBH News. I think probably a more realistic assessment is that, rather than the Fauci Effect, its the effect of a physician who is trying to and hopefully succeeding in having an important impact on an individuals health, as well as on global health. So if it works to get more young individuals into medical school, go ahead and use my name. Be my guest.

Among other reasons admissions officials cite for the increase in prospective medical school students is that the pandemic has given many people more free time to complete the arduous application process.

Normally, before applying to medical school, nearly half of all applicants first spend a year or two after college working, traveling, doing research, pursuing masters degrees or volunteering, Young said.

But this year, a lot of the plans they made post-grad honestly fell through, said Dr. Sahil Mehta, founder of MedSchoolCoach, which prepares students for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT).

We saw a lot of students who said, You know what? Im going to apply this year, Mehta said. Maybe they were on the fence and they saw what was happening. They saw that health care workers were really at the forefront of trying to solve this. It really lit a fire under people.

When the dermatology practice where she was working as a medical assistant shut down temporarily because of COVID-19, Mary Grace Kelley had the chance to retake the MCAT, and she significantly improved her score.

This is a perfect time of no distractions, said Kelley, 23, who lives in the Boston suburb of Natick and is applying to medical schools this year from her childhood bedroom in her parents house, which is decorated with team photos and varsity letters from her time as an undergraduate Division I hockey forward. Im not very good at sitting still.

Meredith Nierman / The Hechinger Report

Some institutions also waived the requirement that applicants submit results from the MCAT, which canceled several test dates in the spring. Stanford, which is among the schools that made the MCAT optional, reports that 5 percent of applicants did not submit a score.

Medical schools have received so many applications that admissions officers many of them working remotely are struggling to keep up with the volume. My mailbox is almost full with emails apologizing for the delays, Chahal said. Theyve just had a huge number of applications.

This deluge comes as the nation faces a projected shortage of physicians, and its aging population is requiring more specialty care.

The United States will be short 54,100 to 139,000 physicians by 2033, the AAMC estimates, while the proportion of people who are over 65 is expected to grow by 45 percent. More than two out of every five doctors now practicing will reach retirement age in the next 10 years.

Already, there are fewer primary care providers than is needed internal medicine doctors, family physicians and pediatricians in nearly 7,200 areas of the United States with a combined population of roughly 82 million people, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Thirty-five percent of registered voters in a survey last year said theyd had trouble finding a doctor, up from 25 percent in 2015.

The bad news for the surge of applicants is that medical schools arent likely to expand to accommodate them next fall, meaning that the odds of getting in this year will be much lower than usual.

Its discouraging a little bit, to be honest, Smith said.

And while 30 new medical schools have been accredited since 2002 bringing the total to 155 and increasing enrollment by 33 percent there has been almost no increase since 1997 in Medicare payments for residency training, which costs an average of $171,855 per year, leaving hospitals to either limit the number of residents or cover the cost themselves.

Medical school graduates finish with a staggering $241,560 of student loan debt, on average, according to the latest available data from the National Center for Education Statistics, discouraging many would-be doctors, including those from low-income and ethnic and racial minority groups.

Eight percent of medical students are Black and 7 percent are Hispanic, both proportions smaller than their share of the population. (Ten percent of medical students identify themselves as multiracial.)

I do think that the debt probably scares off some people, said Goodell, who is also a former chair of the Council on Graduate Medical Education.

Managed health care and more red tape and bureaucracy have also soured some people on careers in medicine, said Mehta, a practicing radiologist.

That really started to disenfranchise the ways physicians practiced medicine. They were getting burned out, he said.

This years many medical school applicants appear undeterred, however.

Everyone feels some sort of responsibility, Kelley said. We are basically the next generation. Were going to be taking care of our parents, grandparents. So theres definitely a call to arms thinking that, if theres another pandemic, itll be up to us.

Mehta expects the trend to continue.

Given that about 60 percent of people [applying this year] wont get in, youre probably only going to see an increase in competitiveness next year, he said. The bigger thing is you now have people who are freshmen in college, sophomores in college, juniors in college, or even in high school, who for the last few months have been watching Dr. Fauci on TV and thinking, Maybe this is for me.

Fauci said he sees the flood of medical school applicants as a sign that people are thinking about social justice that you have responsibility not only to yourself, but as an integral part of society, he said.

He added that he hopes the trend will counterbalance and maybe would even overcome the other side of the coin, which is the really somewhat stunning and disturbing fact that people have no regard at all for society, only just focusing very selfishly on themselves.

This story about medical school applications was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, in collaboration with GBH News.

