University of Southern California grabbed headlines last year over the Varsity Blues college admissions scam, billed as the biggest evercollege entrance scandal, including several high-profile Hollywood parents. Additionally, the former USC medical school dean was linked to drugs and prostitutes, and was forced to resign in 2018. His successor was ousted less than a year after being appointed following revelations of a sexual harassment settlement from 15 years earlier.

Now, the University of Southern California is offering international students a free class in order to maintain their Visa, while charging domestic students for classes.

What is behind this odd policy? A new Trump administration policy which could force international students to leave the country is being met with opposition, CBS Los Angeles reported. In response, USC announced a plan that would allow those students to remain at the school.

As California Globe reported Thursday, The newICE orders announced on Monday specifically target international students not going to physical classes. Those attending universities under hybrid online/in-class models will be allowed to stay.

Almost immediately, the University of California announced it would sue the federal government over the ICE order to stop international students from staying in the United States if they attend universities that offer online only courses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

James Lacy, a Southern California attorney and USC alumnus, had a very interesting reaction to this: Im no immigration lawyer but it seems to me if USC is offering a class for the sole reason of accommodating a visa rather than for its sole academic value, it is engaging in a conspiracy to violate our nations immigration laws. Sad for the ongoing embrace of the Left at my alma mater; they have had enough screw ups.

Its also discrimination to charge the domestic students but offer for free to the international ones, weighed in California attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon.

This isnt USCs first rodeo. The private university has been mired in scandal after scandal in recent years.

Lacy has been keeping track of some of USCs issues, and it isnt pretty.

In sum, USC has the admission scandal, bribery issues, poor receipt and management of distribution of donated funds (Womens sports) and brewing class action lawsuits and other litigation pulling resources away from its mission, Lacy says.

But wait! Theres more!

-Business School dean controversy rising to the Board of Trustees level;

USC gynecologist George Tyndall sexual abuse

-The Womans Health Center sex abuse went on for decades, and lawsuits have been eating up funds. The court granted preliminary approval for the $215 million federal class action settlement that will compensate individuals who received womens health services from former USC gynecologist George Tyndall at the Student Health Center.

-Tyndall was arrested by LAPD, and the District Attorney announced criminal charges 6/25/19. Tyndall was charged with 29 felonies.

-Former USC gynecologist George Tyndall was also charged with sexual abuse of patients, and sold photographs and sex videos he took of young women he lured to his hotel rooms while traveling outside the U.S.: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-usc-gynecologist-tyndall-20190709-story.html

-USC was warned about gynecologist https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=30d0d6c5-cbf9-44a9-8069-c6f69effdf52

-The U.S. Department of Education said Thursday it found systemic failures in the University of Southern Californias treatment of allegations of sexual abuse by a longtime campus gynecologist and ordered the school to overhaul its procedures for preventing sex discrimination and to conduct a formal review of how employees responded. This total and complete failure to protect students is heartbreaking and inexcusable, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said in a statement.

Dr. George Tyndall, who treated USC students for nearly three decades, pleaded not guilty to criminal charges filed by the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office regarding 16 patients. Civil litigation involves thousands of former patients.https://apnews.com/1f1cb20ba227f235126976b1b351258c

New criminal charges against USC doctor. $215 million class action.https://apnews.com/56cd8afb1746c81b22a4b27c8cf36567

Varsity Blues Scandal

Criminal complaint filed by FBI saidAgustin Huneeus paid $250,000 to William Singers Foundation and a coach at USC to get his daughter on water polo team, even though she was not a top athlete and it was understood she would not have to play, as California Globe reported. Huneeus was sentenced to five months in prison.

-Admissions official admited and plead guilty for accepting bribes. https://www.dailynews.com/2020/06/15/former-usc-official-pleads-guilty-in-scheme-to-get-unqualified-applicants-admitted/

-Douglas Hodge, once the leader of an international bond manager and now an admitted felon, was ordered to spend nine months in federal prison for paying bribes totaling $850,000 to get four of his children into USC and Georgetown as fake athletic recruits.

