Students gain skills & understanding while serving uninsured patients under supervision of faculty doctors

Newswise ANN ARBOR, Mich. Uninsured residents of rural Livingston County, Mich. and surrounding areas who need health care have a new option to turn to every Saturday afternoon: a free medical clinic run entirely by University of Michigan Medical School students.

The students, and U-M faculty physicians, volunteer their time to provide free primary care each week at a storefront clinic in Pinckney.

The U-M Student Run Free Clinic, as it is called, uses the same location as the Faith Medical Clinic, a free-care site for patients without insurance that offers appointments on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. On the afternoon of Oct. 6, the team will hold an Open House to welcome the community.

For the U-M students, the free clinic is not just a chance to give back to the community its also a chance to get to learn more about opportunities to care for the uninsured and to know the administrative and business side of medicine.

Students plan for and handle all the details and challenges of running the clinic, and deal with everything from appointment scheduling and interviewing new arrivals, to entering information into a computerized medical record system. The U-M Medical School Deans office is providing funding, as is Michigan Central Student Government.

Already in the clinics pilot period, the students and their faculty supervisors have seen patients with everything from simple ailments to chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and shoulder joint issues.

The students handle all aspects of the visit except for those that require a licensed physician -- a role filled by a faculty physician from the Medical School. Patients who need more advanced care receive a referral and help in finding low-cost or free options, including through the U-M Health Systems own charity care program.

The U-M Student Run Free Clinic gives our students a real sense of all the moving parts that must be aligned to create a well-run clinic, the issues facing the uninsured and the importance of caring for all in our communities, says Hari Conjeevaram, M.D., M.Sc., an associate professor of internal medicine who is the lead faculty advisor to the clinic team and medical director of the clinic. Although health care reform should give more uninsured Americans access to care over the next few years, services like the Faith Clinic and our student-run clinic provide a vital safety net for non-emergency and preventive care.

The experience of running the clinic and taking patients vital signs and medical histories is especially important for the first- and second-year medical students, whose classroom studies dont yet bring them into contact with patients.

Originally posted here:
Free Weekly Clinic Run by Medical Students Helps Patients Get Essential Care

Newswise Mount Sinai School of Medicine has signed an agreement with Coursera.org that will make Mount Sinai graduate and medical school courses freely available online.

Mount Sinai will begin by offering three courses that focus on training students to use computation to convert the information in large and small data-sets in biomedical sciences to understand disease progression, adverse events in individual patients, and to predict efficacy of drug therapy. The three courses Introduction to Systems Biology, Networks Analyses in Systems Biology, and Mathematical Models in Systems Biology will be offered in 2013. The courses provide a solid basis for understanding the new era of personalized and precision medicine that is being made possible by advanced gene sequencing technologies.

John Morrison, PhD, Dean of the Mount Sinai Graduate School of Biological Sciences, said, The rigorous courses that we are putting up on Coursera, the planned interactions and the testing formats have the ability to completely change graduate education. Today, like most schools, our programs have one to two years of classes followed by several years of research or clinical training. If the online formats take hold then didactic learning can be interspersed through the research or clinical training years. We can also offer our courses world-wide for free, thus greatly enhancing the reach of our educational mission.

Leading Mount Sinais effort to put courses online is Ravi Iyengar, PhD, The Rosenstiel Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics and Director of Systems Biology Center New York.

My sense is we are at a transformative time in higher education and Coursera is one driver of this change both for off- and on-campus education, said Dr. Iyengar. The ability to provide free high quality courses in an emerging area of biomedical sciences provides us with exciting opportunities to engage current and future scholars world-wide. For graduate students, such online courses will allow them to get formal training in new areas as their research interests start to gel. For medical students it will allow them to learn details and mechanisms as they see patients. In pharmacology, it would be great to teach in an integrated manner drug action mechanisms and drug usage as students go through their clerkships, rather than in a classroom a year or two earlier. Online courses may well allow to accomplish this goal.

The development of these courses has been supported in part by a Systems Biology Center grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health.

