Category Archives: Medical School

A year spent taking classes over Zoom and watching TV news about COVID cases ticking up, down and up again left Skyla Degrasse with a sense of conviction. She would become a doctor, she decided last year, so that when a new pandemic appears shell be able to confront the crisis head-on.

I like to help people in general, the Hammond High School senior said in a phone call Friday. Id do anything to lend a helping hand in that situation.

There was one problem: Degrasses family would have been unable to foot the bill demanded by most undergraduate medical programs, her mother Sandra said. With few choices, the 17-year-old planned on enrolling at Northshore Technical Community College in her hometown.

Skylas options dramatically multiplied Wednesday when her mom got a call from the Louisiana Department of Health.

Two Louisiana residents won big in the state's inaugural vaccine lottery drawing on Friday.

The caller said Skyla had just been named a winner in Gov. John Bel Edwards shot at a million vaccination lottery, awarding her a $100,000 college scholarship enough to send the aspiring doctor to an undergraduate medical school next fall.

She wouldnt be going to any kind of university if she didnt win this scholarship, Sandra Degrasse said. And then this comes along, and its like, wow, she can go wherever she wants.

LDH and Edwards office on Friday announced Degrasse as one of the first pair of weekly sweepstakes winners. The other, 80-year-old Clement Desalla, of New Orleans, took home $100,000.

Offering a combined $2.3 million in prizes allocated from federal pandemic relief dollars, the campaigns goal is to encourage people in the second-least-inoculated state in the country to get vaccinated as the more transmissible delta variant takes hold.

Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today.

Each of the next four weeks will feature two giveaways: a scholarship and a cash prize valued at $100,000 each. The final drawing scheduled for Aug. 6 will include a $1 million jackpot and five $100,000 scholarships.

Degrasse called the scholarship an unexpected blessing, saying she would have gotten vaccinated even without the extra incentive.

Louisiana announced the first two winners in its vaccine lottery Friday, kicking off five weeks of drawings that will dole out $2.3 million in

Having to do school virtually, that was really the number one thing that made me want to get vaccinated, Skyla said. That, and making me want to go into the medical field to help in these kinds of crises.

The family had already gotten their shots when the sweepstakes were announced. They were going to do it anyway, and this is an added bonus, Sandra Degrasse said.

A science lover who counts biology among her favorite subjects at Hammond High, Skyla said she hopes the scholarship could send her to Southeastern Louisiana University or maybe somewhere farther from home, like Ohio State University, which houses a renowned medical school.

This has helped me a lot, she said,and Im so thankful.

Louisianans who have received at least one dose of the vaccine can enter the lottery by visiting the shotatamillion.com website, or by calling (877) 356-1511.

James Finn writes for The Advocate as a Report For America corps member. Email him at JFinn@theadvocate.com or follow him on Twitter @RJamesFinn.

To learn more about Report for America and to support our journalism,please click here.

See more here:
She won $100K for being vaccinated. Now this Louisiana student wants to attend med school - The Advocate

No greater opportunity, responsibility, or obligation can fall to the lot of a human being than to become a physician. Harrisons Principles of Internal Medicine, 1950.

Though a medical school graduate possesses the same repository of knowledge as a physician with years of experience, they are poles apart as practitioners. Clinical experience hones information into learned intuition, transforming the practice of medicine from an applied science to an art. The doctor-patient relationship forms the crux of the art of medicine, wherein the patient is not an amalgam of symptoms, signs, and abnormal functions, but a fellow human being in need of care and comfort. Medicine as an art prioritizes patient welfare by balancing science with empathy, compassion, and ethics. It is rooted in humility that welcomes continual learning and respects patient autonomy.

However, as medical imaging, bioinformatics, robotics, and other breakthrough advancements revolutionize modern medicine, technologists and researchers have been increasingly seeing physicians as sources of error. In this shifting paradigm, human dynamism is seen as unpredictability, an urgency to help patients as irrational emotionality, and clinical judgment as witchcraft. The doctor-patient relationship no longer claims primacy (only large-scale Randomized Control Trials/RCTs count), and the art of medicine becomes a romanticized and obsolete relic of our analog past.

The objective then is to limit the scope of damage that physicians can unleash by standardizing their activities as per guidelines issued by administrators and regulatory bodies. The resulting bureaucratization of American medicine has been recasting doctors from expert clinicians to paper-pushers with technical know-how bound by top-down orders. In Vermont, the Green Mountain Care Board, the members of which lack medical training but exert comprehensive authority over the states healthcare landscape, epitomizes this phenomenon. Another example is OneCare Vermont an experiment that has failed to achieve its goals to reduce healthcare costs and improve the overall health of Vermonters, but keeps increasing its yearly multimillion dollar budget to support its flourishing administrative size.

