TAMPA, FL. Don and Judy Schmeling consider their chocolate lab, Alexandra, a member of the family.

We have three boys, says Judy. We like to say Alex is our girl.

When, at age nine, Alex started having knee pain, the Schmelings consulted their veterinarian, who suggested regenerative medicine, in the form of stem cell treatment.

Judy says, We decided to do it because she was still so young and had quite a few years ahead of her. We wanted her to have quality of life.

Dr. Farid Saleh of Ehrlich Animal Hospital removed a small amount of fat from Alexs belly, harvested the cells, and injected them into her knee during a same-day procedure performed at on site.

Youregiving the body a chance to regrow tissue instead of trying to heal or manage the diseased tissue thats there, explains Dr. Saleh.

After a few months, Alex was back to her old self. Shes now 12 years old.

Sometimes she acts like a puppy! Its been amazing, Judy says.

Alexs stem cells were harvested when she needed them, however Dr. Saleh says its not a bad idea to harvest them when pets are younger and under anesthesia for a procedure like a teeth cleaning.

If we could harvest something that we can use in the future to help our pets get better, it would be an amazing thing, says Dr. Saleh.

Stem cells can be stored, although doing so often requires a third-party company, and theres an annual fee. As for the harvesting and stem cell treatments, they average $2,500. The most common uses are for arthritis, and injuries to bones and joints. Less often, stem cell therapy is used to treat tumors. And, research indicates that stem cell therapy may be an option for treating chronic diseases.

STORIES OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON:

BACK TO TOP STORIES

See the rest here:

Regenerative medicine helps achy pets - WFLA

africanews

Senegal: JokkoSant app helps resale and sharing of unused medicine africanews 80% of Senegal's working population does not have medical insurance cover and the packages offered by insurance companies don't include medicines. However, statistics have shown that unused medicines accumulate in family medicine boxes until their ...

Here is the original post:

Senegal: JokkoSant app helps resale and sharing of unused medicine - africanews

As a medical student, do you ever wonder what its like to specialize in addiction medicine? Meet Louis E. Baxter, MD, an addiction-medicine specialist and a featured physician in theAMA WireShadow Me Specialty Series, which offers advice directly from physicians about life in their specialties. Check out his insights to help determine whether a career in addiction medicine might be a good fit for you.

Shadowing Dr. Baxter

Specialty: Addiction medicine.

Practice setting: Group.

Employment type:501(c)(3), president and CEO.

Years in practice:39.

A typical day and week in my practice: In a typical day, I may see between 12 and 15 patients. Some of those patients are for follow-ups, others are initial evaluations for the presence of substance-use disorders or psychiatric conditions. Our clients are self-referred in that they determine that they may have a problem. Most of them are referred by colleagues in their practice, colleagues at the hospital and, in many instances, from the state licensing boards.

When we see brand-new patients, we do a comprehensive evaluation to determine if they met any of the diagnostic criteria for substance use disorder, psychiatric illness or any behavior abnormalities. Once that is determined, we will construct a treatment or monitoring plan for each individual. In cases that involve substance-use disorder, we use the American Society of Addiction Medicine criteria to determine what level of care a person requires in terms of substance-use disorder treatment. In those particular cases where substance use is involved, we will schedule random urine drug testing to verify that they are free of drug and alcohol use, but also to see how well the treatment plan we have developed is working.

For those individuals who have a psychiatric illness we will need to determine what the DSM-5 diagnosis is, then refer them for their appropriate follow-up, whether that is psychiatric care, counseling or, in some instances, both. Very rarely, we need to refer people for partial hospitalization programs and, in some instances, hospitalization. Likewise, we develop a treatment plan for them.

In a typical week, our office is open from MondayThursday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. We are open a half day on Fridays. Mainly, that is for administrative catch-up.

The most challenging and rewarding aspects of psychology: The most challenging aspect of caring for patients in my specialty is not so much making the diagnosis. We have the tools, such as the DSM-5, to help make the diagnosis of substance-use disorder or psychiatric illness. We also have the American Society of Addiction Medicine criteria to determine what level of care a person needs.

The most challenging aspect, however, is getting patients the level of care they need and the coverage for the level of care that is required. Many insurers have roadblocks that have to be cleared in order for some of our people the get the treatment that they need. Theres a medical necessity requirement imposed by some insurers, which is perplexing because, after all, we are the physicians making the diagnosis and developing the treatment plan, so it should be apparent that there is a medical necessity for the request of services.

Another challenging aspect, which is more germane to the patient, is patient acceptance. Some patients do not wish to accept their diagnosis. We find that with substance-use disorders when patients are in the early stages of their diseases. I believe that is because they havent had enough consequences to occur to help dampen that denial. On the psychiatric side, a lot of clients who suffer from bipolar disorder enjoy the manic phase, and they dont think there is anything wrong with having extra energy or being able to stay up late at night working on perceived important projects.

The most rewarding aspect of addiction medicine is that you can see patients progress from sickness to wellness in a relatively short period of time. Im primarily trained as an internist, so I am familiar with working with chronic medical illness. In internal medicine, sometimes people do not get well for years, and in some instances, they never do. However, in addiction medicine, when we are able to make an accurate diagnosis of all the factors involvedin terms of an actual substance-use disorder, if there is a presence of any psychiatric condition, if there are any physical or pain conditionsand we develop a treatment plan, we can see results usually within a very short period of time. Its rewarding to see folks that were down and outin terms of their health and their life, their ability to earn and care for their familyreturn to become healthy and contributing members of society.

My subspecialty in addition medicine is health care professional impairment. Its is a great pleasure for me to be able to help these individuals treat their addictions and mental health issues and continue them on their path toward practicing medicine.

Three adjectives to describe the typical physician working in addiction medicine: Most physicians who are in addiction medicine are caring, effective in understanding and promoting the concepts of addiction medicine and addiction treatment. And, lastly, I would like to say that they are eligible, meaning they are board certified.

How my lifestyle matches, or differs from, what I had envisioned: I never envisioned practicing addiction medicine in medical school. I went through medical school in the 1970s. My vision was being an internist. I was thinking that if I worked hard and did a good job, Id make about $50,000 a year and Id be in a very good position. I obviously didnt know how much it took to practice internal medicine at an effective level. When I graduated, I found that you need to spend at least 60 hours a week in the office, if you are a solo practitioner, and you needed to spend 24 hours and seven days a week available for call.

For the 11 years that I practiced general internal medicine, I did not have a good quality of life. Addiction medicine, however, has given me an opportunity to have a much better practice lifestyle. Having primarily been trained as an internist, I have an ability to evaluate my patients very well in terms of their medical needs. The way that addiction practice has developed over the years, there is no need in most cases to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have various levels of care in which to refer our patients in to, and we have the ability to practice in groups. So I have more time available for family and I can pursue more work-life balance.

Skills every physician in training should have for psychology but wont be tested for on the board exam: Physicians need to have a broad sense of general medicine because substance-use disorder affects all organ systems. Many times, patients will present with complaints that seem distant in terms of their relation to substance-use disorders, and if you are unaware you may miss that diagnosis.

Its also important that physicians have empathy for patients who have substance-use disorder because some of the behaviors that are a part of the disorder are despicablelying, thieving, being less than accurate with responses are all part of the disease. When physicians who are going to be in this specialty find themselves turned off by some of these behaviors, it may make it difficult for them to practice.

These qualities or attributes are not easily tested for on certification examinations, but rather these are characteristics that can be observed and developed when physicians are in addiction-medicine training programs.

One question physicians in training should ask themselves before pursuing addiction medicine: The one question that physicians should ask themselves is very basic: Do they believe that substance-use disorder is a chronic medical illness. If the answer is yes, they should proceed. If the answer is nothat they think its bad behavior or a lack of willpowerthey should pursue something else.

