CHICAGO, June 18, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Malini Daniel, a medical student at the Stanford School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif., today became a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association (AMA), the nation's largest physician organization. Ms. Daniel was installed as a trustee at the AMA's Annual Meeting in Chicago.

"I am very honored to represent future physicians in this position on the AMA Board of Trustees," said Ms. Daniel. "As a medical student, I'm excited to share my experiences in the rapidly changing field of medicine and I look forward to working with the board to help shape the future of health care."

Ms. Daniel will complete her medical degree with a concentration in health services research and policy in 2013. She was elected by her fellow medical students to serve a one-year term on the AMA Board of Trustees.

Ms. Daniel is dedicated to supporting global health initiatives. She has done extensive policy work and research for various programs including the World Health Organization, Joint United Nations Program for HIV/AIDS and the National AIDS Control Organization for the government of India.

Malini Daniel graduated with honors in 2006 from Harvard University with a Bachelors of Arts degree in biology and international policy, later receiving a Masters of Science degree in global health science from Oxford University. She currently resides in Palo Alto.

Media Contact: Liz Magsig AMA Media Relations Office: (202) 789-7419 Newsroom: (312) 239-4991 elizabeth.magsig@ama-assn.org

About the American Medical Association (AMA) The American Medical Association helps doctors help patients by uniting physicians nationwide to work on the most important professional, public health and health policy issues. The nation's largest physician organization plays a leading role in shaping the future of medicine. For more information on the AMA, please visit http://www.ama-assn.org.

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Medical Student Malini Daniel Elected to AMA Board of Trustees

It's not altogether surprising that Priyanka Arunkumar is pondering a future in medicine. After her graduation from Saratoga High School, Priyanka may well follow in the footsteps of her brother, Amit (class of 2007), and attend UC-Berkeley and then medical school at UCSF.

But Priyanka's career trajectory has possibly been set less by sibling admiration than her own experiences: In the past couple of years, she's spent a lot of time around doctors.

On a trip to Hawaii during the holidays in her junior year, Priyanka decided to take a surfing lesson. At one point another surfer aimed his board in her direction, cutting her off. She leapt from her own board, and with arms and legs flailing, Priyanka landed knee-first ... on the only piece of coral anywhere in the area.

In the first few minutes after making contact with the submerged flora, Priyanka was unaware of any major discomfort. "I thought I had a little cut, and that something was stuck on my leg," she recalls. "I looked down and realized that the coral had ripped out a big piece of flesh above my knee; I could see down to the bone."

The injured teen began screaming for Amit, who was surfing nearby. "He said, 'Priyanka, stop complaining,' " she says, now able to laugh about the incident. "Then he saw the blood and realized a piece of my leg was missing and that we needed to get to a doctor immediately."

The siblings flagged down a ride to a hospital, which luckily was

"After that, another nurse said I was ruining the carpet with my blood, and told me to sit in the hallway. That's where a doctor happened to find me. He said he would move his schedule back so he could take care of me right away."

Priyanka's gaping wound was cleaned out and stitched up. X-rays showed that bits of coral were still embedded in her leg; it would take 12 days or so for full healing. Two days later the site became infected, requiring additional invasive treatment. By the time the varsity tennis team member returned to school, she did so in the wheelchair that would be her source of transportation for nearly four months. Physical therapy followed to strengthen her injured right leg and help her relearn to walk.

Upon her return to school, Priyanka says she found a very sympathetic student body. "Everyone was pretty shocked to see me in the chair. I think the entire campus knew who I was at that point. They were all pretty nice about it, and helped push me when I needed help. Someone nicknamed me 'Shark Bait' because the scar on my leg looks like a shark bite."

Despite her medical mishap, Priyanka managed to complete her junior year with high marks. Her senior year began relatively uneventfully: While enjoying her role as a producer/editor on the Falcons' multimedia staff, Priyanka successfully juggled a full load of AP classes. The idea of ever missing a day of school was inconceivable.

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The Cleveland Clinic's plans to join forces with Ohio University's Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine is good news for both institutions, and should be a worthwhile step toward increasing the number of primary care physicians in Northeast Ohio.

The philosophical underpinnings of osteopathy -- treating the whole body rather than focusing on specific symptoms of illnesses -- lend themselves particularly well to practice in such primary care categories as family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics.

And the need for primary care doctors is expected to become acute within a decade. Some trackers of medical trends say the nation eventually will have 45,000 fewer primary care doctors than it needs.