About The Mount Sinai Medical Center

The Mount Sinai Medical Center encompasses both The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Established in 1968, Mount Sinai School of Medicine is one of the leading medical schools in the United States. The Medical School is noted for innovation in education, biomedical research, clinical care delivery, and local and global community service. It has more than 3,400 faculty in 32 departments and 14 research institutes, and ranks among the top 20 medical schools both in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and by U.S. News & World Report.

The Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is a 1,171-bed tertiary- and quaternary-care teaching facility and one of the nations oldest, largest and most-respected voluntary hospitals. In 2011, U.S. News & World Report ranked The Mount Sinai Hospital 14th on its elite Honor Roll of the nations top hospitals based on reputation, safety, and other patient-care factors. Mount Sinai is one of 12 integrated academic medical centers whose medical school ranks among the top 20 in NIH funding and U.S. News & World Report and whose hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report Honor Roll. Nearly 60,000 people were treated at Mount Sinai as inpatients last year, and approximately 560,000 outpatient visits took place.

For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org. Find Mount Sinai on: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mountsinainyc Twitter @mountsinainyc YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/mountsinainy

Read the original here:
Mount Sinai School of Medicine Bringing Free Courses Online

By Hadas Kuznits

CAMDEN, N. J. (CBS) Medical students in Camden underwent a special ceremony on Friday.

Dr. Paul Katz, dean of the Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, says its a very special moment when a medical student puts on their white coat for the first time. Thats why a special ceremony was held for the incoming class.

The white coat is very symbolic of being a physician and this is the day where we give them the white coat but more than that, really welcome them to the profession, Dr. Katz explains.

It was also a special moment for the school, with this being the inaugural class.

Weve told this class that there will only be one charter class in the history of this medical school and it is them, Dr. Katz says.

He says many people have been waiting a long time for this moment, not just the students.

The idea around a medical school in Camden goes back 40 years; so this idea has been out and about for a while and were really very pleased for all the people that kept this dream alive that we now have the opportunity to get this school started, says Dr. Katz.

See original here:
Special Ceremony Held For Inaugural Class Of Cooper Medical School

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On Friday the Austin-Travis County EMS union held a press conference to endorse the health district's Proposition 1State Senator Kirk Watsons plan to bring a medical to Austin and expanding care to more residents.

"A lot of people in our community that don't currently have a medical home will have a medical home in community clinics, will have better wellness programs, Sen. Watson said.

Meanwhile, members of the Travis County Taxpayers Union are protesting the property tax hike that the proposition requires. For a $200,000 home, the tax would come out to an additional $100 per year.

"That number was not chosen on what Austinites can afford, Laura Pressley, Proposition 1 opponent, said.

For every dollar local taxpayers spend on the project, the federal government will put in $1.50. Supporters call that a boon, but opponents call it an empty promise.

"The problem is that is coming from a bankrupt government. I promise you, cuts are coming, opponent Roger Fall said. Where are we going to fill that dollar-fifty gap? Where's that money coming from?"

Those opposed to the tax hike say it's simply too much for Austin families to shoulder. Energy and water rates are already going up, and other bond item will be on the November ballot.

Meanwhile, supporters say bringing a medical school to Austin will generate $2 billion dollars for the economy each year.

Go here to read the rest:
Opposing groups debate medical school proposition

The University of Michigan Medical School will be honoring those that have donated their bodies to science in a memorial service 6 p.m. Wednesday at Rackham Auditorium in Ann Arbor.

The ceremony includes remarks by medical students for the families of those who have given anatomical gifts to medical education and research, and usually is attended by about 1,000 people, said Dean Mueller, coordinator of the Anatomical Donations Program at U-M.

University of Michigan Medical School students hand flowers to family members of anatomical gift donors during a memorial service in 2007. The school's annual memorial service is 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Courtesy of U-M

The Medical School receives about 300 anatomical gifts per year, and has been hosting the memorial ceremony annually in September since the first anatomical gift donations to the university were recorded in 1817 - before the formation of the medical school.

About 7,000 people have pre-registered to donate their bodies to the program, Mueller said. The next of kin also can determine if they want to donate a body to the program.

Med students wear their white lab coats during the ceremony and are able to connect with the families of the people who donated their bodies. The students also are very involved with the planning and execution of the event, Mueller said.

Theres sadness and laughter, and a great appreciation for what goes on, Mueller said.

