The following is a letter from Jay Hartzell, president of The University of Texas at Austin, sent to campus on July 15, 2021.

Dear UT Community,

Last week, we announced that Clay Johnston was stepping down from his roles as Dean of the Dell Medical School and Vice President for Medical Affairs at UT. We are incredibly grateful to Clay for his stellar leadership and glad that his pursuit of exciting new opportunities will still permit him to play a key role on our transition team and to continue helping our transformation effort as we push the boundaries of how we think about health not just health care at Dell Med.

This transition also presents an opportunity for UT to consider how we build our leadership structure to support the next chapter of expansion, growth and excellence in our medical journey. After consulting with Clay, our leadership team, and other stakeholders at the medical school, we have decided to take the opportunity of this transition to separate the two roles of Dell Med Dean and UT Vice President for Medical Affairs.

The monumental growth at Dell Med during the past seven years makes this structural change both necessary and exciting. The school will continue to be one of the most innovative and transformative medical schools in America, attracting incredible students and faculty members who are drawn to its unique position. Similarly, UT Health Austin, our clinical practice,which has grown fivefold since 2018,will continue to provide increasing amounts of world-class care to our community.This change is also a testament to our deep commitment to investing in outstanding staff members who play a powerful role in our universitys mission.

To enable us to continue to grow and develop while we have some uncertainty about the timing of Clays next role, weve asked George Macones, M.D., chair of Dell Meds Department of Womens Health, to serve as interim Dean, beginning September 1. Also, Martin Harris, M.D., MBA, the schools Associate Vice President of the Health Enterprise and Chief Business Officer, has agreed to be our interim Vice President for Medical Affairs, beginning August 1.

Moving forward, well follow standard UT procedures for selecting a new dean, a process that begins with an election of faculty members to form the basis for a search committee that advises university leadership along the way. Well also begin the search for a Vice President for Medical Affairs by convening a second search committee that will be chaired by Professor Chuck Fraser, M.D., Dell Meds chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, and Amy Shaw Thomas, Senior Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs with The University of Texas System.

Thanks to the work of Clay and countless others, our medical school is on an exciting trajectory. We look forward to engaging with the campus community during the coming months as we work together to write the next chapters of Dell Meds powerful and transformative story as a place that changes the impact and reputation of UT Austin and health in Austin, Texas, and ultimately, the world.

Sincerely,

Jay HartzellPresident

Sharon WoodExecutive VP and Provost Designate

Continued here:
Interim Leadership Named at Dell Medical School - UT News - UT News - UT News | The University of Texas at Austin

High school students committed to a path to medicine might be considering direct medical, or BS/MD programs. These programs allow students to matriculate directly to the partnered medical school after earning their bachelors degree, making it an attractive option to students who are positive they want to pursue their medical degree. One such program is The College of New Jersey (TCNJ)s 7-Year Medical Program. Students earn their undergraduate degree from TCNJ in three years and then matriculate to the New Jersey Medical School.

Students can gain admission to medical school when they are still in high school through the 7-Year ... [+] Medical Program at The College of New Jersey

Moon Prep sat down with Dr. Sudhir Nayak, professor and co-director of the 7-Year Medical Program at the College of New Jersey. The interview sheds light on the admission process and how students can be competitive BS/MD candidates, even in the coronavirus era. The full interview can be viewed here.

Kristen Moon: What advice do you have for students applying to your program this year? Has the pandemic altered your process?

Dr. Sudhir Nayak: I would tell students to stop worrying. If you were a good student before Covid-19, you're going to be a good student after Covid-19. We look at the population of applicants in a relative sense. Students still have to meet the minimums set by the medical school, but thats it.

Most of the questions that we've gotten from parents and students imply that we think they're robots. We understand that you're going to have limited access to certain experiences that you potentially could have had. For example, as a part of our application evaluation process, we've had to deemphasize a couple of things. Shadowing a doctor is not possible right now. Most hospitals have just shut down their volunteering system completely. We expect that students applications are going to be a little bit different this year than usual.

Some things we haven't changed. We've always offered Zoom or Google Meet interviews for our out-of-state students or in-state students with accessibility issues. We do not expect there to be any differences in the number of students admitted.

We evaluate the program every year. I anticipate that the repercussions of the pandemic will last for a year or two.

Moon: What type of student are you looking for?

Nayak: We're not looking for students who would just burn right through the program; we're looking for students who want to be part of TCNJ by sharing its values for a cooperative learning environment. We specifically look for eager learners who have challenged themselves in high school and want to continue to do so in college.