Books every medical student interested in urology should be reading:

The online resource students interested in addiction medicine should follow: ASAM.org, the website of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Quick insights I would give students who are considering urology: Addiction medicine is a comprehensive medical specialty that involves general medicine, psychiatry and pharmacology. There is opportunity for preventative measures as well as treatment.

The rest is here:

What it's like to specialize in addiction medicine: Shadowing Dr. Baxter - American Medical Association (blog)

Dr. Simons is a full-time night emergency physician in Richmond, VA, and a mother of two. Follow her on Twitter @ERGoddessMD, and read her past columns at http://bit.ly/EMN-ERGoddess.

'Same team! bellowed all the frustrated parents from the sideline of a lacrosse game as we watched two teammates clash sticks while fighting to catch the same pass. Both players missed the ball, and the other team scooped it up and scored, perfectly illustrating to our kids what happens when they battle among themselves.

It's easy to remind our kids that teammates shouldn't fight, but it's harder to remind each other respectfully as adults, and sometimes, unfortunately, someone needs to yell same team at us too. I thought this recently as I read the reactions to the Married to Medicine column that debuted in Emergency Medicine News in March. Some noted names in emergency medicine, physicians I admire and consider captains of our specialty, wrote a letter to the editor questioning the value of Thayer Gorges' article titled Gold Digger or Lucky? Being Married to an EP. (EMN 2017;39[3]:5; http://bit.ly/2rmaWuJ.) They opined that it echoed stereotypes of the past, lacked substance, and had no place in EMN.

I respectfully disagree and contend that Thayer's perspective as a female spouse of a physician is valuable. Her article opened the door to conversations about gender roles and feminism in medicine. The reactions to what she wrote made me ask myself what feminism is. Her critics asserted that feminism is about choice, not about perpetuating the stereotypes of the past. Yet, trivializing a writer because she writes about facets of her life that line up with traditional gender stereotypes does not seem like the answer either.

Feminism should be about women having the choice to be proudly themselves, whatever their paths may be. A strong woman who has chosen to be a stay-at-home mom and is bold enough to put her voice out there in a forum typically reserved for physicians deserves our respect. Feminism means supporting her in whatever role she chooses without concern for society's expectations, whether that role is physician, cheerleader, or wife.

Empowering women doesn't necessarily mean opposing stereotypes or requiring us to act like men. Women should not need to downplay their femininity to be powerful. Strong women in medicine are defined not only by pursuit of leadership positions and career achievements but also by the courage to be who they are unapologetically. Strength can be having the fearlessness to wear Louboutins and red lipstick to work, knowing that embracing every ounce of femininity doesn't make women any less capable or respect-worthy as physicians. Female physicians who highlight all their decidedly unmasculine aspects and celebrate womanhood are moving our profession forward. We are the voice and inspiration for a lot of young girls. Girls need all types of female role models, not discouragement from their paths because they don't fit someone's narrow version of a role model for what they want to be.

Both in and outside of medicine, every woman with the confidence and conviction to stay true to her own voice will empower another woman by example. I was lucky to have a fabulously feminine yet fierce physician as my first boss. She always made me feel like I could be myself and that my voice mattered no matter how girlish it was. She never made me feel like I was somehow perpetuating stereotypes when I proudly owned my feminine characteristics and talked about being a wife and a mom. We need more women in medicine who lift up other women. That's the main reason why, as a woman, I felt compelled to write in support of Thayer. Empowered women empower other women.

The other reason I wanted to write in support of Thayer's column is that it highlights EPs' home lives. Her critics accurately noted in their letter to the editor that they struggle to provide an environment of support for all our colleagues to be active members of their home and work lives, regardless of gender. (EMN 2017;39[5]:5; http://bit.ly/2rmHO6H.) Part of the problem is that domestic and childcare activities, like what Thayer writes about, are often not recognized as important work by physicians or society.

Society should value rather than marginalize childcare endeavors. I say kudos to those like Thayer who put their personal aspirations on the back burner to be better parents. If we put more value in what they do in just being a parent perhaps EPs would not feel as much pressure to marginalize our parenting and home lives to the point where we feel unbalanced. If we want to promote work-life balance in medicine, we should not only discuss but respect physicians' home lives and work lives.

One of medicine's dirty little secrets is the toll this career takes on our families. Physician spouses can explain better than anyone what they give up for us. It's time to talk about the high price our families pay for the job we do. For many physician households, mine included, this means divorce. The sacrifices are more numerous than many realize; ask my sons. Thinking our career choice does not have significant relationship and home life ramifications that are complicated and worth sharing in a professional magazine does the opposite of advancing our field for men and women.

Even if you don't want to hear what a wife has to say, the attitude and concerns of a spouse directly affect the mental state of practicing physicians. Trouble at home and outside of work inevitably affects patient care and precipitates physician burnout. Sharing the whole picture through articles such as Thayer's can only move medicine forward and promote physician wellness.

EM is broad in content, and EPs specialize in well-roundedness, so an EM magazine including a broad spectrum of topics and voices, from serious news to lighthearted essays, reflects what we do and who we are. There is room for all vantage points, including one from an EP's wife. Thayer wrote that marriage to an EP is a team sport. (Marriage [Especially with an EP] is a Team Sport, EMN 2017;39[5]:31; http://bit.ly/2p1nTHW.) The practice of emergency medicine is a team sport as well. It involves not just the doctors and nurses in the ED but all the staff and family who support them behind the scenes, and each voice has something to contribute. Instead of butting our helmets and fighting with each other, let's strategize the best team play to get to the goal of making emergency medicine a winning career path. Same team, people! Same team!

Share this article on Twitter and Facebook.

Access the links in EMN by reading this on our website or in our free iPad app, both available at http://www.EM-News.com.

Comments? Write to us at emn@lww.com.

Emergency Medicine News. 39(7):1,33-33, July 2017.

Data is temporarily unavailable. Please try again soon.

See the article here:

ER Goddess: Same Team, People! Same Team! - LWW Journals

ARLEE With a few drumbeats, the singing started and the Arlee powwow arena became electric.

Sundays grand entry, led by flag-bearers holding American, Canadian, Flathead Nation and Salish-Pend dOreille banner, began, stepping onto the floor in time with the drums, jingling bells.

After looping around one end, the flag-bearers stopped in the center of the floor while the line of dancers coiled tightly around them; circles of drummers lined the edge.

The youngest dancers were the last to enter the arena, almost 15 minutes after the procession started, melding into the swirl of color and beads, feather and fringe, bustle and leggings.

When the announcer -- barely audible -- told them to dance your style, the mix of dances heightened the energy.

Such was the scene Sunday afternoon at the 119thArlee Esyapqeyni, which wraps up Tuesday. The grand entry preceded a full day of dance and drumming competitions, with awards in six different categories and at least six different dances.

Not all of the drummers were there to compete: Reese Gray, his brother Jason Belcourt and their nephew were day-pay drummers during the grand entry and dance competitions. Theyd made the trip from Fort Belknap and the Rocky Boy Reservation to drum for a special occasion.

The brothers learned drumming and singing from their father, who started a family group, the Assiniboine Cree (named for their tribe), in 1978, Gray said.

Its kind of a way of life for us, Belcourt said. We travel every weekend.

The group regularly competes, Belcourt added, but said they enjoy the occasional powwow where they can relax and drum for fun.

Moments before the Grand Entry, R.C. Mowatt sat backwards on a folding chair in full regalia, his arms crossed, smoking a cigarette.

Ive been dancing a long time, Mowatt, a full-blooded Comanche, said. It was passed down as a family tradition.

Mowatt lives in Polson with his wife, Bobbie Orr, but is originally from Oklahoma.

Ive been dressed like this before and its 109 degrees, Mowatt said smiling. Its cooler up here.