This subservience of the humanistic approach in medicine to biotechnology and red-tape reached its apogee when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. Blind adherents of RCTs who maintain a literal and intellectual distance from the I.C.U., and find it hard to believe that sound medical practice can originate at the bedside, discounted the observations and assessments of doctors on the front line. When a group of maverick clinicians applied their expertise, as pulmonologists and I.C.U. specialists, to repurpose existing generic drugs in treating COVID, they were ridiculed. Paul Marik, MD (Chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Eastern Virginia Medical School) who formed the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) deserves special mention.

Off-patent drugs have been around for decades, carry well-known safety profiles, and are easier and cheaper to produce widely. Yet, neither the government nor pharmaceutical companies have invested in exploring generic drugs for antiviral and virucidal activity against SARS-CoV-2. Why not? Developing and bringing new drugs to market delivers an enormous pay off to multiple stakeholders. For example, Merck has struck a $1.2 billion deal with the US government to develop a coronavirus treatment.

In contrast, existing drugs make no money. As RCTs cost tens of millions, such trials become prohibitive for drugs that have a poor return on investment. By insisting on RCTs as the only acceptable evidence of efficacy, authorities can delay and derail the process of approving repurposed drugs for COVID treatment. Bryant et al. conducted a meta-analysis of fifteen trials to investigate the role of repurposed medicines in reducing mortality caused by SARS-CoV-2 (American Journal of Therapeutics, July-August 2021). They argue that arbitrary and impossibly high standards have been imposed on their effort. One the one hand, global health agencies approved corticosteroids as the standard of care for COVID based on one RCT of dexamethasone, but on the other hand, they have disregarded two dozen RCTs in support of low-cost, generic drugs that offer an equitable and feasible global intervention against COVID.

Once the focus of health care shifts from healing the patient (who seeks relief and reassurance) to chasing the next blockbuster medicinal product, it follows that financial gain should supersede efforts to eliminate this virus. Not surprisingly, it has been twenty months since SARS-CoV-2 first surfaced in China and health authorities still cannot recommend any treatment for persons that contract COVID.

In the U.S. alone, the current seven-day moving average of daily new cases is 14,885. According to the CDC and NIH, non-hospitalized patients should avail of supportive care (Tylenol and Motrin), isolate to prevent transmission, and seek medical attention if they turn blue. COVID is not the harmless common cold. Providing no treatment causes needless suffering and is dangerous because it does not prevent patients from developing life-threatening complications and long-term lung injuries. Most hospitalized patients that need ventilators either die or if they survive, become respiratory cripples unable to breathe without the machine.

Further, around 25 percent of patients that recover from active COVID infection develop prolonged illness (lasting several months) in its aftermath. This condition is called Post-COVID syndrome or long haul COVID, and presents as a wide spectrum of persisting symptoms including fatigue, cough, shortness of breath, headache, and joint pains. This February, the NIH launched an initiative to study the condition; six months later, no treatment recommendations have been made. The CDC advises healthcare professionals to share information about patient support groups and online forums to long haulers.

Abandoning clinical treatment altogether, instead choosing to rely on one form of prevention, amounts to negligence and absolutism both of which have no place in medicine. Denying alleviation of suffering to tens of thousands with active and long COVID, in spite of access to low-cost, safe drugs that kill this virus (as proven in numerous clinical trials across the world) can only be described as reprehensible.

Meg Hansen is the former executive director of Vermonters for Health Care Freedom, a health policy think tank. She ran for state-level public office in 2020. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of the Brattleboro Reformer.

Link:
Meg Hansen: Reviving the art of medicine: Why aren't we treating COVID-19? - Brattleboro Reformer

While an undergraduate at Columbia studying economics long before he would be named one of the Worlds 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine Ashish Jha, dean of the School of Public Health, was a pre-med student in part because his parents really wanted him to go to medical school. Youre never supposed to tell (that to) anybody in medical school applications, Jha said, laughing.

But despite the initial feeling of obligation to parental expectations, Jha found a deep love for medicine and then public health while getting his MD at Harvard. I feel like its been such a huge part of my identity, Jha said. As a doctor, you get these very concrete skills that you can use to alleviate suffering, to take people who are in pain, to take people who are going through a difficult time and to make that better, he added.