Originally posted here:
U-M Medical School to host service in memory of anatomical gift donors

MOUNT PLEASANT, MI Central Michigan Universitys medical school continues to move forward, and now has approval from the Higher Learning Commission.

The commissions approval of the College of Medicines degree means CMU can offer and grant doctor of medicine degrees.

The College of Medicine will open in summer 2013 with its first class of 60 students.

The college has received 1,972 applications. Admissions are open until Dec. 15.

The approval includes access to Title IV funding and allows CMU medical school students to apply for federal financial aid and receive full financial aid packages.

This is a positive step in the recruitment of the first class of medical students, providing the opportunity for them to receive their financial aid packages right away upon being accepted to the college, said Claudia Douglass, interim vice provost for academic affairs.

The Higher Learning Commission Institutional Actions Council will conduct a site visit in the 2013-14 school year to CMUs College of Medicine to assess the programs quality.

CMU Medical Education Partners, which includes both hospitals, will manage five residency programs, emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, surgery and plan a sixth in psychiatry.

The Saginaw medical school locations for clinical education will be at 600 Irving near Covenant and at Hoyt and South Franklin near St. Marys.

The hospitals are expected to contribute more than $16 million to graduate medical education.

View post:
CMU receives approval from Higher Learning Commission to grant doctor of medicine degrees

The Alpert Medical School welcomed its largest class ever this year totalling 120 students following the opening of the schools downtown facility last fall. With the building constructed in downtown Providences Knowledge District able to accommodate more students, the school matriculated 11 additional students in this years class, up from 109 in the class of 2015. The school has expanded from 310 students in 2001 to 421 students this year, according to Ed Wing, dean of medicine and biological sciences.

The admittance of the Med Schools largest-ever class was made possible by the new facility, Wing said. Admitting classes of 120 will expand the school to 480 students in the next few years, he said.

Its a terrific building, Wing said, adding that the schools old space in the BioMedical Center did not allow for expansion. Everything in the (new) building has allowed us to provide better education.

The Med School also witnessed a surge in applications for spots in the class of 2016, with a roughly 20 percent increase from 2,825 applicants in 2011 to 3,344 applications in 2012, according to Philip Gruppuso, associate dean of medical education and professor of pediatrics.

There is in general a physician shortage in the United States, Gruppuso said. He noted that the Association of American Medical Colleges has called for a substantial increase in the countrys supply of doctors and that the University is hoping to aid this goal. Gruppuso said the Med Schools expansion was part of a long-term process that occurred after administrators received permission from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the national accrediting organization for medical degree programs.

Wing said administrators have nothing definite planned to expand the student body any further than 480 students.

The Med School hired more staff to accommodate the larger building, but they did not need to hire more faculty members, Wing said, adding that the school boasts a total of 2,000 faculty members, including 600 full-time clinical faculty. The Med School revamped its curriculum but did not add additional classes or expand the size of courses.

Gruppuso said the University is still considered a small medical school according to national rankings of medical degree programs by size.

We had space and resources and faculty to be able to meet the needs of this number of students, he said. We were very confident this (expansion) was not going to result in any kind of erosion of the quality of the medical program.

As part of its expansion, the Med School introduced a new academy model of advising and training last year, with each class divided into three academies of around 40 students in order to facilitate greater advising services and a better sense of community. Each academy space provides locker and study space, designated advisers and other training services to students to help break down the student body into smaller sections.

Excerpt from:
Med school admits largest class ever

SACRAMENTO A national study has found that earnings over the course of the careers of primary-care physicians averaged as much as $2.8 million less than the earnings of their specialist colleagues, potentially making primary care a less attractive choice for medical school graduates and exacerbating the already significant shortage of medical generalists.

The results, published online in the journal Medical Care, lead the study's authors to recommend reducing disparities in physician pay to ensure adequate access to primary care, which has been shown to improve health and reduce health-care costs.

"The need for primary-care providers is greater than ever before and expected to grow as millions more Americans become insured under the Affordable Care Act," said J. Paul Leigh, lead author of the study, professor of public health sciences and researcher with the UC Davis Center for Healthcare Policy and Research. "Without a better payment structure, there will be extraordinary demands on an already scarce resource."

