Category Archives: Medical School

By Poon Chian Hui The Straits Times Sunday, Oct 07, 2012

GIVEN the shrinking supply of cadavers here, the upcoming medical school at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) will provide 3-D models of the human body on iPads to allow students to learn about anatomy.

The plan is to set up a central database of 3-D models of real-life patients.

NTU's Institute for Media Innovation (IMI), which is teaming up with the medical school to produce software for the tablet, will be recruiting local patients for the project.

For a start, it will focus on reproducing 3-D models of the lower limbs, said IMI director Nadia Thalmann, who created a virtual heart model back in the 1980s that paved the way for simulation surgery today.

This will be done by getting 2-D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans from the patients to provide details of muscles and other structures. The patients will then be scanned with motion-capture technology. All these will be put together to yield a virtual representation of the muscles, tendons, joints and cartilage.

"The internal anatomy is as different as people's faces," Prof Thalmann said. "With patient-specific data, medical students can learn how to treat cases differently, depending on the person's age, amount of fat and how his skeleton moves."

Set to open next year, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine will also use the iPad as an "essential teaching and learning tool", said its senior vice-dean Martyn Partridge, adding that the provision of the device is still being worked out by the school.

"Putting such technology onto an iPad enables the student to visualise, learn and revise wherever they are."

Applications for the first batch of 50 students will open at the end of the year.

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Med students get a feel of human body on iPad

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan In the United States, health class has introduced generations of snickering sixth-graders to the fundamentals of sex.

But the terms sex and education are a mismatch in Pakistan: The subject simply is not taught in schools. Traditional cultural values have prevented any formal integration of the basics of the birds and the bees into the Islam-based education system.

Here, young people mainly learn about sex from whispered conversations with their schoolyard friends, or by experience. Many Pakistanis say their parents were loath to give them the facts about reproduction.

That leaves great room for misinformation, unsafe practices, uncontrolled family size, and abortion as a method of birth control, health advocates say.

The Koran strictly prohibits sex outside marriage. Many institutions here take that mandate so seriously that the very topic of sex has become taboo with teachers, and even family physicians shy away from broaching the subject with patients (including married ones).

The prohibition extends from primary schools to colleges. And, until now, no comprehensive sexuality courses have been taught in undergraduate medical colleges. Last month Dow University of Health Sciences, based in Karachi, announced that it will integrate reproductive health education into its curriculum beginning next academic year. The medical college said its future doctors will become prepared to treat patients for sexual and reproductive-related problems.

So when we talk of infections, we will talk of reproductive infections, said Sikander Sohani of the nonprofit organization Aahung, which collaborated with Dow University on developing the curriculum. When we talk of [medical] history-taking, we will talk about taking reproductive health history as well. So it is a holistic approach.

Aahung is an advocacy group focused on community programs promoting reproductive health and education in Pakistan. The Dow University sex-ed program will be taught to male and female students every semester. The group also developed a reproductive health guide for faculty and students that comports with the countrys cultural values.

Past attempts to teach sex-ed have met with fierce resistance from conservative religious leaders and parents wishing to protect their children from secular influences.

This was me when I was 10, one Pakistani said in an Internet forum conversation about sex-ed:

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In a first, Pakistani medical school will offer sex-ed

EAST LANSING -- Fifth grade is a time for pizza parties and whoopee cushions, but for fifth-grader Ethan Ruhland, it was a time to write a letter to himself and map out the rest of his life.

His mother, Gemma Ruhland, still has that letter and read it just last week. Some of the goals are different -- Ruhland had his sights on Harvard Medical School at the time -- but many are the same.

"He said he wanted to be a doctor so he can help people," said his mother, a nurse for a group of oral surgeons in Bingham Farms. "That hasn't changed. He's always been a kind-soul kid."

Football was a passion then and remains so for Ruhland, a Michigan State fifth-year senior center. Football would have won over medicine when Ruhland was an MSU freshman and thought he had to pick between the two.

Now medical school is just months away. But first, Ruhland will start the most important stretch of his football career Saturday at Indiana.

Years of balancing extreme demands has reached a culmination of sorts for the 6-foot-5, 290-pound Lake Orion High product. Before embarking in earnest on a career he first mentioned in second grade, Ruhland has a shot to experience some of what he envisioned for his playing career.

He is expected to start at center in place of Travis Jackson, who was lost for the season with a broken leg in last week's loss to Ohio State. As the season goes on, Ruhland will be in a three-man competition for two spots -- center and left guard -- with Jack Allen and Blake Treadwell.