Jha has been a cable news channel mainstay throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on helping viewers navigate the complex time by providing accessible commentary on the coronavirus and public health measures. He also maintained a popular Twitter account and a steady presence in prominent news media, both as a source and an author. In addition, Jha has been a guest on The Heralds COVID Pod, and published a Jan. 28 op-ed in The Herald.

Jha uses his widespread presence across platforms to broaden his audience. The people you reach through television are different than the people you reach through newspapers (who are) different from people you reach through social media, he said. If you want to communicate to a broad group of people, youve got to use multiple mediums.

Fortune Magazine named him one of the Worlds 50 Greatest Leaders in May for his focus on providing easy-to-understand analysis about the pandemic through multiple mediums with a healthy sprinkling of empathy.

Theres a whole group of people working on this tirelessly, and its really our collective effort that makes a difference, Jha said when asked about the accolade. For Jha, the idea of one person getting the credit for work done by a team of experts has always seemed odd.

One of the things I love about being at Brown is its incredible community of scientists, advocates, and we all work together in what seems like a one-person show, (but) is really an entire team working on all of these issues, he added.

Having come to the University less than a year ago from Harvard, where he was the faculty director of its Global Health Institute, Jha has already begun to build a team around him to drive the COVID-19 response and the work of the Public Health school.

He empowers others, said Stefanie Friedhoff, senior director of content, strategy and public affairs and professor of the practice at the School of Public Health. He has the ability to just bring really diverse voices to the table for a conversation focused on solving problems, she added.

He is a really great leader. He is both visionary, able to articulate where things should go and why, and he is someone who creates space for others to develop their own visions and strategies, Megan Ranney MPH10, professor of emergency medicine and associate dean of strategy and innovation for the School of Public Health, said.

Ranney first met Jha around a year and a half ago, before he had come to Brown and when both were working on providing public health guidance at the start of the pandemic. Soon they were co-writing an article in the New England Journal of Medicine and appearing together on television. (We) struck up a friendship, Ranney said. It was neat to be on (television) with another person who was intelligent and interesting and well spoken.

Now together at the School of Public Health, Ranney has found working alongside Jha a terrific experience. The two of us are strongly aligned in the importance of the research and education and scholarship that we do, she added. I feel very, very lucky to have him here its just such a delight to get to work with him.

Despite Jhas position as a leader in the public health field and his frequent appearances on television, he says he has shared the anxieties felt by many people throughout the pandemic. On a personal level, he said, there has been a lot of uncertainty, concern about making sure that my family is safe my immediate family, of course, my spouse and kids, but also my elderly parents and other friends and family.

But he has been nonetheless driven by a sense that everything he has done in the past year and a half is part of (his) job to communicate to people about what is happening with this disease and the pandemic.

I think theres a recognition that we as a society really are all in this together, Jha said. There is an understanding that everybodys fate is tied to everybody elses, he added. A recognition of our common humanity, not just within our country, but globally.

Link:
Dean Jha named one of World's 50 Greatest Leaders - The Brown Daily Herald

Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine is one of the newer medical schools it matriculated its inaugural class of 50 students in 2020but it is already one of the most competitive programs in the United States. With nearly 10,500 applicants in 2020-21, the medical school acceptance rate hovers around 0.05%.

Medical school student preparing her applications

Moon Prep sat down with Dr. Lindia J. Willies-Jacobo, MD, the Senior Associate Dean for Admissions. This interview reveals what the new medical school is prioritizing in their applicants and how students can be competitive applicants with resumes full of meaningful experiences, even during a pandemic. The full interview can be viewed here.

Dr. Lindia Willies-Jacobo is the Senior Associate Dean for Admissions and Equity, Inclusion, and ... [+] Diversity; Professor at Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine

Kristen Moon: What are the advantages and disadvantages of attending a newer medical school like Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine?

Dr. Lindia J. Willies-Jacobo: It's something we talk with students about during recruitment. Students are extraordinarily risk-averse, making it more difficult to commit to a brand new med school. However, I would argue that being part of a new school allows students to be innovative at our school.

For example, one of the things we've said to our students is they get to provide us with a lot of feedback. As the inaugural class, they have a significant impact on the direction in which the school goes. It tends to be the class that leaves a legacy.

The other piece I point out to students is that when you are building something new, you can think out of the box. I think when one goes to a traditional school that's been around for 10 or 50 years, it's a lot harder to enact even simple changes. With a new medical school, I think of it as a blank canvas that students really get to paint on.

Moon: What was the motivation for offering free tuition for the first five enrolling classes?

Willies-Jacobo: At our school, we do have free tuition and fees for any student who enrolls with us from between 2020-24. Many new schools do something similar and have built into that some level of tuition remission.