According to projections by the Association of American Medical Colleges, the nation is likely to face a shortage of more than 65,000 primary-care physicians by 2025.

For the nationwide study, a follow-up to 2010 research by Leigh and his colleagues on differences in annual wages by specialty, the investigators compared lifetime earnings to demonstrate how annual wage differences accumulate over physicians' careers. The earnings data came from the 2004-05 Community Tracking Study, a periodic evaluation of physician demographic, geographic and market trends.

To ensure valid comparisons, the data were adjusted to account for factors that affect earnings, including age, sex, race, board certification, graduation from a foreign medical school, rural residence, employment by an academic medical school and residency program length.

Incomes were then evaluated for more than 6,000 doctors practicing in 41 specialties. When merged into four broad career categories, lifetime earnings in surgery, internal medicine and pediatric subspecialties, and all other medical specialties averaged from $761,402 to $1,587,722 higher than in primary care:

The earnings differences were more dramatic when compared as 41 separate specialties. Medical oncologists, for instance, earn up to $7,127,543 during a 35-year career, while family medicine practitioners earn as low as $2,838,637.

Leigh surmised that one reason for the earnings differences is the tendency for Medicare administrators to utilize recommendations from an American Medical Association committee on physician pay that price specialist procedures far higher than primary-care office visits. Private insurance companies, in turn, tend to adopt Medicare pay rates.

The authors noted that efforts are under way to resolve physician pay differences. For example, the Affordable Care Act requires states to pay primary-care physicians no less than 100 percent of Medicare payment rates for primary-care services provided to Medicaid patients. The study's senior author, Richard Kravitz, a UC Davis professor of internal medicine, also serves on an independent commission to assess physician pay.

Go here to see the original:
Large differences in lifetime physician earnings

On Wednesday after noon the National Audit Office Accounts Committee approved unanimously a parliamentary resolution to transfer the Medical School site at Guardamangia to the Augustinian Order to use it as a primary school for 400 children. Both government and Opposition MPs sitting on the committee voted in favour and so there is no need for parliament to debate and pass this motion in a plenary session.

The parliamentary resolution passes the Medical School site to the Augustinian order on lease for 99 years for 1,000 a year as rent. Sports and other educational facilities can be developed on the site and even the 2,177 sq m car park in front of the Medical School building can be made use of by the school.

The Augustinian Order is committing itself to spend at least 1,000,000 on the primary school project and that the work on it will start within 10 weeks of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) issuing the necessary permits.

In exchange for the Medical School site, the Augustinian Order will transfer to government the site on which they were going to build the primary school for a lease of 99 years at 900 per year. Government will pass back this land to the Order on condition that no development is carried out on it and the residents living in the area will not have their view blocked by any building.

After working hard for more than three years on a new primary school for St Augustines College, MEPA last February turned down the application by five votes to four and wanted the extension to have two and not three floors as planned, making the whole project too small and costly to be viable. On 9 February 2012 the Prime Minister was given a petition signed by parents after the students of the school, parents and teachers met near the War Monument in Floriana and walked to Castille.

Neighbours of the college had objecting to the project as the new building would block their view and devalue their property.

Continued here:
Medical School to Augustinian Order unanimously

Sept. 18, 2012, 4 a.m.

DELEGATES at the Nationals' Federal Conference carried a motion on Sunday supporting Charles Sturt University's proposal to establish a new medical school to address chronic shortages of doctors in rural and regional Australia.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) vice-chancellor Professor Andrew Vann said, "We welcome this very public commitment by The Nationals to the establishment of a new medical school at Charles Sturt University.

He said the support followed news this week that more than 21,000 Australians had signed up on Facebook as supporters of Charles Sturt University's planned medical school.

"While we remain hopeful that the current government will fund this initiative in the next federal budget, it is important for rural and regional communities to know that the Nationals are committed to this initiative," Professor Vann said.

"I think there is a growing recognition across all political parties of the serious impact that the rural doctor shortage has on the lives of families and individuals in our communities.

"There also appears to be an increased awareness that people will not live in rural towns, let alone move here, if they can't get access to a doctor when they need one."