Self-aggrandizing leadership culture on campus

-Lacys own view of a self-aggrandizing leadership culture on campus allowing Administrators to actually name structures after themselves and wives.

-Poorly advised Commission to change names of structures because of alleged and dubious racist past;

More college admissions and sex scandal

-Rick Caruso, Board Chairman, caught with young sorority girls, as well as his daughters friends, including one associated with bribery on his 200 foot yacht in Bahamas during 2019 Spring break. What do sorority girls do on a 200 foot yacht in Bahamas during Spring break? Lacy asks. (Caruso didnt exactly treat them to a visit to the British Museum.)

-Nikias, discredited President, still on campus. Million dollar salary. Represented in exit negotiation by a trustee lawyer. Ethical questions. Not appropriate discipline. Buys $4.1 million home in Manhattan Beach. How many University presidents do that? Lacy asks.

USC gave nearly $1 million to medical school dean linked to drugs

-The University of Southern California paidDr. Carmen Puliafito, its former medical school dean, nearly $1 million in severance along with a bonus, according to tax filings disclosed.

Puliafito was the subject of LA Times investigationin 2017 that revealed he used drugs and partied with young addicts while running the Keck School of Medicine.

In a settlement after USC banned him from campus, Puliafito was allowed to resign in September 2017, with the university giving him a $875,000 payout. That year, USC also paid him a $124,000 bonus.

USC Online degrees Social Work School scandal

-School of Social Work on-line degree scandal the start-up the university partnered with years ago. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-usc-social-work-20190606-story.html

USC pays up for poaching a star UC scientist

-Unethical poaching under USC President of other professors https://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=e4beee68-3140-4df8-a831-96b13ed49d22

Ex-USC assistant coach said he was forced out after reporting NCAA violations

-lawsuit by USC Assistant Coach for NCAA violation whistleblowing. Former USC Trojans defensive quality control assistant Rick Courtright alleged in a lawsuit Monday that undergraduate students were paid to pose as graduate assistants from the team to take online classes and receive graduate degrees, according to a 2019 report by the LATimes.com.

Courtright is informed and believes that USC banned him from the football department so that he would no longer be privy to multiple illegal activities in the department and therefore would not be able to report these activities, Lacy reported the lawsuit said.

NCAA hits USC with big punishments

-The NCAA threw the book at USC in 2010 with a two-year bowl ban, four years probation, loss of scholarships and forfeits of an entire years games for improper benefits to Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush dating to the Trojans 2004 national championship, Fox Sports reported in 2010. USC was penalized for a lack of institutional control in the ruling by the NCAA following its four-year investigation. The penalties include the loss of 30 football scholarships over three years and vacating 14 victories in which Bush played from December 2004 through the 2005 season.

UCLA epidemiologist calls out USC med school professors on big money research used to establish EPA regulations

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USC to Allow International Students to Take Free In-Person Class to Keep Visa - California Globe

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With another successful Commencement behind us, High Point University graduates are commencing prestigious career paths around the world at Fortune 500 companies, international service programs, public school systems, top-tier law, medical and graduate school programs, and many other esteemed organizations thanks to their journey at HPU. Heres a glimpse of one extraordinary senior from the Class of 2020:

Name: Emily Hahn

Hometown: St. Louis, Missouri

Major: Biology with a minor in psychology

Post-graduation plans: Hahn will be attending Belmont University for their Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing Program in Nashville, Tennessee.

How HPU helped you get there: The summer after freshman year I was blessed to be granted a position in the SuRPS program. This summer, I got a wonderful opportunity to partake in undergraduate research. During this time, I received the training necessary to carry out research throughout the rest of my college career. Being able to say I conducted cancer research from the time I was 19 definitely boosted my resume. Having a good resume was an extremely important part of being competitive in the graduate school application process. The Office of Career and Professional Development was an extremely helpful resource that I used to get help with my resume.