Some of the other highlights we're also looking for are students who want to be in a liberal arts college. While this is a Bachelor of Science degree, we want people who have nontraditional premed experiences, see value in diversity and have plans to study abroad.

We look for students who have diverse interests who have long-standing interests in music, business or law, but they dont have to be hyper-focused. In fact, we tend not to focus on the hyper-focused.

Finally, I would say the only thing we actively dont want is students in a rush. We think that the third year of the undergraduate program is critical for personal and professional development. Not every candidate who would make a good accelerated candidate is the right fit for our program.

Moon: What is the selection process?

Nayak: The first step is validating that students are hitting the minimums for the program. While getting 1550 versus 1510 on the SAT might seem to be a significant advantage, it's not for this program. As long as theyve met those minimums, they are in the pool to be evaluated.

The second step is what I call a micro screening. In no particular order, we look at the transcript. They must've taken challenging courses, in STEM, in particular, to indicate that they would be a good fit for an accelerated program.

But the caveat is that we're not looking for perfect grades. Getting a couple of Bs here and there doesn't matter. I cannot emphasize this enoughthat's not how our evaluation process works. We look at the transcript overall: did they take a variety of challenging courses, and then did they test themselves? Did they take AP exams or any other types of achievement tests?

Next, we look at activities, and here's where I think that students have the biggest misconception. They believe that putting a lot of activities on their transcript is good when it's actually counterproductive. What we are specifically looking for at TCNJ is deep involvement in a few things. For example, are you an Eagle Scout, do you have a black belt in TaeKwonDo or are you an EMT? Have you been in band or Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) for two or three years? Are you an athlete? Those are the types of things we look at, but you don't have to have all of those things. You just need one or two.

Next, we look at recommendations and evaluate to see if the student is exceptional.

We also look for direct exposure to the healthcare profession. Students could gain this experience by working as an EMT, becoming certified in CPR, shadowing a doctor or volunteering at a hospital. However, some students are more focused on biomedical research, and here at TCNJ, you can come in as a biomedical engineer. Those students tend to have a slightly different profile and have done internships at biomedical research companies or developing orthopedics. No experience is less valuable than another.

We also like to see something where they're working toward the greater goodvolunteering through a church, school, some formal organization or starting something on your own like a food drive or nonprofit. This one is important because one of TCNJs core values is giving back.

Next, we read their essay, and that does take quite a while. We evaluate their personal statement and secondary essays for thoughtfulness, completeness, ability to answer the question directly and expand on it and provide evidence. It's a new essay question every year.

One of the final aspects would be the interview. We are evaluating whether the person on the paper is the person we see in real life. We also check if they are a good fit for TCNJ and our specific seven-year program.

Moon: What are the average stats of your accepted students?

Nayak: We don't look at GPAs that carefully because they are weighted in so many different ways, and there can be grade inflation at some schools and not at others. When available, we use class rank. Students in our program are generally ranked in the top 3% of their class; they were among the best students at their school. The SAT average is generally between 1530 and 1550; it was 1535 for the last cycle. The ACT was around 34 for the students who took it.

Moon: How many students do you interview and accept into the program?

Nayak: We get between 300-400 applications each cycle. There is no fixed number of seats for our programs, and its ranged from 10 to 25 over the last 30 years. In the past five years, the number has varied from 13 to 20 students. I believe we have 18 students in the previous cycle.

We interview about a hundred, and then we submit around 60 to 80 to the medical school to evaluate the candidates. Then, 40 of those students are ultimately admitted.

Moon: Whats the MCAT policy?

Nayak: They have to take the MCAT, but there is no minimum score required. The only exception is if a student is on probation because they dropped below the 3.5 GPA. Then, they might have an MCAT minimum imposed on them by the medical school.

Moon: Can you tell me some of the highlights of the program?

Nayak: I think the most important part about the TCNJ program is the flexibility. You don't have to major in biology; you can major in whatever you want, within reason. For example, some options are biomedical engineering, chemistry, physics, math, or computer science. Some non-STEM majors are even approved, like English, philosophy, history and Spanish. You can also design your major at TCNJ, provided it's approved.

Another way TCNJ is flexible is because we encourage our students to study abroad to expand their sense of self and develop as a person. This is one reason we keep that third year of undergraduate because I think two years is not enough to grow and mature. Our graduates are a little more mature than others because they've been interacting with diverse populations for an extended period. We want students to have a meaningful undergraduate experience, which means they can join clubs and activities.