Orr soon came over with their friend, Juanita Kinsel, who travels from New Mexico most every summer to visit family and friends, and attend the powwow.

She met the Orrs at the Arlee Powwow more than 20 years ago, and the two couples and their kids meet up year after year.

Thats kinda how the powwow goes, Orr said.

Orr, whos been dancing for about as long as Mowatt -- 25 years -- had an intricately beaded buckskin robe on, with a heart-flower designed by her grandmother.

She beaded the outfit -- moccasins, leggings, robe, as well as Mowatts -- herself.

I was pregnant and needed something to do, Orr said.

She based the design off of photos of her grandmothers handmade wedding dress and, after about 12 years she estimated, finished her and Mowatts outfits.

Its a continuous thing, Orr explained. Now I need to make repairs.

After the Grand Entry, the dancers moved to the edges of the arena and Stephen Small Salmon, holding the Salish Pend dOreille banner, stepped forward to pray in Salish.

He followed with an introduction in English.

We have to explain: What are we doing? Small Salmon began. Were not just dancing around. This is medicine. A medicine circle.

The beat of the drum gets us. It purifies us.

Visit link:

"This is medicine:" Tribal culture takes center stage at 119th Arlee Esyapqeyni - The Missoulian

I have long thought there were two ways to interpret our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. On the cusp of our Independence Day celebration, I find myself revisiting that preoccupation.

I confess the topic is eclectic as fodder for one of my columns, all but invariably related directly to personal and public health. Actually, though, the attendant reflections are highly germane to both, as I hope to convince you.

The two interpretations are that: (1) the song ends with a question about our flag; or (2) the song ends with a question about us. The latter is the far more interesting question. To be clear, though, the song ends either way with a question, and we are invited to answer it.

The first and arguably historical question is whether we survived the fight memorialized in the song, whether our flag still flies at all. The fight in question was the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812, and the bombs and rockets in question were British and directed at Fort McHenry. For certain, the American flag did, indeed, still fly over the fort the next day, as it flies from innumerable flagpoles today.

Advertisement

The other question is far more interesting: Given that the flag still flies, does it still fly oer the land of the free and the home of the brave? That question in turn denotes two subsidiary questions: (1) are we still free and brave? And (2) are those common traits we revere in common on a land we still call our common home? That last one is where I tend to get hung up these days. That last one is concerning.

The topic, and consternation, are pertinent because social connections and solidarity are on the short list of priorities in any inventory of lifestyle medicine, my particular purview. John Donne famously told us that none of us is an island, and the modern efforts of evolutionary biologists append an enrichment of science to his insightfully lyrical sermon.

Homo sapiens is a social species. We are, in fact, something rather beyond that as zebras and wildebeest are social too, but in a far less interesting way. We are what retired Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson, considered the worlds leading myrmecologist (expert in the study of ants), calls eusocial. Social animals can live in large groups; eusocial animals function as a group at a whole different level, by adopting complementary roles and dividing labor. Ants do it; bees do it. So do humans. In The Righteous Mind, New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt proposes that our kind is 90 percent chimp, 10 percent bee.

Our capacity to function in organized groups gave us power, the implications of which we see all around us. With that great power came a certain liability. We need one another. The scientific evidence is consistent and clear that, independent of all other factors, social isolation is quite devastating to human health. We are more prone to get sick and die prematurely when we lack strong social connections. We are, it seems, dependent on shared purpose; we need something we may as well call love.

So, with our great eusocial power comes the liability of our need for one another. With any great power comes also great responsibility. The responsibility, it seems to me, is to decide who is us and who is them.

The decision is ostensibly malleable. When you attend church, for instance, your congregation is us, and those practicing some other religion, or no religion, are them.

But when you cheer for your favorite sports team, everyone wearing the same cap or jersey or giant foam finger and cheering with you is us. That some of those us might well have been them at the last Sabbath or Sunday sermon tends to trouble us not at all.

The dividing line between us and them is highly fenestrated; us can be them, and them can be us. War and foreign threats make us of whole nations. In our science fiction fantasies, threats (or guidance) from beyond our solar system make us of the entire human family.

This Independence Day, we will hear the words of our national anthem at a time when divisiveness and scorn are sown and sanctioned among us, at the highest levels. We have allowed much to insinuate itself between us and insinuate that the answers to the important questions posed by Francis Scott Key in 1814 could well now be no. We might do well to recall the words of John Donne along with those of Francis Scott Key. We might do well to consider we owe the independence of this country to our dependence on one another.

Are freedom and courage still part of the prevalent character? Are they attributes we aspire to practice, and revere, collectively? Do they still bind us to one another in common hope and purpose? Our national anthem ends with a question. We share that question we will hear and sing this holiday. There is opportunity in the provocation to find our way back to the solace and solidarity of sharing the answer too.

Dr. David L. Katz; http://www.davidkatzmd.com; founder, True Health Initiative.

Link:

Dr. David Katz, Preventive Medicine: What independence depends on - New Haven Register

Public Health workers today need to lead from the front and have faith in their own inner voice and be the source of strength which the world so desperately falls short of. Let this mark the renewal of a new project in world history. Public health can only be a calling for those who seek to listen. The world is waiting. Dr. Edmond Fernandes. MBBS, MD, PGD-PHSM

Community Medicine is understood by different names today (Social Medicine, Preventive Medicine, Public Health, Community Health) and perhaps suffers an existential crisis thanks to regulatory agencies that have never really understood the branch and have not gone beyond dry textbooks and sundry lectures. The Medical Council of India seems to take forever to understand that Community Medicine is a clinical branch and barely able to comprehend the field.

For medical students, the interest in community medicine dies a natural death (because of no exposure to real-time field work) and there are two types of people who join the MD Community Medicine (Specialty branch of medicine) field. One set of them join the branch because they are madly in love with it and the other set join the branch because they had to fall in love by force because they did not get other branches.

To an ordinary lay man, they are unaware of Community Medicine as a discipline and it is not their ignorance. The fault-lines can be traced back through the decades.

Why then do I call it the sexiest profession of the 21st century?

What binds us together is stronger than what drives us apart and community medicine is the umbrella of medicine which connects the dots together. It is an enterprise of responsibility, a living embodiment of what it means to be human and watch the true face of human suffering in all its fullness.

Community Medicine is not about the textbook of Park which MBBS students read, it is even less about anything to do with Park at all. But opinions and conclusions are drawn because Park is what medical students end up reading, they do not go 50 kms from the area of the medical college to understand the human face behind disease and death, poverty and pathogens, have not visited institutes of national importance, do not engage with UN agencies and civil society organisations and lack the will to volunteer.

But I firmly believe that Community Medicine is the single most authoritative branch of medicine the world has ever witnessed, if not understood. Yet some organisations and institutions pay poorly. Public health workers deserve much more than what they ask. They sacrifice the prime time of their lives and moments facing field challenges, grant challenges and red-tapism in the bureaucracy which suffers from stage 4 Cancer.

It is a public health problem when children die in their infancy, it is a problem of public health when motherhood is politicized and when we see human face as a statistical number while interpreting maternal mortality. It is a public health problem when people die in Syria from a civil war and when the Geneva Convention fails. It is a public health problem when the Sendai Framework for Action is not implemented to strengthen disaster resilience around the world. It is a public health problem when it becomes difficult to create a green corridor for organ and cadaveric transplant and when we do not have accurate statistics for most of the problems. It is a public health problem when sometimes our numbers are nothing but fiction.

Great responsibility lies in the hands of public health specialists not only in India, but also around the world. Public health workers and the world at large must understand that the future of human kind that would come after; lies in their hands. The focus cannot remain merely to target certain diseases which are sizeably high, but concerted effort needs to be made for all diseases whether it is chronic kidney diseases, whether it is road traffic injuries, whether it is neglected tropical diseases, whether it is even trachoma.