Most impactful mentor at HPU: I could not possibly narrow it down to one most important mentor. There are SO many people at HPU who have helped me grow and supported me every step of the way! Thank you to my second mothers Ms. Vernell and Ms. Melissa! These women made me feel at home from the second I walked onto this campus as a high schooler. They offered hugs and advice any time I needed it. In the biology department, Dr. Suh and Dr. Vigueira answered countless questions patiently. Dr. Vigueira was a different kind of science professor. He made students think about our futures. We didnt all have to be doctors or nurses. Science encompasses so many things and he stressed the importance of finding what you love. The last group of people that impacted me were the people at every restaurant on campus. They saw me at my most stressed and tired and somehow knew my bad days and made sure I took an extra dessert or some Cocoa Puffs for the road.

Most impactful moment at HPU: I would say my most impactful moment at HPU was the day I found out that we would not come back for my final two months of senior year. This moment made me realize how fulfilling the past four years have been. I look back at how afraid, young and immature I was and think, wow. I look back and know Ive blossomed into someone I consider extraordinary. I have met so many wonderful people who will push, even as an alumni. I have learned the skills necessary to be a competitive, kind, understanding, valuable member of society. I have had memories that could last a lifetime.

Advice for underclassmen: One piece of advice I would give to underclassmen is to not feel like you have to carry out your original plan. I began college with the goal of going to medical school. However, listening to medical students and being in a hospital setting made me realize that wasnt necessarily the right thing for me. I think a lot of students, myself included, get hung up on their plan. Deciding something isnt right for you now, is better than deciding something isnt right for you in 10 years! Dr. Qubein teaches us that if you want something you have to go out and get it; its not going to be given to you! That is true of your happiness too.

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Class of 2020 Outcomes: Emily Hahn Navigates to Nursing - High Point University

In the week after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, LaShyra Nolen was asked by her professors each day how she was doing.

To share how she was feeling, the first-year student at Harvard Medical School shared a poem on Twitter, explaining that she could no longer pretend to be okay. In her verses, she drew attention to the disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on communities of color, systemic racism, and police brutality.

The truth is Black students are NOT okay, she wrote.

Nolen, who is the first Black woman to serve as student council president at the institution, is no stranger to advocating for social and racial justice. The Harvard student told Boston.com she believes it is her responsibility to make sure she uses her growing platform in the medical field to fight for health equity and to help tell the stories of communities whose voices are not being heard.

In June, Nolen announced she and her classmates had launched a petition to rename the Holmes Society at Harvard Medical School, named after Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., citing his promotion of eugenics and violence toward Black and Indigenous peoples.

The same month, the medical student had an essay published in the New England Journal of Medicine that laid out the need for increased representation of Black people and minority populations in medical training, providing examples from her own training.

In one, she noted that her CPR training used mannequins with white male bodies. In another instance, she recalled that during a discussion about Lyme disease in a microbiology class the professor showed photos from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the red bulls-eye rash on white skin, only noting that it is more difficult to see the rash on melanated skin in response to a students question.

If medical students and trainees are taught to recognize symptoms of disease in only white patients and learn to perform lifesaving maneuvers on only male-bodied mannequins, medical educators may be unwittingly contributing to health disparities instead of mitigating them, Nolen wrote.

The California native said she knew since she was in third grade that she wanted to be a doctor, but her dedication and interest in addressing inequities stems from when she moved from Compton to the suburb of Rancho Cucamonga at the age of 10.

It was a completely different life, she said.

The roads were different, the access to basic needs everything was just so plentiful, and that was so different from my experience in Compton and in L.A. she said. That was when I really started to think about differences and race.

She continued to question the disparities she saw between the suburb where she lived, which was predominantly white, and her old neighborhood, which was predominantly Black and Latinx. Those questions took on another layer of urgency when she was 15 and a family member passed away from what she called a preventable death, from complications of obesity and diabetes.