Moon: Can you share any insights into the accomplishments of past applicants?

Nayak: Once they finish medical school, the students land tremendous residencies. And when they are TCNJ, they are also achieving amazing things. The EMS crew on TCNJ was started by seven-year students in the late nineties. It's an all-volunteer EMS squad that has run since then, and they integrated with the rest of the campus, campus police, emergency services, and rescue services.

Another thing that is neat that seven-year students created is the Alpha Zeta Seven-Year Medical Society. Theyve unified the students in the program because they're in different majors. They bring in alumni and coordinate events where students can talk and get advice from alumni.

The application deadline for TCNJs 7 Year Medical Program is November 1 each year. For more information, visit here.

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Top Insights Into The College Of New Jerseys 7-Year Medical Program - Forbes

Colleen M Farrell

THE WASHINGTON POST As the coronavirus overwhelmed hospitals in New York last spring, some medical schools offered their final-year students an unusual option: They could graduate early to begin working as physicians on the front line of the pandemic. In her new book, Life on the Line: Young Doctors Come of Age in a Pandemic, Emma Goldberg takes us into the lives of six students who, despite their fears of contracting the novel virus (and in some cases, despite the pleas of their parents), felt themselves called for duty.

These students from New York University (NYU), Mount Sinai and Albert Einstein had already completed all the core requirements of medical school. Had the pandemic not disrupted social rituals, they would have spent the spring celebrating their residency matches and graduations, surrounded by friends and family. Instead, they chose to face the many challenges of being Day One doctors (even a simple Tylenol order prompts an anxious triple-check) amid a pandemic that was overwhelming their senior colleagues, killing hundreds of New Yorkers daily and isolating millions more.

In the opening pages we meet Sam, a NYU medical student. Sam joins the COVID wards at Bellevue Hospital which once cared for more patients with AIDS than any other hospital with a sense of historic purpose.

As I read about Sams entry into Bellevue, I could feel myself standing in the eerily quiet, glass-encased lobby of that hospital. When the pandemic began, I was an internal-medicine resident at Bellevue. Like many health-care workers on the front lines of this crisis, the trauma of the spring surge goodbyes over FaceTime, beds crammed into makeshift intensive care units (ICUs), endless alerts called overhead has left me with scars. It has been hard to revisit that time in my mind without my heart racing and stomach clenching. I worried that reading this book would reopen those wounds.

But remarkably, with her sensitive reporting and deeply human portrayals of Sam, Gabriela, Iris, Elana, Ben and Jay, Goldberg has created a work that not just documents a significant moment in time but helps us heal from it, too. For anyone seeking to understand, or remember, what New York and its hospitals were like in the spring of 2020, Life on the Line is essential reading.

News stories from New Yorks COVID spring emphasised the medical interventions of intensive care: intubation, dialysis, CPR. The new doctors entry into the hospitals is steeped in war metaphors. The vice dean for academic affairs at NYU tells them they are joining the COVID Army. At Montefiore Hospital, they are dubbed the Coalition Forces. Like new military recruits, they don layers of protective gear, put their bodies at risk and witness a horrifying number of casualties.

But the stories in Life on the Line offer a refreshingly different view of the pandemic than those eye-catching headlines and talk of war. Given their inexperience and their institutions appropriate commitments to minimise their exposure to the virus, the interns are largely removed from the adrenaline-pumping action. In one scene, Sam literally has a patients door closed in front of him. Inside the room, the resident physicians perform CPR, trying to resuscitate the patient, whose heart has stopped. Sam stands at a mobile computer in the hallway, placing orders. His is a necessary job, but as Goldberg puts it, if this were a TV medical drama, Sam would be an extra.

The interns distance from life-or-death emergencies allows different, yet vitally important, aspects of pandemic health care to shine through. Iris cares for a man who survived the COVID ICU but still breathes through a tube in the front of his neck and is barely conscious. Not sure how to act around him, she makes a point of cheerily introducing herself to him. After days without him ever seeming to register her presence, when she tells him that his family loves him, she sees a tear fall from his eye.

In one of the most moving passages of the book, we meet Manny, a 38-year-old man with Down syndrome and severe anxiety whom Jay is caring for. Manny initially came to the hospital because his father, his sole family member, was sick with covid. Manny had no one else to care for him, and so the hospital staff allowed him to live in the hospital while his father was admitted. When his father tragically dies of the virus, Manny has nowhere to go, so he is admitted to the hospital as a patient until Alicia, the social worker, can find him a safe home. Jay wholeheartedly devotes herself to Mannys care, even accompanying him on a visit to a group home.