What public health workers do in the field and amidst communities will be the brand incarnate for all times to come. Society will judge us not by what we speak, but by what we have achieved. Yes, history is evidence that public health victories like eradication of Small Pox, and then Polio changed human destinies forever. It was a hard fought battle involving government departments, civil society organisations and well-meaning volunteers who gave their time, sweat and every bit to make the world a better place.

A community medicine doctor touches thousand souls at a time. For some public health doctors, it happens through their community centric clinics, for others its through policy reforms, for others its through research, for some others its through training and for many others its through academia.

I believe, that more people die with diabetes and hypertension and malaria and diarrhoeal diseases than people who die from rare diseases. Thats why public health matters. Thats why governments need to co-operate and relate. Thats why corporate companies need to foster hands of friendship. Community medicine is at the very heart of the health system and much depends on how this rank and file performs in society, for society.

The time has come when community medicine must rise up and redeem that promise which sustained hope for centuries. It is time to give voice to those millions who thirst for a healthy life.

The day every Indian and every global citizen of the world will have access to affordable and quality healthcare at their door-step is the day when public health workers can afford to claim their victory. That is our challenge, this is our moment. Can we rise together to ensure this happens in our lifetime and leave the world more beautiful than what we inherited?

For this to happen, our public health infrastructure will have to be improved, heavy investment is necessary in this sector and corporate companies must come out of their private centric commerce and join hands with field organisations. Government agencies must fast-track public health matters which organisations bring up from time to time and not resort to time delay tactics which we witness every-day. They are accountable if not to their own people, certainly to their maker.

Lastly for the benefit of many professionals who wonder what are the options as a Community Medicine or Public Health Specialist from a job perspective, these are a few that come to my mind.

1. Join Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and work as consultants in the field or as research officer, training officer and many more. 2. Join United Nation agencies like WHO, UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR and likes in different capacities. 3. Join as Epidemiologist in health systems institutions. 4. Join Government departments, ministries at central and state government levels. 5. Join as a faculty in healthcare universities. 6. Join public and private sector industries as technical experts.

Note: These are only select thoughts which would become a major book by 2018.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

Read more here:

Why community medicine (public health) is the sexiest profession of the 21st century - Times of India (blog)

The AAFP has created a new tool, dubbed the Family Medicine Residency Explorer,(www.healthlandscape.org) that is designed to help family medicine residency programs accredited by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) succeed in the move to a single graduate medical education (GME) accreditation system.

Why is this important?

Because the clock is ticking on the consolidation process: Programs currently accredited solely by the AOA have until June 30, 2020, to meet accreditation standards of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and, thus, retain their status as accredited residency programs.

The urgency of the situation is outlined in statistics gathered by family physician Julie Petersen, D.O., a health policy fellow at the Washington-based Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care.

The work done by Petersen and her fellow researchers at the Graham Center -- David Grolling, M.P.S.; Graham Center Medical Director Winston Liaw, M.D., M.P.H.; and Graham Center Director Andrew Bazemore, M.D., M.P.H. -- is titled "Osteopathic Family Medicine Medical Education Status During the Single Accreditation System Transition" and is scheduled to be published in the near future.

Data that Petersen gathered from an area of the AOA website that lists residency program opportunities(opportunities.osteopathic.org) revealed that 91 percent of AOA-accredited programs had not yet received ACGME accreditation.

Put another way, based on numbers recorded as of April 11, as many as 623 family medicine residency slots per year are at risk of being lost because of the single accreditation system process at the very time when the primary care workforce pipeline needs to be brimming with recruits.

And the numbers put rural America at particular risk. Petersen found that 31 rural programs -- 91 percent of the total number of rural programs -- had not yet made the transition.

"The medical community overall has a lot to gain by expanding access to rural and community- based GME, an area in which AOA programs excel," said Petersen in an interview with AAFP News.

She pointed out that the AOA has had great success at creating the GME infrastructure the primary care world has been trying to establish for decades.

According to an AOA report,(www.osteopathic.org) about 56 percent of osteopathic physicians work in a primary care specialty, and about 16 percent of osteopathic family medicine residency programs are located in rural areas, Petersen noted.

Abundant evidence shows that many programs in the AOA community have begun the transition process, she said. However, "The majority of these AOA programs have not yet achieved ACGME accreditation, and so we as a community need to be vigilant and aware of this transition as it happens.

"We want to make sure programs aren't slipping through the cracks, and we should pay special attention to those small and rural programs that are the most vulnerable and that have the fewest resources to ensure they are successful in this transition," she added.

Stan Kozakowski, M.D., director of the AAFP Division of Medical Education, said the immediate challenge facing the AOA-only accredited programs right now is that programs must achieve "pre-accreditation" status with the ACGME if they are to participate in the 2018 AOA residency matching program.

"In plain English, that means AOA programs must only have applied and sent in their application by Dec. 31, 2017," Kozakowski told AAFP News.

Once that step is accomplished, the bigger problem is obtaining full ACGME accreditation.

"We know that some of the AOA-only accredited programs will experience challenges in receiving full ACGME accreditation because they must, as all programs do in the ACGME system, meet a set of institutional requirements, as well as program- or specialty-specific requirements," said Kozakowski.

He added that two of the most common requirements that have been problematic for the AOA programs was having family medicine faculty to role-model maternity care and inpatient pediatric care.

"Those are two big stumbling blocks for these programs," said Kozakowski.

And that's where the Family Medicine Residency Explorer tool comes in.

"I had this idea of the residency mapper about a year ago," he explained. "My thought was to find a way to create conversations between programs that are exploring or engaged in the accreditation process with currently accredited programs as a means of sparking creative thinking about how people could share resources."

For example, an ACGME program director could use the mapper to find nearby osteopathic programs and reach out to offer assistance. Perhaps the D.O. residents could travel to the ACGME-accredited host institution to fulfill the maternity care requirement or engage in inpatient pediatrics taught by family physicians.

"The tool is very simple in the sense that we're trying to provide programs with a means of connecting with their neighbors and potential partners to at least discuss ideas that might help programs to move forward or share resources," said Kozakowski.

Primary care is faced with an undeniable risk for losing GME positions, and the mapper is a free tool everyone can access, he noted.

"Look, workforce is everybody's business," Kozakowski said. "We all have to step up, because this affects our collective future.

"Wouldn't it be fantastic if every family medicine program director in the country went into the tool, searched by their location, put in a certain radius and said 'Who's around me, and who can I help, or who do I need help from?'" he asked. "That's my dream."

Related AAFP News Coverage 2017 Osteopathic Match Results D.O. Physicians' Passion for Family Medicine Continues (2/7/2017)

Allopathic, Osteopathic Medical Communities Announce Transition to Unified GME Accreditation (2/28/2014)

Fresh Perspectives: Accreditation Merger Creates Unified Standard, Preserves D.O.s' Identity (3/20/2014)

See the original post here:

AAFP Tool Can Connect GME Programs, Save Family Medicine Slots - AAFP News

Sidney Health Center is pleased to announce the successful recruit of Lisa Rosa-R, M.D. Dr. Rosa-R joins the medical staff as a family medicine physician.

Dr. Rosa-R, who is American Board Certified in family medicine, provides a wide range of primary care services to people of all ages.

Her scope of practice includes diagnosing and treating illnesses, managing chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes and asthma as well as providing preventive care such as routine checkups, health-risk assessments and screening tests for men, women and children.

Dr. Rosa-R has 30 years of experience in the medical field working as a family physician in the state of Georgia. The last 10 years she has incorporated integrative medicine into her scope of practice. Integrative medicine emphasizes the integration of complementary and alternative medicine approaches with conventional medicine.