When you look at the cost of medical school education, it's astronomical. By offering free tuition, it allows students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to consider coming to medical school.

It also allows the students the opportunities to select specialties that really align with their personal and professional values without thinking too much about how much they're going to be remunerated as physicians later on. The reality is there are loans to be paid off. Students who may want to pursue primary care may decide otherwise because then the remuneration for someone who does primary care is often quite a bit less than someone who does a surgical specialty or another specialty. This frees students up to make specialty decisions beyond thinking about loan payments.

Moon: In 2020-21, the medical school received more than 10,000 applicants, with an acceptance rate of 0.05%. What did you prioritize in your evaluation?

Willies-Jacobo: It's important to know and understand the mission of the school to which you're applying. When mentoring students or talking to pre-med students, I emphasize putting together a portfolio that demonstrates mission alignment.

I've had people say, Well, every application must look exactly the same, but it doesnt. We utilize a holistic approach, and what we are always looking at is whether the student's personal narrative coupled with the experiences they've listed on their application and supportive letters of recommendation fit together in ways that show us that they are mission-aligned.

We designed our secondary or school-specific application and interview process in a way that allows students to demonstrate if their professional and personal goals are aligned with those of the school.

Moon: Another interesting statistic is that 30% or more of your students are non-science majors. How can these non-science majors stand out?

Willies-Jacobo: Unlike when I went to med school when it seemed like everyone was a science major, we now know that depending on the school, you can have upward of 30-40% of non-science majors in your applicant pool. Each year, we see more and more of these types of students applying for medical school.

When we are assessing applicants for readiness for medical school, there are still prerequisites and recommended courses that every student has to take. We want to ensure that students who are non-same majors can also demonstrate readiness from a science perspective. Many non-science students are still academically strong, but they also bring so much value to the institution. Many non-science majors often see things very holistically and with an entirely different set of lenses.

Moon: Can you tell me about your interview process?

Willies-Jacobo: We use the hybrid model because we know that some students tend to thrive in one-on-one interviews, and others may do better in the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI). The hybrid method allows us to attract a diverse pool of students.

This past cycle, we did something very similar but pivoted to a virtual platform. To do so, we cut back on the number of MMI stations because we knew that Zoom fatigue is real. With the hybrid approach, we often will compare how they performed in the MMI versus the traditional interview.

We do find that extroverted students tend to do a lot better in MMI stations. You have to be a self-starter in terms of conversation, and we find that more extroverted students tend to warm up more quickly than introverted students who require a little bit more time.

Moon: How would you recommend students prepare for the hybrid interview?

Willies-Jacobo: Im a huge believer in practice. Of course, some people suggest that you cant practice, but I disagree with that.

I typically encourage students to meet with a mentor and review practice MMI stations or questions to have them practice responding to them. In a virtual space, it is a little harder to answer interview questions because youre not getting as many cues as you would in person.

I remind students that anything that they put in their application is fair game, so remember what you listed. For example, review your research experience, community-based experiences, extracurriculars because inevitably it's going to come on their interviews. There's nothing worse than applying in June, getting interviewed in November and having not a clue what you wrote down.

Moon: How many students do you interview each year and accept?

Willies-Jacobo: We interviewed a little over 700 candidates for about 50 spots. Typically it ends up being about a two-to-one ratio in terms of acceptance versus who ends up matriculating, which is about average for a school of our size.

Moon: How important is it to apply early in the cycle?

Willies-Jacobo: Please apply early. This past year, 60,000 candidates applied to med school, and in any given year, about 60% of students don't get into med school.

If you apply in September or October, it takes four to six weeks for the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to verify the files. Even though youre a phenomenal candidate, you might not get an interview because school runs out of interview spots.

Moon: How has Covid-19 affected the admission process for students?

Willies-Jacobo: On the national level, there was an 18% increase in applications. Personally, we had an 11% increase in our applications. But another thing that we saw was to make adjustments for the number of experiences that students list on their applications. Students had Fulbright Scholarships canceled. Students had research or volunteer experiences go virtual or canceled altogether. In-person shadowing was also completely off the table.

We did see an increase in students working as Covid-19 contact tracers or virtual medical scribes. Although they couldnt go into hospitals, they still found virtual experiences. We had a lot of students being innovative and really rose to the occasion and made do with what was a very, very challenging admissions cycle.

Moon: What type of services do you provide students to help them succeed?