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Fresh out of medical school, they volunteered to help battle the coronavirus pandemic Borneo Bulletin Online - Borneo Bulletin Online

Newswise JULY 19, 2021, Nutley, NJ Experts from Seton Hall University and Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine will host a virtual conference July 30 to address the record number of opioid deaths in the nation, treatment options and training clinicians to prescribe addiction medication.

The virtual conference, Recovery from Opioid Use Disorders: State-of-the-Art Science to Advance Clinical Care, will cap a three-year federal grant shared between the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, the Seton Hall University College of Nursing, and the Seton Hall University School of Health and Medical Sciences.

The opioid epidemic is one of our nations greatest health challenges, said Robert C. Garrett, FACHE, the chief executive officer of Hackensack Meridian Health. We are deeply committed to expanding access to care for addiction and mental health issues, better coordinating care and innovating treatment.

More than 93,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, a staggering record that reflects a nearly 30 percent increase from 2019, according to the CDC. Nearly 450,000 people died from overdoses involving both prescription and illicit opioids from 1999-2019, according to the CDC.

The conference features keynote speaker Beth Macy, an award-winning journalist and the New York Times best-selling author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America, as well as industry leaders in the field of opioid-use disorders. Experts will discuss compelling research and treatment protocols considered best practices.

This is the product of three years of highly collaborative interprofessional work into training future clinicians to be best prepared to combat this epidemic, said Kathleen Neville, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, associate dean of Graduate Studies and Research at the Seton Hall College of Nursing.

This presentation shows whats at stake, and what we can do to save as many lives as possible in the years to come, said Stanley R. Terlecky, Ph.D., associate dean of Research and Graduate Studies, and chair of Medical Sciences at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.

According to Brian B. Shulman, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, ASHA Fellow, FASAHP, FNAP, dean of the School of Health and Medical Sciences, Research conducted by SHMS faculty and administrators working interprofessionally has helped to expand our knowledge in various disciplines and push the established boundaries of this national epidemic to target the widespread misuse of opioids.

This event caps the Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) grant which was awarded in 2018 to an interprofessional leadership team with members from Seton Hall University and Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine: College of Nursing Associate Dean Neville; School of Health and Medical Sciences Department Chair and Assistant Professor Christopher Hanifin, Ed.D., PA-C; and Hackensack School of Medicine Professor Terlecky. The purpose of the grant, Seton Hall University and Hackensack Meridian Health Interprofessional Medication Assisted Treatment Training Program, is to train nurse practitioners, physician assistants and medical students on medication-assisted treatment for individuals with opioid-use disorders.

Additional conference speakers will present on their respective areas of study. Alexis LaPietra, D.O., Chief of Pain Management/Addiction Medicine at the Alternative to Opioid Program at St. Josephs University Medical Center, will present the Alternative to Opioids Program, a unique alternative to opioid treatment for acute pain in the emergency room. Ramon Solhkhah, M.D., Chairman, Department of Psychiatry, Jersey Shore University Medical Center, will speak on the current status of the opioid-use crisis and evidence-based solutions, and Steve Drzewoszewski, MSW, LCSW, LCADC, CCS, Former Director of Substance Abuse Counseling Services at HMH Carrier Clinic, will present on motivational interviewing and OUDs.

During the event, each project director will also present their respective schools outcomes of their grant, with CEO of Hackensack MeridianHealth Robert C. Garrett introducing the conference with Seton Hall University Provost and Executive Vice-President Katia Passerini.

Recovery from Opioid Use Disorders: State-of-the-Art Science to Advance Clinical Care is on Friday, July 30, 11 a.m. 3 p.m. CME will be offered to healthcare professionals. This educational activity has beenapproved forAMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)

To register for the event and to learn more about the agenda and speakers, visit here.

ABOUTHACKENSACKMERIDIAN HEALTH

Hackensack Meridian Health is a leading not-for-profit health care organization that is the largest, most comprehensive and truly integrated health care network in New Jersey, offering a complete range of medical services, innovative research and life-enhancing care.