Dr. Rosa-R graduated with a bachelor of science in mathematics from the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia. She went onto become a Doctor of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Seville in Seville, Spain and then completed her residency in family practice at Saint Mary Hospital in Hoboken, N.J. as well as completing a Fellowship in Family Medicine at Bronx-Lebanon Albert Einstein College of New York, NY.

Dr. Rose-R is fluent in English and Spanish. To schedule an appointment with Dr. Rosa-R, please call her office at 406-488-2231 at the Sidney Health Center Clinic, Suite #110.

Read the original post:

Sidney Health Center announces new family medicine physician - Sidney Herald Leader

SOQUEL >> There was a traffic jam on the one-way road winding up the mountain to Land of Medicine Buddha on Saturday, when the sacred hillside hosted its annual multicultural festival.

Inside a temple atop the hill, a golden Buddha statue sat in a stoic pose as a woman knelt to pray on a red carpet. Outside the shrine, hundreds watched a Buddhist perform the Deer Dance, an offering to Buddha and to the suffering of sentient beings, said Tsering Gurung, who was born in Nepal and grew up practicing Tibetan Buddhism.

Gurung said happiness is a difficult sensation to attain without achieving peace of mind. He said the teachings of Buddhism provide a guide to pursuing such peace.

Whatever we do in Buddhism is to serve sentient beings, Gurung said. They all want to be happy. They dont want to suffer. We, as human beings, have the ability to do that. The animals do not.

As backdrop to the annual Medicine Buddha Festival, a 25-foot medicine Buddha in deep blue known as lapis lazuli adorned the large painting known as a thangka. At booths, food and spiritual goods were sold. Healing services also were offered.

Land of Medicine Buddha Executive Director Denice Macy said the large table below the painting held many water bowls signifying sublime nectar.

All of these water bowls are offerings, Macy said. This is really offered as a cultural fair. It provides a place for the Tibetans to keep their culture alive.

Two busloads of people of Vietnamese heritage attended the event.

A Chinese and Burmese woman who declined to be named, gazed up at the golden Buddha inside the shrine. In her third year at the event. She said she is mesmerized by the sacred mountain near Santa Cruz. She said there is nothing else like it in California.

Lamas Dagri Rinpoche and Geshe Ngawang Dakpa watched the dances and renditions as the events guests of honor.

The Land of Medicine Buddha, at 5800 Prescott Road, is open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday to Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. The enclave is a active Buddhist community.

Down the hill from the festival, the large Mahabodhi Stupa a large replica of the monument marking the site where Shakyamuni Buddha reached enlightenment under the bodhi tree in northeastern India remains under construction.

Advertisement

The community welcomes donations and involvement.

To gain happiness, we have so many methods to learn, Gurung said.

For information, visit landofmedicinebuddha.org/.

Read the original here:

Annual Land of Medicine Buddha Festival welcomes all cultures - Santa Cruz Sentinel

BBC News

British students flock to Eastern Europe to study medicine - BBC News BBC News Zahara Assad has wanted to be a doctor for as long as she can remember, trying several times to get into medical school in the UK. Needing to juggle studies ... and more »

See more here:

British students flock to Eastern Europe to study medicine - BBC News - BBC News

If you plan on hiking this summer, beware of tick and flea bites.

Andrea Roane, WUSA 8:46 AM. EDT July 01, 2017

Tick parasit on a human skin (Photo: ViktorCap, Viktor Cap 2013)

WASHINGTON (WUSA9) - In this weeks Health Alert, we tell you about the risks of hiking, a new study that says parents give their kids the wrong dose of medicine and how kids with hands on dads benefit in life.

Going hiking this summer or just working in your own backyard, beware of flea and tick bites.

RELATED:Health Alert: Feel better about your body, new HIV testing

Our mild winter has allowed ticks to thrive and emerge earlier than usual and with ticks come the danger of Lyme disease.

When you take that walk: wear insect repellant with DEET or permethrin. Wear high socks and long pants. And when you return, do a tick check for yourself and both a flea and tick check for your pets.

A worrisome new study finds most parents are giving their children the wrong dose of medicine. More than 80 percent made one dosing error. And among all errors, about 12 percent involved an overdose.

But when parents had dosing implements, like an oral syringe that's the right size, the error rate was much lower. That was also the case for parents who got text and pictogram dosing instructions.

RELATED:Health Alert: Heart disease scan

Kids with hands on dads are less likely to be obese. Scientists from John Hopkins Harvard Universities tracked nearly four-thousand children from ages 2 - 4.

Fathers who took part in regular child care like outdoor play, putting them to bed or giving them a bath were 33 percent less likely to be obese.

Experts say when fathers play an active role in caregiving, mothers are less stressed which in turn improves children's wellbeing and diet.

2017 WUSA-TV

Read the original:

Health alert: Beware of ticks, parents give kids wrong dose of medicine - W*USA 9

On the 25th anniversary of its founding, one of the strongest proponent groups of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) industry in B.C. said its redoubling its efforts for the practice to gain wider acceptance within the current health-care system.

Gary Ho, CEO and founder of Tzu Chi Foundation Canada, said the Buddhist-philanthropy group (with original ties to the Taiwanese community) has made progress in the last year, largely by reaching out to certain demographics in need of health care outside of existing avenues, but would like provincial lawmakers to consider the benefits of TCM beyond niche markets.

TCM has a big potential in reducing B.C.s current medical expenses, Ho said, adding that he would like to see Tzu Chis clinics in B.C. hospitals one day as part of Medical Services Plan-covered treatments.

The benefits of TCM, which tends to be non-invasive, can be found in the shortening of the rehab period after a patients chemotherapy, the avoidance of certain surgeries where alternative treatments are available, and beyond. And the reduced cost means more people would have access to care.

B.C. has a long history of supporting TCM in Canada. Acupuncture one of TCMs signature treatments has been a designated health profession under the provinces Health Professions Act since 1996, and TCM itself was designated as a health profession in 2000. Both are regulated by the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of BC.

But many industry officials feel progress has stalled in recent years. Despite commitments to establishing an environment for a TCM school at a public post-secondary institution in the 2013 throne speech, the first such occurrence an acupuncture diploma program launched at Kwantlen Polytechnic University last July remains a two-year program limited to only one aspect of TCM (instead of the originally planned four-year program).

Some industry observers have also noted that the exclusion of TCM from the provincial Medical Services Plan makes it challenging for an increasing number of TCM doctors to find adequate market space to find patients and serve the community a challenge also facing Tzu Chi since it owns the International College of Traditional Chinese Medicine of Vancouver, which graduates a new class of practitioners every year.

Currently, provincial statistics put the median annual salary of a TCM doctor at $19,890.

Thats why, Ho said, Tzu Chi has been focused on public awareness in the last few years. The groups team of doctors has been holding consultation clinics at the annual TaiwanFest in downtown Vancouver every summer, reaching approximately 1,000 people annually. The philanthropy group also focuses efforts on the aforementioned targeted demographics to reach communities that may be more receptive to TCM.

One such demographic, officials say, is the First Nations community, and Tzu Chi has been holding regular clinics at such communities in Sumas, Seabird Island, Abbotsford and Nanaimo.

Ho said First Nations patients tend to have a higher acceptance level of herbal treatments, which comprise a large part of TCM practices, making the outreach to those communities a natural fit.

On May 9, when Tzu Chi established a health centre in Nanaimo for TCM clinics with the help of Simon Fraser University (SFU) and First Nations officials, the opening drew 74 patients on that day alone, demonstrating the existence of demand for such a service in the community.

They came with long-standing, chronic conditions. In almost every case, we were able to do something to improve their conditions, Ho said. We are not saying this is the be-all and end-all of medical treatments, that this can cure anything. But what it does do is it gives patients another option, another choice.