He said the commitment by The Nationals follows mounting evidence current rural medical education strategies are not working, and the need to focus more on resources for rurally-based and delivered programs if government was serious about addressing rural doctor shortages.

"For example, a cross-party Senate inquiry into rural medical workforce shortages reported in August this year that city medical schools had consistently failed to meet minimum recruitment targets for rural medical students, despite all the evidence that a rural doctor is significantly more likely to have come from a rural area and been trained in a rural area," Professor Vann said.

"Charles Sturt University's proposed solution to the rural doctor shortage is not only supported by a wealth of national and international evidence, it has the overwhelming support of rural and regional Australians."

More:
Nationals support new medical school at Charles Sturt

The Alpert Medical School welcomed its largest class ever this year totalling 120 students following the opening of the schools downtown facility last fall. With the building constructed in downtown Providences Knowledge District able to accommodate more students, the school matriculated 11 additional students in this years class, up from 109 in the class of 2015. The school has expanded from 310 students in 2001 to 421 students this year, according to Ed Wing, dean of medicine and biological sciences.

The admittance of the Med Schools largest-ever class was made possible by the new facility, Wing said. Admitting classes of 120 will expand the school to 480 students in the next few years, he said.

Its a terrific building, Wing said, adding that the schools old space in the BioMedical Center did not allow for expansion. Everything in the (new) building has allowed us to provide better education.

The Med School also witnessed a surge in applications for spots in the class of 2016, with a roughly 20 percent increase from 2,825 applicants in 2011 to 3,344 applications in 2012, according to Philip Gruppuso, associate dean of medical education and professor of pediatrics.

There is in general a physician shortage in the United States, Gruppuso said. He noted that the Association of American Medical Colleges has called for a substantial increase in the countrys supply of doctors and that the University is hoping to aid this goal. Gruppuso said the Med Schools expansion was part of a long-term process that occurred after administrators received permission from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the national accrediting organization for medical degree programs.

Wing said administrators have nothing definite planned to expand the student body any further than 480 students.

The Med School hired more staff to accommodate the larger building, but they did not need to hire more faculty members, Wing said, adding that the school boasts a total of 2,000 faculty members, including 600 full-time clinical faculty. The Med School revamped its curriculum but did not add additional classes or expand the size of courses.

Gruppuso said the University is still considered a small medical school according to national rankings of medical degree programs by size.

We had space and resources and faculty to be able to meet the needs of this number of students, he said. We were very confident this (expansion) was not going to result in any kind of erosion of the quality of the medical program.

As part of its expansion, the Med School introduced a new academy model of advising and training last year, with each class divided into three academies of around 40 students in order to facilitate greater advising services and a better sense of community. Each academy space provides locker and study space, designated advisers and other training services to students to help break down the student body into smaller sections.

See original here:
Med School admits largest class yet

Although men and women working in academic medicine strive toward advancement, significantly fewer women achieve leadership positions, says a study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

For the past decade, women have made up about 50% of medical students, according to the Assn. of American Medical Colleges. Meanwhile, the average medical school has 43 female full professors compared with 192 male full professors, said Linda Pololi, MD, lead study author and senior scientist at the Womens Studies Research Center at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

Those numbers are still absolutely shocking, and without a good explanation, she said.

To gain insight into the cultural barriers women face in academic medicine, researchers surveyed 4,578 full-time faculty at 26 U.S. medical schools. They found that women reported a lower sense of belonging and support and were more pessimistic about gender equity and their chances for advancement compared with men. Women also were less likely to believe that their institutions were family-friendly or to see their values as aligning with the institutions.

The average medical school has 43 female full professors and 192 male full professors.

The findings, published online Aug. 31, demonstrate that medical schools have failed to create an environment where women feel fully accepted and supported to succeed, said Dr. Pololi, director and principal investigator of the National Initiative on Gender, Culture and Leadership in Medicine, also known as C-Change, which engages medical schools in research aimed at attaining equality in academic medicine.

The study proves wrong the notion that women are less ambitious than men. It shows that both genders have equal leadership aspirations and are equally engaged in their work, she said.

Women care very deeply about having a rich professional life, Dr. Pololi said.

The findings are not surprising and reinforce previous research, said Page S. Morahan, PhD, founding director and director of research at the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program for Women at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia.