It wasnt until she got to college and learned about the social determinants of health that she began to be able to articulate what shed grown up witnessing, she said.

I started to get a lexicon for all these different things that Id experienced in my childhood, Nolen said. Why we have these differences, how those differences then go on to impact your health, how that impacted my family. All of those things came together, and that is what really inspires my passion because Ive seen it personally. I still continue to see it.

Below, Nolen speaks more about the importance of activism in health care and the changes she hopes to see occur in medical institutions to address systemic racism.

The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Boston.com: The country is now in a moment of addressing two public health crises COVID-19 and racism. How does it feel to be a medical student right now, and what concerns do you have as efforts to address these two crises move forward?

LaShyra Nolen: Its such an interesting time to be a medical student, and I think its an especially interesting time to be a medical student at Harvard. Because here I am getting this amazing education Im learning about ace-inhibitors, Im learning about the pathophysiology of COVID-19. But even if I get the best education, even if I become the best surgeon, theres still a huge possibility that my patient could walk outside of the clinic and be stopped by a police officer. And if they move too quickly, they might end up losing their life. Or, its very possible that my patient will go back to a community where they dont have access to the basic needs that they need to live out a healthy life.

I think those are the conversations that were starting to finally have. Because it doesnt matter how good medicine gets at finding cures and doing research and pushing the envelope in the biomedical realm, [if] theres still going to be systemic inequity in our society.

If we dont address that, then were never really going to be able to help our patients have the best outcomes that they deserve. As a medical student, Im learning all this science, which is so key for treating your patients. But theres also work that needs to be done outside the clinic it cant stop there.

What were you hoping people would take away from the poem you shared on Twitter, and what was the response that you received after you shared it?

That poem came from a place of all of this turmoil around us being laid to bare. In one context, we have this global pandemic, COVID-19, ravaging through Black communities, Latinx communities, indigenous communities. Then concurrently we have this other pandemic that weve always known to exist systemic racism.

Were seeing so many Black peoples lives being taken on screens, being shown across the country, across the globe. And I was expected to come to class, and I was expected to pretend that everyone was OK. I was expected to just learn the pathophysiology, recite the things that I had studied the night before. That isnt just an experience of medical students its the experience of all Black professionals and all Black students. We have to separate our Blackness from our experience as students and professionals so often. And that was me just saying, Im not OK, and instead of you asking if Im OK, I want you to educate yourself and learn about why Im not OK and make sure that you arent complicit in the system that is contributing to the reason why Im not OK.

Thats really where that came from, and the response that I got from it was really positive. What always surprises me when I speak out is how much feedback Ill get from people who are higher up in the medical hierarchy. Residents and folks who are professors, and they say, Thank you for saying that. Because they dont have the space to say that and be vulnerable and feel comfortable and feel like their jobs arent going to be jeopardy if they say, Hey, Im not doing OK, and, You guys really need to address these issues that were experiencing. It just goes to show how the hierarchy of academic medicine can be harmful.

What do you see as the responsibility you and medical professionals have when it comes to activism? What role do you think doctors or health care professionals should be taking on when it comes to advocacy and social justice, and why do you think its important they are involved?

I think its extremely important. Number one, because I think physicians and health care providers should care about all things that affect their patients health. There have been numerous studies that have come out and shown that access to housing, access to education, access to basic human needs are what folks need to have the best health outcomes. All of that is so inextricably connected to sociology and history and psychology.

We cant continue to just stay in the realm of medicine, because our world gets the benefits from medicine. Almost 20 percent of our GDP comes from health care spending and costs. So we cant just pretend that medicine isnt a political issue, or that its completely separate. Its extremely important for us to not just stay in this lane of medicine because thats just the beginning. When we give the patient the medicine, we have to make sure that theyre able to afford it, we have to make sure that the pill bottle is in the correct language for them to understand, we have to make sure that theyre able to have transportation to get to the clinic. Its so important that we engage in activism because its going to be a huge part of maintaining our patients health and thats essentially what were supposed to be doing as healers.