Hackensack Meridian Health comprises 17 hospitals from Bergen to Ocean counties, which includes three academic medical centers Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, JFK Medical Center in Edison; two children's hospitals - Joseph M. Sanzari Children's Hospital in Hackensack, K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital in Neptune; nine community hospitals Bayshore Medical Center in Holmdel, Mountainside Medical Center in Montclair, Ocean Medical Center in Brick, Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, Pascack Valley Medical Center in Westwood, Raritan Bay Medical Center in Old Bridge, Raritan Bay Medical Center in Perth Amboy, Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, and Southern Ocean Medical Center in Manahawkin; a behavioral health hospital Carrier Clinic in Belle Mead; and two rehabilitation hospitals - JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in Edison and Shore Rehabilitation Institute in Brick.

Additionally, the network has more than 500 patient care locations throughout the state which include ambulatory care centers, surgery centers, home health services, long-term care and assisted living communities, ambulance services, lifesaving air medical transportation, fitness and wellness centers, rehabilitation centers, urgent care centers and physician practice locations. Hackensack Meridian Health has more than 34,100 team members, and 6,500 physicians and is a distinguished leader in health care philanthropy, committed to the health and well-being of the communities it serves.

The network's notable distinctions include having four hospitals among the top 10 in New Jersey by U.S. News and World Report. Other honors include consistently achieving Magnet recognition for nursing excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center and being named to Becker's Healthcare's "150 Top Places to Work in Healthcare/2019" list.

Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, the first private medical school in New Jersey in more than 50 years, welcomed its first class of students in 2018 to its On3 campus in Nutley and Clifton. Additionally, the network partnered with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to find more cures for cancer faster while ensuring that patients have access to the highest quality, most individualized cancer care when and where they need it.

Hackensack Meridian Health is a member of AllSpire Health Partners, an interstate consortium of leading health systems, to focus on the sharing of best practices in clinical care and achieving efficiencies.

For additional information, please visit http://www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org.

ABOUTSETON HALL UNIVERSITY

One of the countrys leading Catholic universities, Seton Hall has been showing the world what great minds can do since 1856. Home to nearly 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students and offering more than 90 rigorous academic programs, Seton Halls academic excellence has been singled out for distinction by The Princeton Review, U.S. News & World Report and Bloomberg Businessweek.

Seton Hall embraces students of all religions and prepares them to be exemplary servant leaders and global citizens. In recent years, the University has achieved extraordinary success. Since 2009, it has seen record-breaking undergraduate enrollment growth and an impressive 110-point increase in the average SAT scores of incoming freshmen. In the past decade, Seton Hall students and alumni have received more than 30 Fulbright Scholarships as well as other prestigious academic honors, including Boren Awards, Pickering Fellowships, Udall Scholarships and a Rhodes Scholarship. The University is also proud to be among themost diverse national Catholic universitiesin the country.

In recent years, the University has invested more than $165 million in new campus buildings and renovations. The Universitys beautiful main campus in suburban South Orange, N.J. is only 14 miles from New York City offering students a wealth of employment, internship, cultural and entertainment opportunities. Seton Halls nationally recognized School of Law is located prominently in downtown Newark. The Universitys Interprofessional Health Sciences (IHS) campus in Clifton and Nutley, N.J. opened in the summer of 2018. The IHS campus houses Seton Halls College of Nursing, its School of Health and Medical Sciences as well as Hackensack Meridian Healths Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.

For more information, visit http://www.shu.edu.

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Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine and Seton Hall University Opioid Conference to Feature Addiction Experts Working to Combat National Crisis -...

Dr. Auerbach said it was imperative never to get too comfortable when dealing with the whims of nature. You have to be afraid when you go into work, he said. You have to stay humble.

Paul Stuart Auerbach was born on Jan. 4, 1951, in Plainfield, N.J. His father, Victor, was a patents manager for Union Carbide. His mother, Leona (Fishkin) Auerbach, was a teacher. Paul was on his high school wrestling team and grew up spending summers on the Jersey Shore.

He graduated from Duke in 1973 with a bachelors degree in religion and then enrolled in Dukes medical school. He met Sherry Steindorf at U.C.L.A., and they were married in 1982. (In the 1980s he worked part-time as a sportswear model.) Dr. Auerbach studied at Stanfords business school shortly before joining the universitys medical faculty in 1991.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Brian and Daniel; a daughter, Lauren Auerbach Dixon; his mother; a brother, Burt; and a sister, Jan Sherman.