Read more from the original source:
Med Schools Are Seeing A Surge Of Applications. It's Called The 'Fauci Effect' - wgbh.org

Minister of State for Grand Bahama Senator Kwasi Thompson.

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

GROUND-breaking and construction on a new medical school in Grand Bahama expected to create some 200 jobs could start before the end of the year, according to State Minister for Grand Bahama Senator Kwasi Thompson.

Mr Thompson has indicated the principals of West Atlantic University School of Medicine are moving forward with legal documents for property in Freeport.

He said the medical school was approved and has signed a Heads of Agreement with the government.

They are moving forward with legal documents for property and its their desire to break ground and start construction before the end of the year, or as soon as they are able to complete the legal document.

That is a significant project in terms of the construction. So, we hope that we can move that forward, said Mr Thompson.

Last October, the principals of WAUSM signed a HoA for a new medical school in Freeport to be built in phases at an overall investment of $64.2m over a ten-year period.

Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis was in Freeport for the signing at the Office of the Prime Minister. It was the second major project approved and signed by government in Grand Bahama following Hurricane Dorian.

It was announced that Western Atlantic would lease about 50 acres of land from the Public Hospitals Authority to build a 98,000 sq ft medical school campus.

The project will be carried out in four phases and is expected to provide 150 jobs during peak construction with 200 permanent jobs available at completion in 2029.

Dorian and COVID-19 pandemic have delayed plans for the project. It had been announced that the first phase would be completed by September 2020 when the university is expected to hire between 50-75 Bahamians.

Minister Thompson also noted that government has approved a second new project in Grand Bahama proposed by Clean Marine.

We were also recently talking to a company called Clean Marine who is presently operating a facility in Shipyard and they are now looking at embarking on a new project, and so we are working with them as well.

We expect there would be some construction work as well for expansion to their existing facility, he said.

With unemployment at an all time high in Grand Bahama, Mr Thompson said the government is continuing to work with potential developers.

There are people who continue to call us every day with respect to inquiries for development for GB and that is part of our role to continue to see them through those processes. And we will continue to do that, he said.

The Tribune understands there are interests for the old Royal Oasis Resort property and Xanadu Beach hotel, which are located in Freeport.

See more here:
Work may start on medical school by end of the year - Bahamas Tribune

Answer: The way they are taught is out of date.

By Physicians Weekly blogger, Skeptical Scalpel

A guy named Steven Levitt is tired of helping his teenagers with their quadratic equations and imaginary zeros. Because they will never use these skills again, he thinks teaching these calculations is futile.

Who is Steven Levitt? He is the University of Chicago economist who wrote the book Freakonomics. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal said Levitt thinks the way math is taught in schools is outdated and impractical in preparing students for todays data-driven world.

Substitute the word medicine for math, and you will echo what many medical educators think is true.

Levitt and Stanford math-education professor, Jo Boaler, are trying to modernize math. Instead of the current Algebra II as a third-year of high school math, they suggest allowing high school students to study data science.

British technologist and math education reformer Conrad Wolfram thinks we no longer need to teach hand calculations and that the fundamental problem with todays math curriculum is that it doesnt acknowledge that computers exist. He said students should know when to use quadratic equations but let the computer do the calculating. The savings in time could be used to teach data literacy.

Likewise, Boaler said, What we dont need is to make them memorize the times tables.

The Journal piece said, Math curriculum has remained largely unchanged since the 1950s. The same is true of medicine. In 2012, I blogged, Now that a resident can carry a computer in her pocket and access everything there is to know instantly, why should she have to memorize formulas, chemical reactions and other minutia? With the exception of the rules limiting work hours, medical school and resident curricula have changed very little since I was a student and resident some 40 years ago.

Educators in the state of Washington are restructuring Algebra II to include only what colleges and industries feel is necessary for students to prepare for higher education. They want to emphasize things like mathematical modeling, data science, quantitative reasoning, and statistics.

We in medicine have the same problem as the mathematicians. There is a lot of talk, but no one does anything about it. Maybe when Levitt, Boaler, and others are done restructuring math education, they can help us bring medical education into the 21st century.

Skeptical Scalpel is a retired surgeon and was a surgical department chair and residency program director for many years. He is board-certified in general surgery and a surgical sub-specialty and has re-certified in both several times.For the last 9years, he has been blogging atSkepticalScalpel.blogspot.comand tweeting as@SkepticScalpel.His blog has had more than 3,700,000 page views, and he has over 21,000 followers on Twitter.

Go here to read the rest:
Question: What do math and medicine have in common? - Physician's Weekly

UMass Medical School has hired a new vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion, the Worcester school announced Friday.