Whats more important, however, is that these clinics are co-operative efforts involving partners like SFU that will conduct research into TCM from a third-party point-of-view, which Ho said will be important for the practice to achieve widespread acceptance.

He also noted another effort a clinic held twice a week at Vancouver Coastal Healths Raven Song Community Health Centre as an example of the type of moves that will propel the local TCM movement forward.

Our hope is to have TCM treatment from Tzu Chi clinics within the B.C. health-care systems, directly found in hospitals themselves, he said.

This type of co-operation is crucial for us, because we are not doing this by ourselves. We are essentially working with government, academia and the communities themselves, and it involves research beyond clinical treatment from a respected third party that reflects on our authenticity in trying to help.

cchiang@biv.com

Originally posted here:

Group promoting traditional Chinese medicine thinks outside the box to gain wider acceptance - Business in Vancouver

The 79th Medical Wing has medical assets stationed across the National Capital Region, delivering 42 world-class healthcare specialties to hundreds of thousands of warfighters and other Tricare beneficiaries. One of those assets is the 779th Medical Groups Pentagon Flight Medicine Clinic that provides rapid medical care to countless service members assigned to the Pentagon, regardless of rank, service or seniority status.

Over the years, the clinic has met with incredible success in consistently delivering high-quality, full spectrum medical care to its patients. As a result of this success, in 2009, then-Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz directed the Air Force Surgeon General to stand up an Annex to the PFMC at Joint Base Andrews.

The PFM Annex is the DoDs first dedicated presidential support clinic whose mission is to provide premier healthcare, rapid access and superior customer satisfaction to more than 1,200 active duty and civilian members assigned to the Presidential Airlift Group and other units in the region performing presidential support duties. The clinic collaborates closely with the White House medical staff to ensure that those working closest to our Commander-in-Chief are able to meet the most stringent medical suitability standards. The Annex also serves senior leaders and other personnel who need flexibility in scheduling to meet their unique mission requirements.

Like the PFMC, the Annex provides a wide variety of primary care, aerospace, operational, acupuncture & complementary healthcare and immunization services. Both clinics are models of the Air Force Medical Home concept with a unique addition a public health technician. The PHTs breadth of activities is comprehensive and includes skills such as conducting audiograms, industrial shop visits, food and public facility safety inspections, infectious disease tracking and reporting and travel medicine assessments. The clinics broad scope of operational medicine services with a dedicated PHT on our team makes us operationally agile to meet the vast array of mission needs of our population and allows us to find a way to say yes to our patients needs.

As the director of the PFM Annex, I am honored to be part of such an incredible team of the highest caliber providers, nurses and technicians committed to caring for the vital men and women dedicated to serving our nations top leaders.

Continue reading here:

JBA's medicine clinic offers superb medical care to flying Airmen, sr leaders - Pentagram

American liberals often gaze across the Atlantic with admiration, viewing Europe as the model for our future. They covet Europe's rail systems, green-energy subsidies, social liberalism, secularism, welfare states and government-run healthcare.

As Washington rings with cries that a Republican health reform bill would kill "hundreds of thousands of people," consider the desperately sad tale of Charlie Gard, a baby boy sentenced to die by Britain's National Health Service.

Charlie was born in October with encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, or MDDS. It has left him crippled and with brain damage. He depends on a ventilator to keep him alive.

We don't know what's best for Charlie. But we do know that the British government doesn't either. Nevertheless the NHS, installed by socialists in the last century, has decided that it will not treat Charlie anymore, although his parents desperately want to save and nuture their son.

Worse yet, and an outrage that boggles the mind, is that the NHS refuses to release Charlie into the care of his parents. Charlie's mother and father want to bring him to America for an experimental treatment that could help his body work more normally. They have even, through an appeal for charitable donations, raised enough money to bring their son here and get him treated. But the NHS has said it will not release the child, and every court has agreed.

This is the apotheosis of big government. The British state has become the Alpha and the Omega. It has nationalized a child and, implicitly, other children whom it might one day cut off from the love and care of their parents.

This is the logical conclusion of a single-payer "public" health system, a government deciding who is allowed to fight for his life or his child's life, and who is not.

The "threat of fascism" is discussed quite a bit these days. But a president's authoritarian personality and policy preferences aren't the fascist threat in Europe and America. The threat comes instead from experts and doctors deciding whose life is worth saving and which long-shots are worth taking. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Charlie's death will be yet another step down a long staircase. Europe, as usual, is many steps ahead of us, both in its culture of death and the expansion of the state.

But the rule holds: The more government gets involved in healthcare, the more government gets involved in our most personal decisions. As tax credits pay for more people's health insurance, and regulations dictate what insurance must cover, it's only a step or two before HHS starts imposing rationing, denying coverage for costs that our betters believe we should avoid.

One already hears questions raised about whether equal or abundant treatment should be given to people who suffer from maladies related to smoking or overeating. Is the land of the free really prepared to tiptoe closer to arrangements in which officials will debate the costs and benefits of bringing a disabled baby to term.

"I'm paying for that!" taxpayers will shout, and politicians and bureaucrats may respond by dialing up the nanny state.

The victims will be those very people whom government-run healthcare is supposed to help. It will be those with least influence over the central power. It will be helpless people like Charlie Gard.

A government big enough to cover all your healthcare expenses is one big enough to decide who lives and dies.

Link:

A baby is condemned to death by socialized medicine - Washington Examiner

FREDERICK, Md. The Asian American Center of Frederick is sponsoring the Science, Service, Medicine and Mentoring (S2M2) program, which kicks off Monday, July 31, for an intensive five-day summer session at Tuscarora High School in Frederick County.

The program was founded on the principles of sustained engagement and long-term mentoring contributing to the success of college-bound high school students from diverse economic, educational and ethnic backgrounds.

The S2M2 program affords students the opportunity to immerse themselves within the field of medicine. Participants learn about the challenging and changing face of health care; engage with health and science professionals during lectures; participate in medical simulation-based activities; learn numerous hands-on medical (including surgical) skills in a lab; gain insight into the college process and premed course of study; and complete a medical research project and poster.

The week culminates in a community health fair and competition, in which students present their research findings for members of the community, as well as a panel of judges. Through S2M2's network of mentors, opportunities for participation in numerous health- and service-based events and projects are available throughout the year, along with on-call academic and career advising, as well as tutoring.

Applicants for the S2M2 program must be high school students entering 10th, 11th or 12th grades, and should be in good standing academically. Prospective students should have completed biology or a comparable science course by the time the program begins. Students will be selected on the basis of scholastic achievement, interest in science particularly in medicine leadership skills, a sense of community service and other personal attributes.

The fee for the weeklong session is $300 per student. For students who are in financial need, scholarships are available. Prospective students are encouraged to enroll online to reserve their seats.

Go here to see the original:

Science, Service, Medicine and Mentoring program kicks off July 31 - Herald-Mail Media

When Marissa Mayer was 18, the Wisconsin teen was sure she was going to be a doctor.

But then the future CEO of Yahoo, soon to enroll at Stanford University, read the stories.

In the early 1990s, Stanford Medical School was struggling to overcome a significant sex scandal. Two women accused cardiologist Mark Perlroth of professional misconduct and sexual harassment. And Frances Conley, professor of neurosurgery, announced her resignation because of what she called pervasive sexism and gender insensitivity at the school.

The scandal had a profound impact on Mayer, who went on to study symbolic systems and computer science instead.

It really colored my view, Mayer recently told the annual Stanford Directors College, a program for corporate directors and senior executives. Youre going to go there for med school? No way. Youre going to go somewhere else where they dont have this problem.

Mayer defended the UBER leader, Travis Kalanack, who resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations at the ride-hailing company.

Mayer defended the UBER leader, Travis Kalanack, who resigned amid...