As he grew older, Dr. Auerbach became increasingly devoted to expanding the field of wilderness medicine to account for the uncertainties of a new world. In revising his textbook, he added sections about handling environmental disasters, and, with Jay Lemery, he wrote Enviromedics: The Impact of Climate Change on Human Health, published in 2017.

Last year, shortly before he received his cancer diagnosis, the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold, and Dr. Auerbach decided to act.

The minute it all first happened, he started working on disaster response, his wife said. Hospitals were running out of PPE. He was calling this person and that person to learn as much as he could. He wanted to find out how to design better masks and better ventilators. He never stopped.

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Dr. Paul Auerbach, Father of Wilderness Medicine, Dies at 70 - The New York Times

Media top headlines July 19

The White House getting blasted for supporting Big Tech 'collusion' on banning COVID 'misinformation' spreaders, a reporter's candid assessment of progressives on Cuba, and President Biden getting roasted on MSNBC round out today's media headlines.

Dr. Anthony Fauci argued Monday that the decision by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to recommend all children aged 3 years and older wear masks when schools reopen regardless of vaccination status was "a reasonable thing to do."

Appearing on CNN's "At This Hour," Fauci said that because there was a "substantial proportion of the population" that was unvaccinated, he understood why the organization would make such a decision.

DESANTIS SAYS FLORIDA CHOSE FREEDOM OVER FAUCI-ISM, URGES CONSERVATIVES TO HAVE A BACKBONE

"I think that's along the same lines as what weve seen with the health authorities in Los Angeles that when you have a degree of viral dynamics in the community, and you have a substantial proportion of the population that is unvaccinated, that you really want to go the extra step, the extra mile, to make sure that there's not a lot of transmission, even breakthrough infections, among vaccinated individuals," Fauci said after host Kate Bolduan asked what he thought about the AAP's decision.

"For that reason, you can understand why the American Academy of Pediatrics might want to do that. They just want to be extra safe," he added.

Fauci admitted the recommendations by the AAP were a "variance" from the official CDC guidance on wearing masks, but he said the CDC "always leaves open the flexibility" for local agencies, enterprises and cities to make their own judgment calls.

FORMER SURGEON GENERAL SAYS CDC MASK GUIDANCE PREMATURE AND WRONG

"So, I think that the American Academy of Pediatrics, theyre a thoughtful group, they analyze the situation and if they feel that that's the way to go, I think that's a reasonable thing to do," he said.

Bolduan suggested the contradiction between the AAP's recommendations and official CDC guidance could cause confusion, and that the CDC should be "leading a little harder" after receiving criticism for unvaccinated people following guidelines intended for those who've been vaccinated.

"That is an understandable criticism," Fauci said, adding it made sense for more localized groups to want "to be more safe rather than sorry."

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"But youre absolutely correct, that does lead to some sort of confusion sometimes when people see an organization making one recommendation, in general, for the whole country and then local groups, local enterprises, local organizations, in order to get that extra step of safety, say something different. And youre right, that does indeed cause a bit of confusion," he said.

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Fauci supports medical group's call to mask 3-year-olds and older in school: 'Reasonable thing to do' - Fox News

TAMPA, FL (July 15, 2021) The incoming first-year students to the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM) represent the strongest class academically and the most diverse group of students in the colleges history.

As the Class of 2025 begins coursework July 26, it will set academic records for the medical school by having scored the highest median MCAT score in MCOMs history, 517, as well as earning the highest average GPA, 3.83. In addition, the incoming class is more diverse than previous first-year classes, with a record 20% from those groups traditionally underrepresented in medicine (URM).

We could not be more excited to welcome this exemplary new class of medical students, said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine. I have long said that USF Health is bringing the best and brightest minds to Tampa Bay, and this record-breaking class is further evidence of the growing strength and reputation of the Morsani College of Medicine. Not only is this the highest achieving cohort in our history, but it is also the most diverse, and we cannot wait to see all that they will achieve in medical school and beyond.

Across the last several years, each of MCOMs first-year classes has outpaced the class before it with higher MCAT scores and stronger GPAs. This years median score of 517 places this class in the 94th percentile ranking for scores across the country.

And compared to seven years ago, when only 6% of the class was from URM groups, this incoming class includes a far more diverse student body, with 20% from URM groups. Also improving this year is the acceptance and matriculation of more Black men. In 2014, the class included 2% African Americans, and they were all female. This years class included 12% Black students, including 11 males.