Photo | Courtesy | UMass Medical School

Marlina Duncan

Marlina Duncan joins UMass Medical School from Brown University in Providence, where she's the assistant vice president of academic diversity in the school's Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity. She was also Brown's associate dean of diversity initiatives in its graduate school, and previously directed diversity initiatives, education and outreach programs at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, a biomedical research center jointly operated by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In Duncan's new role at UMass, she will oversee the diversity and inclusion office, and partner with diversity leaders across its academic schools, business units, and academic and administrative departments, UMass said. Her work will include ensuring goals outlined in the school's 2025 strategic plan are met.

Duncan has a doctorate of science education degree from UMass Amherst.

More:
UMass Medical School hires diversity and inclusion head - Worcester Business Journal

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris haveannounced the establishment of a coronavirus advisory board, a panel of public health and scientific experts that will include three UCSF faculty members.

The Advisory Board will help guide planning for the president-elects federal response to the pandemic. The experts will consult with state and local officials to determine the public health and economic steps necessary to get the virus under control, to address ongoing racial and ethnic disparities, and to reopen our schools and businesses safely.

David A. Kessler, M.D., J.D., professor of pediatrics, and of epidemiology and biostatistics, will co-chair the Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board. Also joining the 13-member board areEric Goosby, M.D., professor of medicine, andRobert M. Rodriguez, M.D., professor of emergency medicine.

Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most important battles our administration will face, and I will be informed by science and by experts, Biden said in a statement. The Advisory Board will help shape my approach to managing the surge in reported infections; ensuring vaccines are safe, effective, and distributed efficiently, equitably, and free; and protecting at-risk populations.

Kessler served as commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He later served as dean of the UCSF School of Medicine and vice chancellor at UCSF from 2003 to 2007.

Goosby is an internationally recognized expert on infectious diseases who served in the administrations of Presidents Clinton and Barack Obama. In the Clinton administration, Goosby served as the interim director of the White Houses Office of National AIDS Policy. Under President Obama, he was appointed Ambassador-at-Large and implemented the U.S. Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). After serving as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, he was the UN Special Envoy for Tuberculosis until 2019.

Rodriguez works in the Emergency Department of Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center and in the Intensive Care Unit at Highland Hospital in Oakland. He has led national research teams examining a range of topics in medicine, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of frontline providers.

I wish Drs. Kessler, Goosby and Rodriguez the best as they assume these critical leadership roles, said UCSF ChancellorSam Hawgood, MBBS, in aletter to the UCSF community. They represent the extraordinary and relentless dedication the UCSF community has shown in meeting the challenge of the coronavirus across our patient care, research, and education efforts. Our public health mission has never been clearer nor pursued with greater determination.

UCSF looks forward to working with President-elect Bidens administration, he said. We remain committed as ever to our partnership with public health officials at the national, state, and local levels.

The full Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board includes:

View post:
3 UCSF faculty named to Biden-Harris transition COVID-19 advisory board - University of California

President Donald Trumps 139th lawsuit may come at the hands of his arch-nemesis Governor Andrew Cuomo if he keeps the COVID-19 vaccine away from Black and Brown communities. (Photo: Getty Images)

President Donald Trumps 139th lawsuit may come at the hands of his arch-nemesis Governor Andrew Cuomo if he keeps the COVID-19 vaccine away from Black and Brown communities, in what proves to be a fitting end to a tumultuous four-year run.

As if we needed any more drama in 2020, Cuomo called out the presidents plan to deliver doses of the vaccine from Big Pharma producers like Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer to private pharmacies citing flaws in the White House Coronavirus Task Forces distribution model.

Read More: Gov. Cuomo says we spend too much time trying to interpret Trump

Historically these medication distribution models have not worked in favor of Black and Brown people because they rely too heavily on hospitals and big box store pharmacies rendering it less likely for low-income, uninsured, and marginalized communities to get the vaccine.

Any plan that intentionally burdens communities of color to hinder access to the vaccine deprives those communities of equal protection under the law, said Cuomo during a Sunday service at Riverside Church in New York City.

Cuomo went on to suggest that the Trump administration meet the people in the middle by including churches and community centers in its distribution plan.

I wont hold my breath.

Read More: Trump COVID-19 official faces backlash for telling Michigan to rise up against restrictions

Black people are no strangers to being shut out from medical care. The withholding of the syphilis-curing drug, penicillin, to 300 Black men during the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment serves as a constant reminder of this nations disregard for Black life.

While access to quality healthcare has improved for all people since 1932, when the experiment was first started, health disparities still remain. African Americans have the lowest life expectancy of any racial group 75 years old compared to 79 years old for white people.

