Category Archives: Medical School

CHARLESTON, WV (WOWK) On this weeks Inside West Virginia Politics, we get to meet this years Miracle Network Champion Child, delve into West Virginia Wesleyan College and West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicines Go D.O. program, and get an update on the states Jobs and Hope program.

In segment one, Amy Bush Marone, COO of WVU Medicine Childrens Hospital gives an update on the new facilitys construction, explains the benefits of partnering with Childrens Miracle Network, and introduces us to this years Miracle Network Champion Child.

In segment two, Dr. Joel Thierstein, president of West Virginia Wesleyan College explains how their new Go D.O. program will work, how high schools students can begin the process of getting into the program, and how the program can help to attract people to move to the Mountain State.

In segment three, Dr. James Nemitz, president of West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, continues the discussion of Go D.O. and their partnership with West Virginia Wesleyan College, how helping young students make their way to medical school is a win-win for everyone, and how the program will help the Mountain States medically underserved.

In segment four, Del. Mike Pushkin (d) Kanawha explains why he believes everyone in the West Virginia government should work together to better the lives of West Virginians, gives an update on the Jobs and Hope Program, and why he cautions state Republicans, who now hold a supermajority.

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IWVP: The future of medicine and the West Virginia state government - WOWK 13 News

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If, for example, I test positive, then any member of my household could be eligible for this treatment provided that they havent begun experiencing symptoms, Sethi said.

Those interested in treatment must be 18 or older, live with someone recently tested positive with the coronavirus and be free of Covid-19 symptoms, said Kelly Green, clinical research coordinator with the Clinical Research Office.

Those who do, can call Green at 888-4764 or email kjk22@buffalo.edu for more information and to see if they meet other eligibility guidelines for treatment.

Regeneron sought 2,000 patients when the study started several weeks ago in the region. There are 700 slots still available and more may be added depending on interest, Green said.

The drugmaker decided to provide treatment because Dr. Michael Cain, Jacobs School dean, was able to provide space in an unused medical school clinic in Amherst where participants could be treated discretely and safely without exposing other health care patients, Sethi said.

Those selected for the study will get a rapid test for Covid-19. They will be able to participate whether they test positive or negative. Those who are symptomatic will not be eligible but could consider participating in treatment trials being conducted at UB for mild to moderate cases of Covid-19.

Link:
Experimental Covid antibody treatment that Trump lauded now available in WNY - Buffalo News

When Rachael Goldsmith 19 left Bethel, she had no idea what the first year after graduation would turn into. The biology major entered the workforce just weeks after returning from Guatemala, a semester she spent abroad to finish her Spanish minor, and the only thing she had officially decided was taking a break before heading to medical school.

She had no idea that shed eventually work three jobsas a medical scribe, barista, and clinical research intern. She had no idea shed be furloughed as a medical scribe due to the pandemic, or that a short time later shed be hired as a full-time research assistant for a COVID-19 treatment trial at Hennepin Healthcare Infectious Disease Research Department. She had no idea that shed be using her Spanish daily as she formed relationships with patients in the months-long trial.

Goldsmith ultimately had no idea shed love her job as a research assistant so much. Its really a dream come true, she says. I love this position. I wouldnt want to be spending my time doing anything else.

As the world waits for the development of an effective COVID-19 vaccine, Goldsmith and her team of fellow RAs are working on three different trials to treat the virus. One trial focuses on the inflammation accompanying COVID-19, while two other trials examine antibody treatments. She and her coworker work on treatment trials, and every other week, they rotate who enrolls patients in the trial and who collects and enters data into their system. They stay in touch with patients for two to three months as theyre in the hospital and then once they return home to see how they continue to respond to the medication.

Goldsmith had always been interested in clinical research, and that interest only grew during her time at Bethel. Through the C. Weldon Jones Memorial Research Scholarship, she studied breast cancer with Professor of Biology Paula Soneral. Because of this project, Goldsmith stepped right into the COVID-19 research processshe knew what questions to ask as well as how to work hard and efficiently. I think I had an advantage by understanding research as a whole, Goldsmith says. I was well-prepared to do a lot of work, and Bethels arduous biology and chemistry classes helped me understand the foundations of science really well.

Bethel also shaped Goldsmiths perspective of treating patients as human beings first rather than focusing on their role in a clinical study. Especially as she interacts with people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, she does her best to be gentle and a comfort to those in isolation from their families. Knowing that somebody is comfortable talking to me about how theyre actually feeling and how theyre doing is something that Im super grateful for, Goldsmith says. I was well prepared for this by going to a college that emphasized people as whole and holy humans.

And part of honoring their humanity is meeting them where they are, and Goldsmith is thrilled to use Spanish to connect with patients as they cope with COVID-19. While she hadnt taken this position expecting to use her minor, she has been grateful and surprised by how frequently the opportunities arise, and now she uses Spanish daily as she meets patients, checks in on them during their hospital stay, and then when she calls to hear how theyre recovering. Because of her time in Guatemala and taking Languages and Cultures classes, she was well-prepared to utilize her skills to make the Spanish-speaking community in Minneapolis feel seen.