The MCOM Class of 2025 was selected from a record 6,400 applications, the most applicants in the colleges history, which makes it the most competitive class in the colleges history. Of the nearly 53,000 applicants attempting to find spots this year in the roughly 150 allopathic medical schools in the U.S., more than 6,400 applied to MCOM, which means that each new MCOM students chance of being a part of this class was less than 2.8%.

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Academically competitive and diverse: Incoming medical class makes history for USF Health Morsani College of Medicine - USF Health News - University...

Newswise PHILADELPHIA The Cardio-Oncology Translational Center of Excellence at Penn Medicine has been awarded $2.9 million by the American Heart Association as part of a larger effort to reduce disparities in cardio-oncology and increase understanding of cardiovascular disease among cancer patients and survivors from minority populations. As part of this newly established research program, scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and other institutions will study patients with breast or prostate cancer, the most common cancers in women and men, respectively, with a focus on Black and Hispanic communities.

Nearly half of the approximately 17 million cancer survivors today have battled either breast or prostate cancer, and Black and Hispanic patients with these cancers are at an increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease. Bonnie Ky, MD, MSCE, the Founders Associate Professor of Cardio-oncology, scientific director of the Thalheimer Center for Cardio-Oncology, and Director of the Penn cardio-oncology translational center of excellence in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, is leading the study as primary investigator.

This award opens up a whole new area of research in cardio-oncology, where there has been a dearth of evidence, Ky said. It is time to more fully address disparities in healthcare in cardio-oncology. With this research we hope to understand why Black and Hispanic patients are disproportionately impacted by cardiovascular diseaseand what additional measures we can take to overcome this.

With this funding over the next four years, the team of about 30 researchers nationwide will work to increase physical activity among high-risk breast and prostate cancer survivors and improve health. Through basic and clinical research, they will also assess how genetics, socioeconomic status and environment affect a persons heart health, and determine whether these relationships differ according to race.

In addition, the research team plans to build a training curriculum on race and disparities with a focus on building empathy, cultural humility, and competency among trainees in cardiology and oncology. As part of this initiative, researchers will partner with Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, the nations largest, private, historically Black academic health sciences center, to develop a medical student summer program that will help build the next generation of diverse physician-scientists and leaders in cardio-oncology.

Ultimately we hope to define how the sociologic construct of race and genomic ancestry are associated with and determine cardiotoxicity in breast and prostate cancer, said Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD, director of the Penn Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, who is co-leading the Population Science portion of the project. Using a range of innovative approaches like gamification and digital health, we want to deliver new ways to bridge disparities in care in historically underserved Black and Hispanic cancer survivors.

With Ky at the helm, this initiatives leadership team also includes, Clyde Yancy, MD, MSc, aprofessor of Medicine, chief of Cardiology, and vice dean of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and associate director of the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute; and Saro Armenian, DO, MPH, director of the Center for Cancer Survivorship and Outcomes at City of Hope.

The initiative is uniquely positioned for success because of its connection to experts at Penn Medicines Abramson Cancer Center, which is continuously leading research and clinical trials to push boundaries in treating cancer.

These efforts are an important part of a continued focus on racial disparities in cancer for Penn Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center, said Robert H. Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, director of the Abramson Cancer Center. More equitable care and improved health for minority communities is the goal. And with our unmatched expertise and commitment, the Penn team, along with institutional partners, are poised to give us a better understanding of cardio-oncology risks and care to help get there.

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Penn Medicineis one of the worlds leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of theRaymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nations first medical school) and theUniversity of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $8.9 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top medical schools in the United States for more than 20 years, according toU.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $496 million awarded in the 2020 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health Systems patient care facilities include: the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Centerwhich are recognized as one of the nations top Honor Roll hospitals byU.S. News & World ReportChester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Medicine Princeton Health; and Pennsylvania Hospital, the nations first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Medicine at Home, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.

Penn Medicine is powered by a talented and dedicated workforce of more than 44,000 people. The organization also has alliances with top community health systems across both Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey, creating more options for patients no matter where they live.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2020, Penn Medicine provided more than $563 million to benefit our community.

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Penn Medicine-Led Research Team Awarded $2.9 Million to Study Heart Disease and Cancer in Black and Hispanic Communities - Newswise

For patients in the throes of serious mental illnessand for their familieslife can be hard, at times agonizing. Clinical care givers, repeatedly called on to provide insight and offer compassion, face their own wrenching difficulties. And yet the challenge of caring for the mentally ill can also be a call to action. So it was for Karl Deisseroth, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Stanford University whose memoir, Projections (Random House, 231 pages, $28), describes his experience as a clinician and researcher, offering up case studies from his practice and exploring the biological underpinnings of his patients conditions.