We have seen this over and over again, she said.

Excerpt from:
Women face cultural barriers in academic medicine

Jordana Spiro

"What would have happened if Meadow Soprano had gone on to medical school and become a doctor?" That's the question writer-producer Josh Berman said he found himself wondering when Jamie-Lynn Sigler (who played Tony Soprano's brainy daughter on The Sopranos) guest-starred on his show Drop Dead Diva.

Fall Preview: Get scoop on all of this season's new shows

Thus was planted the seed for The Mob Doctor, Berman's new series that stars Jordana Spiro as Dr. Grace Devlin, a surgeon who tries to balance her professional career with a secret side job: providing medical services for the Chicago Mafia in order to pay off a debt owed by her brother (Jesse Lee Soffer).

Berman says that after Sigler's appearance on Drop Dead Diva, he and co-producer Rob Wright started researching real-life Mob doctors. "We were shocked," he said. "It is the underbelly of organized crime their medical fixers, so to speak. So when we found out that this actually did exist, it became even more compelling and that's the point we decided, 'We have to write this.'"

See Mob Doctor's Jordana Spiro and more fall stars to watch

Inspired by one nonfiction account in particular, Ron Felber's Il Dottore: The Double Life of a Mafia Doctor, Wright and Berman started developing the character of Grace. Berman says the series will balance the medical drama with Grace's personal life story lines bookended by her relationships with her boyfriend/colleague (Zach Gilford) and former Mafia boss/family friend Constantine (William Forsythe).

"We have some episodes that take place predominantly in the hospital, and then some that take place predominantly in the field," Berman said. "I like to refer to those cases as the dirty medicine cases, because we get to tell stories without the bureaucracy of a hospital, and to me that's what's so compelling. ... When Grace is in the field, the only thing she needs to do is worry about the patient. And I think she takes that energy and that passion back into the hospital with her, which kind of gives her that 'I don't give a damn' attitude when it comes to placating her bosses. Instead, she puts her patients' interests first."

Spiro, who previously starred in TBS' comedy My Boys, said she was drawn to the role due to the moral dilemmas Grace faces as she tries to extract herself from the Mafia life. (Her father was a minor player in the Mob.) In the pilot episode, for instance, Grace receives a message to kill a patient, an informant who's brought into her hospital."This woman is making choices that are very morally conflicted and yet, at the beginning, it's to save her family," Spiro says. "And so this question becomes, 'How far do you go, and where is that line that you absolutely won't cross? And what happens when that line keeps edging further and further away?'"

The Mob Doctor's antihero will cross the line

See more here:
Mafia Medicine: Jordana Spiro, Josh Berman Weigh In on The Mob Doctor

WANNAPA KHAOPA THE NATION September 18, 2012 1:00 am

Professor Adeeba Binti Kamarulzaman from Malaysia responded to a question about the urgent matters to be discussed in terms of research collaboration, saying the academics would see how they could jointly deal with problems that every country in the region faces - diseases such as flu and diabetes.

Prof Agnes D Mejia from the Philippines said having done community based research on diabetes, HIV prevention, E-coli and diarrhoea; the Philippines would share its findings.

Prof Udom said: "In preparation for the Asean Economic Community in 2015, the medical schools have to discuss how to upgrade curriculum, learning processes, medical services and research together. We have to link our patient care systems to support free flow of patients in Asean."

The First Asean Deans' Summit will run until tomorrow, with the theme "Connecting Asean Medical Schools towards One Community". It aims to promote collaboration among leading medical schools in Asean to leverage medical education and health systems towards international excellence and to be prepared to work as one community by 2015.

They will sign the Asean Medical School's Intention Declaration tomorrow to establish and reinforce collaboration and a network among their medical schools. They plan to share human resources and provide capacity building for medical education and research and health systems in Asean countries.

Asked about doctor mobility in Asean, Dr Alonkone Phengsavanh from Laos, said: "We should set up new regulations among medical associations of each country, and the first thing is medical licences. [Each] Health Ministry should be aware about this issue. The country should think about a 'brain drain'.

Udom said he hoped that their collaboration - coming together to look at curricula and (medical) facilities they could share to help each other - would help lift every country's standards to a similar level.