Given the petition to rename the Holmes Society and your piece in the NEJM, can you speak more to the importance of health professionals addressing institutionalized racism within the institution of medicine and how that can be done?

These are the perfect examples of two buckets that I view advocacy and activism in. One bucket is the inward facing activism. The Holmes Society changing its name is an example of that, because here we have this society where students go to learn, students go to build relationships and form some of their fondest memories of medical school. But the namesake of this institution is someone who was a eugenist, someone who was known to be racist and was actively violent with their words towards indigenous and Black communities. When we have an individual like that representing this space thats supposed to be so wholesome and a safe haven, that can be really dangerous. That work needs to be done so that students of color Black students, indigenous students, Lantinx students can thrive and feel comfortable in these spaces. We cant continue to just recruit students of color and then not protect them when they get to these institutions. Protection goes beyond just evaluations and making sure that they feel like they can thrive academically and arent experiencing micro-aggressions. Its, Who are the people on our walls? How are we allowing violence to be perpetuated silently by who we allow to take up space in these institutions? That is why changing the name of Holmes is so important.

The New England Journal of Medicine piece came out of this idea of more outward facing activism. Even though its a change that needs to happen within the medical institution, if were graduating physicians who dont even know how to recognize key symptoms in patients of color or if we dont graduate physicians who understand the nuance of doing CPR on a person with breasts the fact that you have to take off that persons shirt and how uncomfortable that might be for that individual and talking about issues of consent its just so much more nuanced to the different things were learning. But we just ignore it. They call it the reference man we always use men as the reference, particularly white men. Thats so problematic because that can go on to perpetuate health disparities in the communities that we seek to serve.

If were going to be institutions that are mission-driven and we want to increase diversity within our medical school and we want to help mitigate health disparities, we have to look at the small insidious ways that we might be actually doing more harm than good. The worst part is that often Black students, the marginalized student, is often the person that has to put themselves out there to ask that question. And I think that in itself is a really big issue because why is that my non-Black peers didnt raise their hands and say, Hey, how would I recognize this in a patient with darker skin? Because those are going to be their patients, too. Thats the direction we have to move in this antiracist movement it shouldnt be that its always the responsibility of the marginalized person to stand up for the marginalized group. It should be a collective effort that we all value the humanity of all patients. And I really hope thats the direction that we go in.

In a speech last August, you addressed young Black girls, saying You cant be what you cant see when it comes to diversity in medicine. Can you speak to more of what you meant when you said that medicine will not progress without the diversity of having young Black women going into the field, and what changes do you want to see taken to ensure theres greater diversity?

I think it will play a very important role in the future. I personally did not see a Black doctor until the summer of my freshman year of college. I had gone through my entire life with this dream of becoming a doctor, and the reason why that dream was kept alive is because I had a grandmother and a mother who believed in me endlessly, even though they had never necessarily seen a Black doctor before. They just believed in me and they just breathed life into my dreams, but it wasnt until I saw that Black doctor that it all clicked, and I said, OK, it seems like its possible to actually achieve this dream. We have to start exposing youth to the sciences early on, and beyond just exposing youth to the sciences, we also have to mitigate the different forms of structural racism that are embedded in society. We have to think about, How is that when I build a new building for my medical school, that Im then taking tax revenue away from the city? And then, How is that going to affect how schools are able to invest in educational programs? We have to think about how we as institutions are complicit in systemic racism beyond just having these pipeline programs. We have to have a two-fold approach to addressing this issue of representation, but then also making sure that were doing the work to mitigate systemic racism.

Is there anything else you want to say or want people to know?