Willies-Jacobo: Support comes from our Office of Student Affairs. Wellness is a core value, so we have the wellness program coordinator. We also have a clinical psychologist on-site, and one of the things we've tried to do at the school is to normalize mental health. We've encouraged every student to check in with our clinical psychologists at least two to three times in the first year.

We also have pretty robust academic support for the student. We have someone who works with them on study skills and strategies. I also want to highlight our coaching program; every student is paired with a physician coach. Students meet several times a year with their coaching groups. This is a pretty distinctive and forward-thinking aspect of our program.

Students can learn more about Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine and submit their application through the American Medical College Application System (AMCAS).

More:
This Medical School Has An Admission Rate Of Less Than 1%: Heres How To Get In - Forbes

More than six decades after Marion Hood was rejected by Emory Universitys School of Medicine, he received another letter from the school. This time, it was an apology for refusing to admit him into its medical program because he was Black.

Your rejection letter serves as a somber reminder that generations of talented young men and women were denied educational opportunities because of their race, and our society was denied their full potential, said the letter, which was sent in March and signed by Vikas P. Sukhatme, dean of the Emory University School of Medicine. An apology does not undo our actions. It is an acknowledgment of the pain that was caused by our school, and an opportunity for us to share our regret directly with you.

As part of its Juneteenth programming, Emorys School of Medicine on Thursday apologized to Dr. Hood, now 83, at a virtual event for students, faculty and staff members.

In 1959, Marion Hood received a letter of rejection for no other reason than the fact that he was Black. To those who understand the history of our country that should not be a surprise, the universitys president, Gregory L. Fenves, said at the event. This one individual and this one letter vividly shows the systematic injustice of that time and the legacy Emory is still reckoning with.

Dr. Hood decided to pursue medicine when he was about seven or nine years old, after accompanying his mother, who was a nurse, to the doctor.

At the event on Thursday, he told the story of how they were ushered into the practice through the back door of the building and waited in a room that had no furniture, only Coca-Cola crates to sit on. They waited until the last person was seen, then the doctor saw Dr. Hoods mother.

I was fuming, Dr. Hood said. I said to myself that if I was a physician, my mother and my kind would not have to go in through the back door, or wait that long just to be seen.

Dr. Hood eventually went on to study medicine at Loyola University in Chicago and has had a long practice as a gynecologist and obstetrician in Atlanta.

He decided to apply to Emory after he graduated from Clark College, now known as Clark Atlanta University. During his graduation ceremony, Clark, a historically Black university, awarded an honorary degree to an Emory University professor.

Emory was yet to be desegregated, and wouldnt accept its first Black student until 1963.

I thought, he can come to my school and get an honorary degree and I cant put my foot on his campus, Dr. Hood said. I didnt think that was quite right.

He had already applied to Howard University and the Meharry School of Medicine in Nashville, and then decided to apply to Emory. A week later, on Aug. 5, 1959, he got a letter signed by the director of admissions at the time saying he was rejected.

I am sorry I must write you that we are not authorized to consider for admission a member of the Negro race, said the letter, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. I regret that we cannot help you.

In determining how to apologize to Dr. Hood, Emory offered him an honorary degree. He told school officials he didnt need a degree anymore but the opportunity to tell his story to marginalized students appealed to him.

Dr. Hood said in an interview on Friday that it was important for people to know that, although he did get accepted to medical school eventually, he still faced discrimination.

He still has the rejection letter framed in his basement where only friends can see it.

He used to have it in his office, where he would use it as a reminder to new medical students about how far weve come, and how far we have to go, and how the cycle repeats itself.

Originally posted here:
Emory Apologizes to Medical School Applicant Rejected Because He Was Black - The New York Times

The student faces four felony counts of computer tampering by using a computer in a course of conduct that threatened, terrorized or tormented specific individuals, police said.

It's unclear if she has legal representation.

The dean of Midwestern University at Glendale contacted authorities in April and reported that the student had sent a message from their phone threatening to bomb the campus, according to police and a probable cause statement.

When the dean confronted the student, she denied sending the message, the probable cause statement says.

The dean said the student was not doing well in school and was set to take her third medical board test after failing the first two, adding that if she failed the last test, she would be removed from the school, according to the court documents.

Earlier this month, a mass email was sent to about 200 students that named victims the author wanted to kill, according to police and the probable cause statement.

"Several more emails were sent in group messages threatening death and involving the families of the students," police added.

The student was arrested Wednesday after she was linked to the email addresses, social media accounts and electronic devices that were involved in the threatening messages, police said. The FBI is assisting in the investigation.

The rest is here:
An Arizona student was arrested after threatening to kill medical school classmates and bomb the campus, authorities say - CNN