The dubious distinction of early death is based on differences in our social determinants of health, the factors that govern our health. These differences are due to structural racism; historical and contemporary policies aimed at disproportionately segregating communities of color from equal access and opportunity to quality education, jobs, housing, healthcare, and equal treatment in the criminal justice system.

Diseases like COVID-19 do not discriminate, but they do spread more rapidly among those discriminated against.

Without having been a part of the task forces meetings its impossible to know if the proposed rollout of the vaccine was meant to intentionally leave out those who have been and continue to be impacted most by the virus. I want to believe that is not the case but given this administrations track record on matters of race its hard not to wonder.

If the plan is to leave out Black and Brown people when the vaccine becomes readily available it will be a monumental disaster at worst and a monumental disaster at best.

Ordinarily, vaccines are first given to those at the highest risk. Given that Black and Brown people make up the highest percentage of essential workers, one would imagine that they would be at the front of the line, not the back.

Read More: Parents mourn the loss of daughter, 5, after she dies from COVID-19

Any distribution of the vaccine should be based on risk and risk alone not race or class. Any other strategy loses sight of whats best for the nation, which is to build herd immunity as quickly as possible by vaccinating everyone. A truly effective and equitable plan should leave no group behind.

Achieving 95 percent immunity, the number most scientists say would make them feel comfortable about the state of the disease, is a tall task that requires the removal of all socio-economic barriers. If any group is left behind it will undermine the heroic efforts of the public health community.

New York Attorney General Letitia James referred to Trumps comments as vindictive and a ploy to enact vengeance on those who oppose his politics. I sincerely hope this is not the case, as our efforts should be focused on finalizing a safe, reliable and free vaccine; and mitigating vaccine hesitancy considering only 31 percent of Black Americans say they would take the new vaccine.

We are on the cusp of a pivotal moment in our history. Hopefully, we can put the childish rhetoric aside and focus on making America healthy again by doing whats right by eliminating barriers to vaccination for all.

Dr. Shamard Charlesis an assistant professor of public health and health promotion at St. Francis College and sits on the anti-bias review board of Dot Dash/VeryWell Health. He is also host of the health podcast, Heart Over Hype. He received his medical degree from the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and his Masters of Public Health from Harvards T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Previously, he spent three years as a senior health journalist for NBC News and served as a Global Press Fellow for the United Nations Foundation. You can follow him on Instagram@askdrcharles or Twitter@DrCharles_NBC.

Have you subscribed totheGrios podcastDear Culture? Download our newest episodes now!

TheGrio is now on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and Roku.Download theGrio today!

Share

Read more here:
Cuomos threat to sue Trump over vaccine highlights racism in medicine - TheGrio

Daniel J. Nigrin, MD, is a pediatric endocrinologist who was drawn to the important role that technology plays in delivering world-class health care.

PORTLAND MaineHealth, northern New Englands largest integrated health system, has selected a physician-information technology leader from Boston Childrens Hospital to lead its IT team.

Daniel J. Nigrin, MD, who is currently the senior vice president and chief information officer at Boston Childrens Hospital, has been chosen as chief information officer of MaineHealth. He will replace Abdul Bengali, who came to MaineHealth this past January as interim CIO shortly before Marci Dunn, the health systems previous CIO, passed away after a long illness.

In Dan we get an experienced and knowledgeable physician-executive with strong credentials as an information technology leader, said Richard Petersen, president of MaineHealth.

Nigrin has been with Boston Childrens since 1995, shortly after completing medical school and his residency at Baltimores Johns Hopkins University Medical School and Johns Hopkins Hospital, respectively. During his time at Boston Childrens, he served as an attending physician specializing in pediatric endocrinology and found he was drawn to the role that technology plays in delivering high-quality care.

Nigrin began to assume increasing responsibility within Boston Childrens IT department and in 1999 obtained a masters degree in Medical Informatics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2001, he was named senior vice president and chief information officer at Boston Childrens, however, he continued to practice medicine and see patients while serving in that role.

During his time leading the information technology team at Boston Childrens, Nigrin gained experience across a range of IT functions, including overseeing the installation of the clinical and business platforms that included Cerner and EPIC.

Nigrin says he was drawn to the opportunity at MaineHealth because it offers a chance to lead an enterprise with multiple local health systems pursuing a broad medical mission.

At MaineHealth, theres an opportunity to leverage technology in a way that positively impacts thousands of patients across Maine and Carroll County, N.H., said Nigrin. Its a unique opportunity to make a difference in peoples lives at a time when technology is playing an increasing role in the provision of health care.