Original post:
Medical schools look to link up for AEC

From Chris Boyette, CNN

updated 10:44 PM EDT, Fri September 14, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- The Boston Children's Hospital pediatric doctor charged with receipt of child pornography was disciplined for using a school computer to access adult pornography when he was medical director at Phillips Academy boarding school, school officials said Friday.

Richard Keller, 56, who is also a pediatrics clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, was the medical director at Philips Academy for 19 years, according to John Palfrey, the head of the school.

In an e-mail to faculty, staff, students, alumni and parents on Friday, Palfrey said Keller was reprimanded in 1999 for using an academy computer to access pornography that featured adult subjects, and in 2002 was reprimanded for showing an inappropriate cartoon to students.

According to Palfrey, Keller was cited for "poor management and poor judgment," leading the Andover, Massachusetts, school to place him on administrative probation in 2009.

Palfrey went on to say that as recently as 2010, Keller sent an inappropriate voice-mail message to a colleague at the school. A claim by Keller that the school had discriminated against him was determined to be "groundless," according to Palfrey.

In April 2011, the academy informed Keller that his contract would not be renewed. The doctor resigned that month, the school said.

"We have no reason to believe that any of our students were involved in, or affected by, Dr. Keller's alleged criminal behavior," Palfrey said, adding the federal case made Thursday against Keller is unrelated to alleged misconduct at Phillips.

Continue reading here:
School: Doctor was disciplined for viewing adult pornography

From Chris Boyette, CNN

updated 10:44 PM EDT, Fri September 14, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- The Boston Children's Hospital pediatric doctor charged with receipt of child pornography was disciplined for using a school computer to access adult pornography when he was medical director at Phillips Academy boarding school, school officials said Friday.

Richard Keller, 56, who is also a pediatrics clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, was the medical director at Philips Academy for 19 years, according to John Palfrey, the head of the school.

In an e-mail to faculty, staff, students, alumni and parents on Friday, Palfrey said Keller was reprimanded in 1999 for using an academy computer to access pornography that featured adult subjects, and in 2002 was reprimanded for showing an inappropriate cartoon to students.

According to Palfrey, Keller was cited for "poor management and poor judgment," leading the Andover, Massachusetts, school to place him on administrative probation in 2009.

Palfrey went on to say that as recently as 2010, Keller sent an inappropriate voice-mail message to a colleague at the school. A claim by Keller that the school had discriminated against him was determined to be "groundless," according to Palfrey.

In April 2011, the academy informed Keller that his contract would not be renewed. The doctor resigned that month, the school said.

"We have no reason to believe that any of our students were involved in, or affected by, Dr. Keller's alleged criminal behavior," Palfrey said, adding the federal case made Thursday against Keller is unrelated to alleged misconduct at Phillips.

View original post here:
School: Boston doctor was disciplined for viewing adult pornography

iStock / DOConnell

The Boston Children's Hospital pediatric doctor charged with receipt of child pornography was disciplined for using a school computer to access adult pornography when he was medical director at Phillips Academy boarding school, school officials said Friday.

Richard Keller, 56, who is also a pediatrics clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, was the medical director at Philips Academy for 19 years, according to John Palfrey, the head of the school.

In an e-mail to faculty, staff, students, alumni and parents on Friday, Palfrey said Keller was reprimanded in 1999 for using an academy computer to access pornography that featured adult subjects, and in 2002 was reprimanded for showing an inappropriate cartoon to students.

According to Palfrey, Keller was cited for "poor management and poor judgment," leading the Andover, Massachusetts, school to place him on administrative probation in 2009.

Palfrey went on to say that as recently as 2010, Keller sent an inappropriate voice-mail message to a colleague at the school. A claim by Keller that the school had discriminated against him was determined to be "groundless," according to Palfrey.

In April 2011, the academy informed Keller that his contract would not be renewed. The doctor resigned that month, the school said.

"We have no reason to believe that any of our students were involved in, or affected by, Dr. Keller's alleged criminal behavior," Palfrey said, adding the federal case made Thursday against Keller is unrelated to alleged misconduct at Phillips.