"We're all kind of the big cheese coming out of high school," said Ruhland, who was ranked the No. 29 offensive guard in the nation for the class of 2008 by Rivals.com. "So you want to play. But I definitely, for the majority of my time here ... there's always frustrations, whether it's with yourself, the way you're playing.

"But it's all for the betterment of the team. Whatever I can do. And this is an opportunity. It comes at the expense of one of my best friends getting hurt, but I need to step up."

Ruhland has started one other game, last season against Minnesota with Jackson ailing. He has been in the playing rotation since he was a redshirt freshman in 2009 but has not had the kind of steady role that may now await him.

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Ruhland is MSU's new starting center, before heading off to medical school

In a few weeks voters in Travis County will consider a plan to increase property taxes to help run a proposed medical school.

It's a medical over haul that promises a lot for Austin and Travis County. Thursday morning, a coalition of women's health care advocates gathered to endorse ballot Proposition number 1.

"While it cost to ramp up health care we can learn from other communities that access to housing and health care eventually drives down the cost related to emergency medicines to jail beds and to ems services, and it drives up earned income," said Ann Howard with Austin ECHO.

If Prop 1 is approved, the health district property tax would increase to 5-cents- per $100. For property valued at $214,000, which is about the average amount in Travis County, the annual district tax bill would go to $276. That breaks down to just over $20 a month.

The money raised, about $50 million a year, would help fund operating expenses for a medical school. The new complex near UMC Brackenridge would be operated by the University of Texas and the Seton Healthcare System.

Along with promising a healthy community, supporters say the medical school will be a major economic engine, creating thousands of direct and indirect jobs.

Juanita Stephens, a financial advisor and member of a women's business support group, believes owners of small companies will be able to tap into an employment ripple effect.

"It broadens your horizon if you can think of anything a hospital needs our want go and provide it that's how it provides jobs here," said Stephens.

With businesses closed and others struggling to stay open, there are those who are opposed to Prop 1 that say it's just the wrong time to pass a new tax.

Many signs have been put up by the Travis County Taxpayer's Union opposing the proposition.

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Voters will consider tax hike for Austin medical school

SAGINAW (WJRT) -

(10/04/12) - Saginaw will be home to two new medical school buildings in the coming years.

Central Michigan University unveiled drawings of the two buildings that will be part of CMU's new medical school. One building adjacent to Covenant Healthcare on the west side of the city, and the other near St. Mary's of Michigan, on the west side.

CMU decided on two sites that will feature two different medical trainings. Construction could begin next fall.

"The issue is really for people in our area having access to health care, physicians are one of the key players," said Dr. Ernie Yoder, CMU College of Medicine dean.

But Yoder says the school, which has already received more than 2,000 applications, will do more than develop doctors.

"So we are partnering with other health professions to make sure we do inter-professional team training, etcetera so that we attract and keep the other partners for the health care team," he said.

CMU has raised more than $16.4 million for the medical school.

"People have been forthcoming on that decision because they know the impact this will have on our community," said Doug Iles, CMU foundation development.

Now that the drawings have been unveiled, the school expects to reach its goal of $25 million.

Excerpt from:
CMU to build 2 medical school buildings in Saginaw

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KABC) -- After years of hard work, and last-minute fundraising, the University of California, Riverside's School of Medicine can finally open its doors.

On Tuesday, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) -- the national accrediting body for programs geared to M.D. degrees in North America -- gave preliminary approval to UCR's proposed courses.

"There certainly was a lot of cheering and a lot hugging by the way," said Dr. G. Richard Olds, UCR vice chancellor for health affairs and the dean of the School of Medicine.

Until now, the only way for medical students at UCR to become doctors was to spend two years at the university and then finish up at an accredited medical school, like UCLA.

"I'm just as excited as everyone else," said medical student Michael Castillo. "We've been waiting for this for a long time, and it's finally happening."

LCME's decision paves the way for the university to begin accepting applications for its charter enrollment of 50 students in the fall of 2013. UCR students are excited about the possibility of actually getting their medical doctorates without having to transfer.

"I'm actually from Riverside. I was born in Riverside. So I was hoping that the school got its accreditation and I'm glad it did," said medical student Janel Gracia.

Efforts toward establishing a medical school have been ongoing since 2006.

In 2011, the LCME withheld accreditation approval when it became clear the state would not be making annual funding available to UCR because of California's gaping budget deficit.

However, over the last year, the university has secured tens of millions of dollars in private donations, government grants -- including $20 million from Riverside County -- and UC system appropriations, enabling it to move ahead with opening its doors next fall.

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UC Riverside Medical School gets preliminary accreditation; to begin enrolling future doctors next summer