The irony is that a college-bound teen today would read the headlines and make the opposite decision that she would want to be anywhere but in the world of technology, where men hold the vast majority of engineering jobs and sexism seems pervasive and incurable.

The problem is that Mayers view of Silicon Valley seems frozen in early-90s amber, ignoring everything thats happened since, from Ellen Paos failed lawsuit against prominent venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to the resignation of Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick as CEO because of a toxic culture he helped create that ignored or tolerated sexual misconduct.

Instead, Mayer defended Kalanick at the conference, calling him an incredible leader. She also suggested that Kalanick could not have been aware of the misconduct because the company was growing too fast.

I dont think he knew, Mayer said.

I know Mayers been busy selling Yahoo to Verizon, a deal that closed this month. But how could she have missed the report of Kalanick sending a memo to Uber employees in 2013 in which he detailed exactly when and how they should have sex with each other at a company party in Miami?

Do not have sex with another employee UNLESS a) you have asked that person for that privilege and they have responded with an emphatic YES! I will have sex with you AND b) the two (or more) of you do not work in the same chain of command. Yes, that means that Travis will be celibate on this trip, he wrote.

Kalanick didnt just know about misconduct at his company. He wrote the playbook for it. Among those reading attentively, it seems, was Ed Baker, a vice president whose misbehavior at the 2013 party was reportedly a factor in his exit.

The way Mayer sees it, the recent barrage of stories about sexism in Silicon Valley is just making things worse; they will deter women from pursuing technology as a career, just as the 90s Stanford scandals convinced her not to study medicine.

I worry about the 18-year-old girl right now whos reading these articles and is thinking: Do I really want a career in tech? Is this what I really want to be a part of? Mayer said.

Its a rather curious argument, not to mention deeply flawed. The way Mayer sees it, if we talk too much about sexism in Silicon Valley, women wont want to join up. So whats the alternative? Bury the issue and let women find out for themselves that tech firms can be hostile to female employees?

Thats a little like saying: Please stop talking about date rape. Otherwise, women might not want to go out. Blaming the victim especially when they are brave enough to speak out is not the solution.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer speaks with Stanford professor Joseph Grundfest at the Stanford Directors College luncheon.

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer speaks with Stanford professor Joseph Grundfest at the Stanford Directors College luncheon.

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer speaks at the Stanford Director's College luncheon and keynote on Tuesday.

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer speaks at the Stanford Director's College luncheon and keynote on Tuesday.

Marissa Mayer feared sexism in medicine so she chose tech instead

Mayer is a data fiend. She once had designers test 41 shades of blue to determine which one to use. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence the numerical kind that Mayer has long said she prizes decision-making she seems to think that sexism is not that big of a problem in Silicon Valley.

Yet she always has had a complicated relationship with feminism. As a top executive at Google and one of the few women to ever run a major Silicon Valley firm, Mayer, by virtue of her success, serves as a role model for women hoping to break the gender barrier in technology. At the same time, Mayer has said she does not consider herself a feminist, and once described herself as gender oblivious.

She has shown some glimmers of awareness. In 2008, she told KQED that a lot of studies show that if you fall below 20 percent of the workforce being women, things become really imbalanced and unhealthy inside the corporate culture, and that Google, where she then worked, aimed to have women as 25 percent of its technical workforce. Nearly a decade later, women hold 19 percent of Googles technical jobs. Yahoo, which Mayer ran for five years, fares even worse: Only 17 percent of its tech workers are female. As she rose in the ranks, Mayer never hit her 25 percent goal.

We do need to modulate the volume a little bit because there are huge companies that are really good places for women, Mayer said, citing Google and Yahoo, the same companies that have fallen short of her benchmark for healthy working environments. Weve got a couple of small firms that are really dysfunctional. You dont want to color an entire generation.

How can a woman who ran a major technology firm be so limited in her worldview?

As one of the few women engineers and leaders in technology, Mayer has had to endure enormous scrutiny and criticism some of it fair, some of it not especially in the news media.

Mayer said she just learned to tune it out.

I have gotten pretty good at ignoring the press, she said. A colleague once told me: Its really damaging to read press about you and who you work for, because it can change how you think. Youre in the job because of you and your experience.

Your actions are misunderstood, misinterpreted, misfiltered through reporters who dont have all of the information, she continued. If reading articles makes you think: Oh, thats truly a mistake and you back off a good idea too quickly, thats bad. If reading an article that says Wow, that was a genius move, it makes you less likely to abandon something. Thats bad.

In other words, Mayer copes with criticism by ignoring the noise. But that works only so well. By isolating herself from the media, Mayer may block out the criticism. But she also blocks out others lived reality, including the horrible treatment women not named Marissa Mayer have had to endure in Silicon Valley.

Ask yourself this: Would Kalanick have resigned from Uber had it not been for the coverage of former engineer Susan Fowlers blog post detailing how her manager propositioned her for sex on her first day of work?

If Mayer were paying attention, perhaps she wouldnt be so effusive with her praise of Kalanick.

Mayer says she doesnt read the press because it might change how she thinks. Yet thats exactly what she said she did two decades ago as she faced a major life choice.

Something in the data doesnt add up here.

Thomas Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: tlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ByTomLee

Visit link:

Marissa Mayer feared sexism in medicine so she chose tech instead - San Francisco Chronicle

Twenty-four-year-old Kalee Woody says that when she was growing up in Bronaugh, Missouri, she saw the small town slowly fading, as businesses closed, growth stagnated and residents had to drive to other places to see a doctor.

Its a town that, like much of rural Missouri, is recognized by the federal government as having a shortage of healthcare providers.

Now Woody wants to help.

She enrolled in medical school and in July starts classes at the just-opened Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences campus in Joplin, the first new medical school in Missouri in nearly half a century . Woody wants to serve someday in a rural community much like the one she grew up in where, as a doctor, shell also be seen as a community leader.

They have so much contact with different people. They just get to know everyone. Everyone knows them and, by association, they become a leader, Woody says.

Osteopathic medical schools, whose numbers have doubled in the last 10 years, are in the middle of a huge push into smaller communities.

Were going to have an opportunity to teach those students in a rural environment and show them how cool it really is to work there, says Darrin DAgostino, executive dean of the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences.

DAgostino says osteopathic schools take a more holistic approach than M.D. programs, which accounts for the high numbers of doctors of osteopathic medicine, or D.O.s, going into primary care instead of specialties.

These days, the care provided by D.O.s and M.D.s is typically so similar that most patients wouldnt know the difference. But that hasnt always been the case.

At the root of osteopathic medicine is osteopathic manipulative treatment, a hands-on technique that looks like a cross between chiropractic manipulation and massage. Theres evidence this can help treat some kinds of pain.

It sounds New-Age-y, but the idea dates back to the days of the Old West.

In the late 1800s, a former Kansas state legislator and civil war surgeon, Andrew Taylor Still, decided to reconsider basic assumptions about medicine after he watched three of his children die from spinal meningitis.

The therapeutic options were very different than we have available to us right now, and he thought that the available system of medicine simply didnt work, says Joel Howell, an M.D. and professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan, who has written about Still and the practice he invented.

Still eventually founded the first osteopathic school in Kirksville, Missouri, in order to teach his kind of medicine, which was based on a very different understanding of the body and human health.

He set out to devise an alternative healing practice based on this notion that manipulation of the spine could improve blood flow and thus improve health by allowing the body to heal itself, Howell says.

Osteopathic manipulation is now just one of the techniques that D.O.s are taught to use along with mainstream treatments.

The burst of new osteopathic medical schools is part of a decades-long effort to move osteopathic physicians into practice throughout the country. Many are in states like Alaska, Mississippi and New Mexico that have very small numbers of working D.O.s.

Howell says these newly minted physicians can probably help out a lot in medically underserved parts of those states, but they may have to do some public relations work first.

I think they should be prepared to explain what being a D.O. means, Howell says.