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The medical school extension campus that OU and the Clinic are establishing at Southpointe Hospital in Warrensville Heights is expected to enroll its first 32-student class in 2015.

Maybe that sounds like a drop in a bucket and still 45,000 jobs shy of what the country will need, but the hope is that the experience and connections that the students develop in this region during medical school will make them more likely to stay and help keep Northeast Ohio from becoming one of those dreaded "underserved areas."

Benefits will accrue much sooner to city and state coffers, to the tune of more than $700,000 a year in additional tax revenues. Mayor Brad Sellers is understandably enthusiastic.

More here:

Medical school extension will help building up primary care in Greater Cleveland: editorial

Add yet another factor to the emotional politics behind the drive to strip Rutgers University of control over its Camden campus, politics described by one state senator as "the beginning of a new civil war": The personal. The rejection that the powerful Norcross family of South Jersey felt at the refusal of the universitys president to take over the new Cooper Medical School in Camden.

"Rutgers could have had the medical school some years ago," said State Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden), the prime sponsor of the bill that aims to "reorganize" higher education in the state but also results in the first real threat to the autonomy and structural integrity of Rutgers University in its 56-year history as it is called under the law, "The State University of New Jersey."

"For whatever reason, they decided not to," said Norcross, whose brother George is political boss of South Jersey.

Through the efforts of Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and the demands of Gov. Chris Christie, the bill is racing through the Legislature without so much as a pause to think of its price tag. The other day, the five senators on the Senate Higher Education committee voted for the bill, although the three Democrats and two Republicans admitted like Donald Norcross did they had no clue how much money it would cost. Critics have put the price at a quarter-billion dollars, maybe more.

Donald Norcross blamed the Rutgers "bureaucracy" for rejecting Cooper Medical School, but that bureaucracy is headed at least until the end of the month by outgoing president Richard McCormick.

McCormick, despite the reluctance of his governing boards and the opposition of faculty and many students, has pushed hard for the part of the bill that permits the universitys takeover of the Central Jersey operations of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) even at the price of losing the Camden campus. Rutgers briefly had a medical school until 1971 when the state took it over as part of UMDNJ; regaining it would be McCormicks legacy.

The bill, as written by Sweeney, adds another sweetener the Rutgers takeover of UMDNJs Newark assets, giving Rutgers two medical school campuses. That part of the bill led to the comment about "civil war" when state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex) implored the committee to hold the bill.

But the unanswered question hanging over the legislative hearings and the entire proposal is this: If it is good state policy for New Jerseys state university to take over medical education in Newark and Piscataway, why not in Camden?

Donald Norcross, in an interview after he testified before the Senate Higher Education Committee, answered: "Why would we want to empower Rutgers to take over an asset of Rowan University?"

Rowan University, a former state teachers college whose biggest major is still teacher education, had agreed to take in the medical school after McCormick declined. "Rowan has done a good job," Norcross said.

Originally posted here:

Braun: Rutgers-Camden medical school situation is personal, as well as political

By MARY SHEDDEN | The Tampa Tribune Published: June 18, 2012 Updated: June 18, 2012 - 7:00 AM

A University of South Florida medical school program highlighting leadership, empathy and business wherewithal will nearly triple its number of students this fall.

In August, 48 first-year Morsani College of Medicine students will join the 18 original participants in SELECT. The program targets students with strong self-awareness and self-management skills, as well as those showing an enhanced empathy toward patients and community.

A warning for new students: The five extra hours a week of discussions and self-reflection about communication, healthcare systems and management are intense, said first-year SELECT veteran Chris Pothering.

But these opportunities to meet with healthcare executives and other leaders make the commitment worth it, he said.

"It's almost like you forget you're in medical school when you sit down and have these interactions with people who are professionals in communication or in leadership," said Pothering, 28.

SELECT, or Scholarly Excellence, Leadership Experiences and Collaborative Training, has been brewing within the college for years. Positive feedback from the inaugural group of students and faculty mentors led to its sudden growth, said Alicia Monroe, the college's vice dean for educational affairs.

Eventually, the college will admit 56 SELECT students a year, in addition to a core medical class of 120 students. It highlights the importance in training new doctors to care for patients beyond the physical symptoms, Monroe said.

"We always have to be mindful of tasks, but also how it affects others," she said.

SELECT students often don't fall within the traditional medical admissions profile. Some of the students have other professional experience. Others have spent time in the military.

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Medical students examine business side