Dr. Deisseroth tells us that he entered medical school planning to become a neurosurgeon but found himself unexpectedly captivated by his student psychiatry rotation, drawn both to the human drama and to the scientific imperative to understand the mechanistic basis of psychological dysfunction. For many patients, he soon realized, nobody could give answers to the simplest questions about what their disease really was, in a physical sense, or why this person was the one suffering, or how such a strange and terrible state had come to be part of the human experience.

On his worst days, he says, he wanted to leave medicine entirely, unable to bear the extremes of suffering he was encountering. It is not just the magnitude of the pain but also its incessancethe unrelenting descent into the abyss, day after day, year after year. Yet on balance he found engaging with patients both intriguing and essential. In contrast to ailments like a fractured leg or a badly pumping heart, he notes, psychiatric problems cant be directly monitored. Its the brains hidden communication process, its internal voice, that struggles, he writes. There is nothing to measure except words, the patients communications, and our own.

At times, the words can be revealing. Winnie, an intellectual property lawyer, tells her doctors that she had started worrying about the information vampires around her and has taken to lining her room with metal to prevent a neighbor from accessing her thoughts. Her condition suggests the onset of schizophrenia. Then theres Mr. N., a dour older patient who can barely muster any words at all and evinces a lack of interest in his own granddaughter. These symptoms may point to the anhedonia of depression,the inability to find reward or motivation in lifes natural joys. Patients with a slippery condition called borderline personality disorder, we learn, are often emotionally manipulative and engage, entwine, and draw in others, as least for a time. Meanwhile, patients with autism, Dr. Deisseroth explains, struggle with the rate of information flow, a difficulty that complicates the many social interactions that are rich in data and require rapid processing.

Dr. Deisseroth is best known in scientific circles as a pioneer of optogenetics, a technique that allows researchers studying so-called model organisms (like fish or mice) to examine how particular neurons contribute to complex behaviors. First, through genetic engineering, specific brain cells are made responsive to light. Then scientists activate the cells using fiber-optic lasers threaded into the recesses of a living brain. Applying this approach in mice, for instance, researchers have shown that distinct groups of neurons are responsible for different components of anxiety, like rapid breathing and risk avoidance. For the author, these studies suggest a way to think about the precise separability of one element of an inner state.

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Projections Review: Psychiatry in Extremis - The Wall Street Journal

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Independence Science has been recognized by the National Federation of the Blind for technology that makes science more accessible to blind students.

The company received a 2021 Jacob Bolotin Award on July 10 during the National Federation of the Blind's virtual national conference. Independence Science created the Sci-Voice Talking LabQuest 2, a hand-held, talking data logger that connects to more than 75 sensors and probes. The sensors and probes collect quantitative data across subject areas including biology, chemistry, physics, and earth and space sciences.

Michael Hingson, spokesman and business development analyst at Independence Science, said blind students listen to the data as it is being collected. They also have access to the data afterward for additional analysis.

"Blind students remotely control the Sci-Voice TLQ2 device that is connected to the teacher's host computer. They can start and stop data collection, graph data and explore data tables," Hingson said. "By sharing audio in the virtual meeting platform, the JAWS audio feed made possible by our partner VISPERO comes through the blind student's speaker on their home computer. It is this interface that made scientific data collection possible during a global pandemic."

The Jacob Bolotin Award is named for the first documented blind doctor in the United States, living in Chicago in the late part of the 19th century. Hingson said Bolotin faced ignorance, prejudice and discrimination in medical school and his medical practice. Bolotin was driven to remove barriers to the inaccessible medical education he was faced with, and to educate classmates, faculty and eventual colleagues about the capabilities of the blind in medicine.

"We are extremely honored to receive this award, which recognizes us as being a pioneering positive force in the lives of blind people," Hingson said. "This award is a testimony to Independence Science's commitment to raising the bar for what is possible in science access for the blind in a remote laboratory science learning context."

Independence Science is headquartered at the Purdue Research Park of West Lafayette. It conducts demonstrations and presentations at conferences and offers free webinars on its products and services. It also offers remote and on-site consultations to train teachers and/or students on its science access methodologies.

Writer: Steve Martin

Source: Michael Hingson

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Independence Science receives award from National Federation of the Blind for making science more accessible - Purdue News Service

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.

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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.

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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