The bigger challenge may be acceptance from M.D.s. They still dominate medicine, making up the preponderance of doctors, and almost all of the most prestigious medical schools such as Harvard, Stanford and Johns Hopkins churn out M.D.s.

The general reception is that we ignore it, Howell says. We dont know much about it; we dont do it. I think if pushed, most people would figure that for some kinds of illnesses, it doesnt do any harm, and it might well help.

Earlier this month, hundreds of curious Joplin residents turned out for the opening of the new Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences medical school. School and community leaders in this city of 51,000 in the southwestern corner of Missouri are confident that in surrounding rural areas with a shortage of health care providers, patients wont care much about whether someones a D.O. or an M.D. just as long as theyre a doctor.

Alex Smith is a health reporter for KCUR. You can reach him on Twitter @AlexSmithKCUR

Read the original here:

Osteopathic Medicine, Born In Missouri, Now Seeks To Fill Rural Health Care Gaps - KCUR

A regenerative medicine startup led by a Mayo Clinic cardiologist is setting up shop in a downtown Rochesters Minnesota BioBusiness Center, according to newly filed city documents. The filing indicated Rion LLC, a Minnesota company registered to Dr. Atta Behfar of the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine, has signed a three-year lease for just over 2,000 square feet at the city-owned BioBusiness Center. The lease begins July 1. The nine-story BioBusiness Center opened in downtown Rochester in 2007 as a center for innovation in biotechnology, promoting the linkages between the researchers and practitioners at Mayo Clinic; instructors and students at the University of Minnesota Rochester, and the biotechnology business community. It houses the Mayo Clinic Business Accelerator among other tenants. Behfar is an assistant medical professor and leads a laboratory at Mayo concentrating on applying regenerative medicine the practice of using stem cells to regenerate damaged or missing tissue to prevent and cure chronic heart conditions. Specifically, his group focuses on development and use of both stem cells and protein-based therapies to reverse injury caused by lack of blood flow to the heart. The business direction of Rion, meanwhile, appears to be specifically geared toward a cutting-edge development in the field of regenerative medicine the use of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in speeding and directing the growth of regenerating tissues in the heart and elsewhere in the body. EVs, long brushed off by researchers as mere debris in the bloodstream, are membrane-enclosed spheres that break off from the surfaces of nearly all living cells when disturbed. They transport lipids, proteins and nucleic acids, and have now been found to be important players in cell-to-cell communication, influencing the behavior and even the identity of cells. Their emerging role in regenerative medicine could potentially be huge. For instance, by bioengineering them to transport protein payloads from stem cells, they can be used to signal the bodys own cells to regenerate tissue instead of transplanting the stem cells themselves, thus eliminating the chance of host immune system rejection. A patent application filed last year by Rion, Behfar, Mayo Center for Regenerative Medicine Director Dr. Andre Terzic and two other local inventors is aimed at adapting the healing properties of a specific type of EV into a unique kind of product that could have wide applications. It focuses on EVs derived from blood platelets, which are well known to stop bleeding, promote the growth of new tissues and blood vessels, relieve inflammation and provide a host of other benefits. The patent describes a system of encapsulating platelet EVs derived from human or animal blood into a platelet honey and delivering it to target areas of the body, such as damaged tissues or organs. Its purported effect is to regenerate, repair and restore damaged tissue, with possible uses including treating heart disease; healing damaged bones or joints; wound treatment; and cosmetic skin applications. A brief business description provided by Rion to Rochester city officials stated the company is focused on the delivery of cutting edge regenerative technologies to patients at low cost and in off-the-shelf fashion. Building on initial research at Mayo Clinic, Rion LLC aims to develop and bring to practice products in the space of wound healing, orthopedics and cardiac disease. The statement also added the company is an enthusiastic backer of Rochesters efforts to develop a local biotech business cluster, and is seeking to participate in the realization of the Destination Medical Center initiative.

The rest is here:

Mayo-Connected Regenerative Medicine Startup Inks Downtown Rochester Lease - Twin Cities Business Magazine

Directors: Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos Impact Partners: 2017.

Moupali Dias/Partners in Health

Paul Farmer with a boy in Haiti, where his aid group runs clinics and hospitals.

At this year's Miss USA beauty contest, winner Kra McCullough reignited an old debate. A scientist at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, McCullough declared that health care ought to be a privilege earned through work, not a right that the rich should not be forced to cover health costs for the poor. This is often a reality globally; as a result, skeleton-thin children die daily of diseases that are simple to fix.

There are many scenes depicting such tragedies in Bending the Arc, a documentary about aid group Partners in Health (PIH), co-founded by physician Paul Farmer. The organization, which is based in Boston, Massachusetts, aims to strengthen health systems in places where there are few or none. The film's name is based on a quote from nineteenth-century social reformer and abolitionist Theodore Parker, who said that society's actions arc towards justice over time.

Bending the Arc's producers include Hollywood heavy-hitters Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, but global-health and policy wonks will be more impressed by the involvement of hotshots such as World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and economist Jeffrey Sachs, to name a few.

With archival footage and photographs, the film follows the organization's development from its founding to today although it bounces around in time slightly, so that projects such as tackling tuberculosis and HIV cluster together. Near the beginning, Kim and Farmer pal around as colleagues at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Farmer enrolled at Harvard Medical School after a trip to Haiti, where he and health campaigner Ophelia Dahl (daughter of writer Roald) worked in a medical centre.

We see the young, idealistic Kim and Farmer expounding on their responsibility as doctors to work towards social justice in post-colonial countries. Kim lays much of the blame for the lack of health-care services in these nations on World Bank austerity measures. Farmer convinces Kim to join him in building a clinic in a rural and under-served region of Haiti. Together with Dahl and others, they found PIH and create a community-based programme to treat tuberculosis. They expand to Peru, where they demonstrate that people with drug-resistant TB can stick to a daily treatment regime for up to two years and be cured as long as doctors provide the costly pills free of charge. But when they present the data, many public-health experts and economists don't believe them. Their scepticism is rooted in the dilemma of donating expensive medicines to those who cannot afford them.

Kim then learns that the drugs are no longer protected by patents. Prices are lowered and policies change. But we don't get the details of this transformation, because the film leaps into its second act: HIV. Our protagonists are once more outraged as they watch people die from AIDS because they cannot afford antiretroviral therapy. Again, high-level experts argue that it can be no other way. The sheer number of racist and condescending statements caught on tape is dizzying.

Suddenly, in 2001, United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan announces the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Two years later, George W. Bush launches the world's largest HIV fund, the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Over the next few years, the number of people receiving antiretroviral therapy doubles.

After this, the film begins to feel like a checklist. One section flicks rapidly through the 1994 Rwandan genocide and an initiative to boost the country's corps of health-care workers. Then there's a bit about cervical-cancer screenings; an Ebola outbreak in Uganda; a Twitter account that connects health workers to the Rwandan Ministry of Health. When I hear a bold statement about how Twitter is helping to transform the nation's health system, I wonder about the film's credibility for a moment the utility of the social platform pales in comparison to a real need for nurses, medicine and infrastructure.

But PIH has undoubtedly been successful by several measures. Rather than operate as an independent unit like so many non-profit organizations, the group integrates its aid with the public-health-care sectors in ten countries. For this, Farmer has become a hero to students of global health. And since 2012, Kim has led the World Bank. His early criticisms of it were, he notes, all down to wanting the institution to change. If you are cynical you will live out your low ambitions, he says. Cultivate pessimism of the intellect but optimism of the will.

In an out-take at the end of Bending the Arc, Farmer is on a plane, looking exhausted but satisfied. In high school I wrote a paper saying why the right to health care is bad, he giggles. What an idiot.

Go here to read the rest:

Medicine: Heroes of global health - Nature.com