While Goldsmith invests in her jobwhich serves individuals both on a personal level as they receive treatment and on a global scale as researchers aim to produce an effective COVID-19 vaccineshes learning how to appreciate this season between graduating from Bethel and starting medical school. Although she initially felt restless as she navigated three jobs and wondered what would become of her gap year, she has since realized that each of those jobs helped her find her purpose. There is truly purpose in the everyday and the mundane and the journey, Goldsmith says. To people who graduate and feel like theyre not in their dream position right away, all things come in time. For the first year, you will get through it, especially if you have plans to go back to school in the future. Theres purpose to the whole pre-med track even if I dont go to medical school. Its all part of growing me into the human and the person I am supposed to be.

Goldsmiths future is full of countless opportunities. Some, like medical school, are part of her planwhile other dreams are wilder and still somewhat hazy, like owning a bakery in France. Ive always loved cooking and baking, and if I could own a bakerya fun little mix of American classics and French pastriesthat would be my ultimate dream. It would be kind of a stretch, and Id push myself to my limits, but over something a little less stressful, like croissants, rather than healthcare, Goldsmith laughs.

However, she is certainly in no rush to continue her education or move across the world, especially as she finds great fulfillment in her role right now. I dont know how much time Ill be taking off with this job, she says. I really, really like this period of life right now. Im just excited to take my time.

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A Clinical Researcher's Guide to Finding Purpose in Everything - Bethel University News

Los Angeles, California, Nov. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, around 21,000 applicants were accepted to U.S. medical schools in 2018-2019. Medical admissions continue to rise. However, residency programs are not growing at the same rate.

The Residency Problem

Data from the National Resident Matching Program shows that thousands of medical students fail to match with a residency program every year. Failing to match can be the biggest disappointment in your medical career. After all the hard work and the thousands of dollars that have been spent in pursuit of medical education, it can be depressing when you learn that you failed to match with a residency program.

For the last few years, the number of graduates has exceeded the number of residences available. The residency shortage is because of funding restrictions. The Medicare program provides funds for residencies at $10 billion each year. This allocation was determined by Congress in 1997. Since then, it has not been revised. There have been efforts to pass bills to increase the allocation, without success.

The Residency Shortage & Physician Shortage

U.S Census data predicts that by 2025 there will be a shortage of over 130,000 doctors. A third of all doctors are expected to retire in the next decade. In the face of this looming shortage, there has been an increasing demand for doctors because of an aging population and the increase in insured people due to the Affordable Care Act.

The shortage of residency positions will present public health problems. When qualified doctors are not matched, it delays opportunities for them to practice and this hinders efforts to combat the projected physician shortage.

The Residency Shortage Means That Some Graduates Will Not Be Matched

It is all about supply and demand. Because there are limited positions, these positions will go to the best candidates. That matching process has become very competitive. In an ideal situation, each graduate would get a residency. However, this is not the case.

If you apply for a competitive residency such as dermatology or emergency medicine, you might fail to get a match if you didn't have high scores.

Most graduates are applying for residencies in big cities. Therefore, it is easy to miss a spot if you apply for a residency in a city hospital. Contrary, applying for a position in a rural hospital increases the chances of qualifying. That will also help in addressing the medical needs of disenfranchised rural communities.

What Should You Do if You Don't Match?

Don't panic. You should remember that you are not the first and you will not be the last medical student not to match with a resident program. Many students who failed in the first attempt succeeded in subsequent trials.

Failing to match doesn't mean that you are incompetent. The fact that you were admitted to medical school and you completed your studies shows you are qualified. A big part of the problem is the shortage of residency positions versus the high number of graduates.

It is normal to feel depressed. Therefore, you should find a support network. This can be your family members or friends. If you start having symptoms of clinical depression, you should seek professional help.

You might want to evaluate whether to continue in clinical medicine or to pursue other healthcare careers. If being a doctor is a dream that you can't brush away, you need to figure out why you didn't match. At this stage, you require mentorship and support.

Get the Mentorship You Need from Residents Medical

Qualifying for residency in these competitive times has less to do with your academic qualifications and more to do with other factors. Residents Medical will mentor you on how to navigate the murky world of residency admission. You will be empowered with skills that you cannot learn in class. These skills include:

Soft skills

Sound judgment

Physical and mental stamina

Empathy for others

Emotional stability

Learning and functioning in various settings

With Residents Medical, a mentor will guide you by hand until you are matched. For more information, visit https://residentsmedical.com/.

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Residents Medical Combating Shortage In Residency Positions In The US - GlobeNewswire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Campus News

UB librarians have repeatedly answered the call to rapidly and accurately inform the public, both on campus and on the frontlines.

By MARCENE ROBINSON

Published November 20, 2020

In times of crisis, information is a vital and sometimes lifesaving resource. And librarians who are often the guides and curators of educational materials are crucial to rapidly and accurately informing the public and key decision-makers.

UB librarians have repeatedly answered this call, ensuring crucial resources reach people in need.