Keller's name came to the attention of authorities after the U.S. Postal Inspection Service began a 2010 investigation into a movie production company that sold films featuring minor boys, according to the criminal complaint.

Investigators conducted a review of the company's customer database and located alleged customer Richard Keller, who had two addresses listed, authorities said.

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School: Doctor disciplined for viewing adult porn

A newly-launched medical school program in State College will be highlighted Wednesday during the annual open meeting of the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center board of directors. The program presently involves 13 medical students who are in their third year, and spent their first two years at Derry Twp.-based Penn State College of Medicine.

The purpose is to train doctors closer to rural communities where they will eventually work, and help remedy shortages in those areas. The program is a collaboration involving Penn State-Hershey, Mount Nittany Medical Center and other medical providers based in the State College area.

According to a news release, the meeting also will highlight items including the record $107 million in research funding received by the medical center and Penn State College of Medicine during the most recent fiscal year. The figure represents a $1.5 million increase from last year, with about $65 million coming from the National Institutes of Health.

The meeting is expected to further highlight the center's new Institute for Personalized Medicine. The goal of personalized medicine is to tailor treatments based on the patient's biologic and genetic makeup.

Penn State-Hershey, which was founded in 1963, has 491 beds and admits about 27,000 patients annually. Its most recent class of medical school graduates included 131 doctors, and it annually gets about 7,300 applicants for 145 medical school slots, according to the medical center.

The hour-long board meeting, which is open to the public, is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. in the Edward P. "Ted" Junker III Auditorium at the medical center.

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Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center will tout record research funding, new programs

Dr. D. Levi Harrison, an orthopedic surgeon and UC Davis Medical School graduate, visited his alma mater in August to talk to students about the role that fitness plays in medical education.

Harrison, who recently published a book titled "The Art of Fitness: A Journey to Self Enhancement" (Brio Press, $39.95, 232 pages) holds undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering and romance languages, and graduate degrees in physics and French in addition to his medical degree. He has a private practice as a hand specialist in Glendale.

Why did you decide to write a fitness book?

It's about letting people know that fitness and exercise are lifestyle choices that we have to make to not only have the aesthetic of looking healthy on the outside, which is the superficial part of fitness. I wrote the book so people can understand that fitness is from the inside out.

What makes your book different from other fitness books?

It's geared toward anyone of any fitness level. The book is about helping people to not only get healthy, but make lifestyle changes. The goals of the book aren't about achieving an aesthetic. The goals are to decrease the rates of diabetes, hyper-tension, cardiovascular disease, stroke, cholesterolemia and obesity.

The book is really there to let people know that they shouldn't compare themselves to anybody. The goal is to remind people that your body is yours and that where you are today is a good place.

So if you're overweight, you're underweight, you're not very fit, that's OK. Every day you get to start the journey again.

Where do you think fitness education fits into today's medical school?

I definitely think fitness, health and nutrition should be a greater part of all medical school education.

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Fitness author brings multiple disciplines to his craft

By Mary Ann Roser

More than 400 Austin-area doctors are backing a Nov. 6 ballot proposition for a big increase in Travis County property taxes to support services for a planned medical school and other programs, a political action committee said Wednesday.

"I think Proposition 1 is about health care for families, and doctors are interested in that," said Lynda Rife, a spokeswoman for the Keep Austin Healthy PAC.

She said her release of the doctors' names was the culmination of a grass-roots effort that took about a week with doctors contacting each other and expressing support for the proposition.

Central Health, which oversees health care services for indigent residents of Travis County, is asking voters to approve a 63 percent increase in property taxes from 7.89 cents per $100 of assessed value to 12.9 cents. The money raised, estimated at $54 million, would pay for health services provided by medical school faculty, residents and students, as well as help pay for a teaching hospital site and other health care programs.

"Our doctors understand how this initiative will help raise funds that will be used to further enhance care, improve the efficiency of care, and provide greater access to care for patients in our community," Dr. Norman Chenven, founder of Austin Regional Clinic, said in a statement.

Michael Rotman, a retired Austin cardiologist, said he fears duplicating services and driving up costs.

Contact Mary Ann Roser at 445-3619

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400 doctors say they support a tax increase for medical school services in Austin