Nigrin will begin his new duties at MaineHealth in January.

See the rest here:
MaineHealth taps Boston Children's physician with strong information technology background to lead its IT department - Bangor Daily News

Steve Marcus

An exterior view of Circa before the casino opening in downtown Las Vegas Tuesday, Oct. 27,2020.

Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020 | 2 a.m.

In one amazing 48-hour span last week, Las Vegas celebrated two landmark events that served as a tribute to the ingenuity, boldness and resiliency that put our community on the global map.

The first came when the spectacular Circa resort opened Wednesday on Fremont Street, marking the completion of the first ground-up casino-hotel project downtown in four decades. That gala occasion was followed Thursday mid-morning with a groundbreaking ceremony for the new academic building for the UNLV School of Medicine, located on the Shadow Ridge campus not far away from the new resort.

In both cases, those special events marked the beginning of something transformational for Las Vegas. Circa takes the Fremont Street Experience to a heightened level of modernity and luster that will undoubtedly boost tourism downtown, while the new medical school building puts Las Vegas on a path toward improving the quality of our health care regionally and enhancing our economy through medical education and research.

For that, credit goes to two sets of community leaders with extraordinary vision.

Circa is the brainchild of Derek and Greg Stevens, the brothers who have been infusing downtown with energy since acquiring a 50% interest in the Golden Gate in 2008. They followed by purchasing what is now The D in 2011 and obtaining 100% ownership of the Golden Gate in 2015 before embarking on Circa.

The new resort is simply stunning, a marriage of contemporary design and old-school Vegas featuring a 777-room hotel, a tiered water complex with six pools and two spas, and a colossal sports book, along with touches like historic Las Vegas images and artifacts, and the refurbished Vegas Vickie sign that once stood along Fremont Street.

The Stevenses havent revealed the cost of the resort, but needless to say it was a massive investment in downtown and in the future of Las Vegas.

We salute them and wish them the best as their new venture gets underway. Theyve shown once again that big, bold visions not only have a place in this town, they are the soul of Vegas.

As for the medical school building, credit goes to a broad group of Las Vegas philanthropists, civic leaders and campus administrators who worked unflaggingly to launch the UNLV School of Medicine in 2017 and devise a plan for construction of the new academic building.

In 2019, after years of facing hurdles from state-level higher education overseers on the project, the group cut to the chase by forming a nonprofit development corporation to construct the building with a combination of private and state funds. Once built, the $150 million facility will remain owned by the development corporation but will be leased to UNLV for $1 per year.

This was a practical, elegant solution to what had been a highly frustrating process. Before the development corporation was launched, three proposals for construction of the building came and went amid acrimony between donors and the Nevada Board of Regents and Nevada System of Higher Education.

But unfortunately, the medical school is still facing some uncertainty after state lawmakers withdrew $25 million in funding for the building amid state budget-cutting brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

Supporters said at the groundbreaking ceremony that theyre advocating with state lawmakers to restore the funding, while also looking for third-party funding such as federal grants.

It is irresponsible to just continue to build buildings in Southern Nevada with philanthropic dollars, said Maureen Schafer, CEO of the development corporation. Its unsustainable, No. 1, and No. 2, this community has too many needs. Philanthropists have, for so long, been filling those needs.

Schafer was absolutely right, and our communitys state and national leaders should listen.

The building is a critical need for Southern Nevada, which will allow the school to expand to its full capacity of students. Currently, class sizes are limited to 60 per year, about a third of the designed capacity.

Bringing the medical school fully up to speed will make a huge impact on Southern Nevada, both by improving health care and helping expand our economy. The medical school offers potential to grow a lucrative biotechnical and pharmaceutical research sector here, which would diversify an economy that currently relies far too much on travel and tourism. In addition, improving our health care system throughout the valley will make us more attractive to businesses seeking to relocate or expand.

The bottom line: What started Thursday must be completed.

Las Vegas became the city it is today by constantly keeping an eye on its future, and taking bold steps to get us there. We had the audacity to embrace gaming at a much more puritanical time in America. During the jet age, we laid the groundwork to become an international destination. In more recent years, we adapted to changing consumer trends by blending in retail, dining, nightlife and outdoor recreation into our tourism offerings.

And we kept moving forward throughout the boom-and-bust cycles that have defined our history.

Both the Stevens brothers and the supporters of the medical school are doing just that today. We applaud them, and urge our leaders to follow their direction.

See the original post:
Circa, medical school exemplify Las Vegas' tradition of thinking big - Las Vegas Sun