In the aftermath of the horrific explosion in Beirut in August that generated seismic waves the equivalent of a 3.3 magnitude earthquake, the University Libraries were the only library available to quickly provide an engineering professor at the American University of Beirut with a copy of a field manual for evaluating building safety after earthquakes.

When UB transitioned to remote learning at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, UB librarians rushed to help faculty shift classes online and provide researchers across the globe with critical data.

After assessing the situation caused by the pandemic, our staff searched for creative solutions ensuring that individuals, whether on campus or across the globe, could have timely access to our collections and expertise, says Evviva Weinraub Lajoie, vice provost for university libraries.

Supporting the frontlines

Pamela Rose, a web services and library promotion coordinator in the Health Sciences Library, has volunteered since the start of the pandemic to help the World Health Organization (WHO) index more than a thousand scientific reports on COVID-19.

Through the Librarian Reserve Corps, a group of health science librarians who respond to information needs in public health emergencies, Rose reviewed and organized research publications for the WHOs Global Outreach Alert and Response Network, ensuring the data was rapidly available and easily accessible for frontline public health workers in need of the latest medical research and protocols.

Rose joined the Librarian Reserve Corps in March, and was among the first volunteers. The effort, which was created by Tulane University librarian Elaine Hicks, recruited more than 100 librarians around the world. The team indexed up to 1,200 research articles each day. Rose worked through lunch hours and during evenings, and to date has indexed more than 1,000 articles.

The nature of COVID was unknown. The health community has never seen this number of publications in such a short time, says Rose. I have always been interested in international health initiatives. When Elaine posted the message that she needed help, I was on board immediately.

The Librarian Reserve Corps was recently donated a software program that reviews and organizes the bulk of research articles. The volunteers now manually sort less than 200 articles each day.

Prepared for the digital future

UB librarians worked diligently to help the university transition to remote learning.

Anticipating that many students would need to learn online this semester, the Law Library subscribed to the LexisNexis Digital Library, providing law students with free digital access to textbooks, study aids and legal materials that would otherwise only be available by visiting the library in person.

This service has saved our students time and money and the risk of further exposure during what has been a very difficult and uncertain year. It also helps us reduce population density in OBrian Hall as we continue our efforts as a campus community to mitigate the risk of spreading COVID-19, says Elizabeth Adelman, director of the Law Library and vice dean for legal information services in the School of Law.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, UB librarians Erin Rowley and Robin Sullivan developed a workshop on preparing for remote instruction for the UB Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program. Realizing the topic is more critical than ever for the campus community, the librarians repeated the workshop throughout the year for UB schools and programs.

Rowley, head of science and engineering library services, and Sullivan, teaching and learning strategist for the Educational Services Team, also included the Alternative Access to Articles Guide in the workshop. The guide informs faculty and students of how to access research articles when off campus.

Service above and beyond

Several UB librarians gathered data on the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences class that was pressed into service during the 1918 flu pandemic.

Among them was Rose, who combed through yearbooks for hours to track down and record the names of each member of the class, along with their graduation dates and hospital appointments. While researching the class online, Rose discovered that one of the students, Carl S. Benson, recorded an oral history where he detailed receiving a position as a doctor at the Erie County Penitentiary after just three weeks of medical school.

I find almost anything I research to be a fascinating topic, so I really dove into it, Rose says. Service is a big thing with me and has been all my career. I was happy to help, given the limitations we were in.

Nell Aronoff, a librarian and liaison to the Jacobs School, also helped faculty gather vast amounts of information on the 1918 flu pandemic.

I want to recognize Nell for her expertise as a librarian extraordinaire, says Howard Faden, professor of pediatrics in the Jacobs School. As a professor for 44 years, I have always had need of the library and the help of librarians. Her response goes well over and above what you might expect of your typical librarian; however, it represents what Nell does on a daily basis.

A trusted resource

Each year, social sciences librarian Carolyn Klotzbach-Russell serves as a resource for students in School of Management clinical assistant professor Dorothy Siaw-Asamoahs global perspectives program. The course typically allows students to travel around the world to perform case studies that help companies solve real issues; however, the pandemic forced the program to adopt a virtual setting.

Given the new restraints, Klotzbach-Russell took on a larger role, helping Siaw-Asamoah design new case studies on crisis management. The pair worked with Chicago-based School of Management alumni in the health care and airline industries to develop the cases, and Klotzbach-Russell also used her marketing background to serve as a judge during student presentations.

The program experienced an increase in students, says Klotzbach-Russell, noting that the virtual component may remain after the pandemic.

It was incredibly important that our team provide students with an experiential component to their virtual trips, says Klotzbach-Russell. Without these case studies, you lose experiences that make the global perspectives program so valuable.

Klotzbach-Russell and Rowley also serve as a resource to Blackstone LaunchPad, guiding students on how to perform market research for their companies and for pitch competitions. Because many students are learning remotely, they regularly engage with students in the program through digital technologies, including on the messaging platform Slack.

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Librarians deliver crucial aid to campus, frontline workers during pandemic - UB Now: News and views for UB faculty and staff - University at Buffalo...