Antiracism has to be an every day, every moment work. It cant be something that only lasts this summer, it cant be something that only lasts in 2020. It has to be something that people are actively engaging in every moment of their life, because racism is so deeply embedded into the fabric of America and into the fabric of our everyday lives that we dont even realize it. Therere many different ways people can mitigate this, but its going to happen through uncomfortable conversations, speaking out against the ways that systemic racism has silently been able to fester in our academic environments, among other things. This work is uncomfortable and its ongoing, and we should never stop.

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LaShyra Nolen is pushing for change within Harvard Medical School. Heres what she wants you to know. - Boston.com

While tuition cost shouldnt necessarily be a deterrent from a career as a physician, the reality that the majority of medical students anticipate they will graduate with upwards of $150,000 in student-loan debtaccording to an AMA Insurance surveyis a daunting one.

Many students look for ways to lessen the tuition burden. Though not as widely available as they are for undergraduate study, medical school scholarships are available. It also can help save to stay in your state of residence for medical school and attend a public institution.

Paying public school tuitioneven for students who are not residents, in some casesis going to yield significant savings when compared with tuition costs at a private medical school.

A 2017 study based on tuition data gathered between 2006-16 found that the median cost of attendance for students paying in-state tuitionacross all statesover four years was $232,800. That figure compares favorably to the $306,200 four-year median cost of attendance for medical students attending private institutions over that time frame. Students attending public schools paying in-state tuition saved $73,400, according to the data.

That study also found that students paying in-state tuition had medical school debt loads that were about $20,000 lower than those attending private schools.

In-state tuition costs are always lower for residents, but the amount will vary. Based on data from the Association of American Medical Colleges, the most affordable medical school in the nation is Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. For in-state medical students the current cost of tuition, student fees and health insurance is about $19,000 per year. For out-of-state students that number is around $32,000. That 40% tuition increase for out-of-state attendees is a fair baseline for how most states charge studentsthough there are some very notable exceptions.

That math was a factor for Avani Patel, MD, when she decided to attend the University of Mississippi School of Medicine in Jackson. Im someone who doesnt like the idea of debt, said Dr. Patel who will begin her residency training in the psychiatry program at Mississippi in July. If youre getting a very similar education, why would you pay more unless you want to pay more for the name or prestige?

Selecting a medical school requires a student to have some idea of what they envision their training experience to be. Dr. Patel valued hands-on clinical experience above other factors such as research opportunities, which made Mississippi a fit.

When I was researching medical schools, I knew affordability was important, so was being close to family and also feeling Id be very clinically strong, she said. I didnt want to go somewhere where I wouldnt have a ton of hands-on experience. Sometimes that doesnt happen at larger more prestigious institutions because they have to work down the hierarchy ladder [of other trainees]. They have fellows and residents to factor in, so you are going to be the last one to get any hands-on experience.

As far as factoring tuition cost into your decision, Dr. Patel views it as a something that is personal.

I always say self-awareness is key, Dr. Patel said. This is a choice that you have to make when youre very young but try to understand when youre researching [medical schools] what you are taking in terms of potential debt.

If youre interested in primary care and know you most likely [will] pursue primary care in your career it might make sense to go for a more affordable option. Its going to be less of a debt load, and youre going to get a great education. If youre looking to be the top neurosurgeon in the country and you need the top-notch research, for you it might be worth taking on a much higher debt load if it means going to an institution with the prestige and the resources that might be able to provide the opportunities you are looking for.

Medicine can be a career that is both challenging and highly rewarding, but figuring out a medical schools prerequisites and navigating the application process can be a challenge into itself. TheAMA premed glossary guidehas the answers to frequently asked questions about medical school, the application process, the MCAT and more.

Have peace of mind andget everything you need to start med school off strongwith the AMA.

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How much can you save by staying in-state for medical school? - American Medical Association

The crisis the American people confronted on Oct. 4, 1957, seems almost quaint by current standards: Our Cold War nemesis, the Soviet Union, had launched an artificial satellite into low-earth orbit. The beach ball-sized object, known as Sputnik 1, exposed a purported technology gap between the Western powers and our Communist adversary.

The U.S. responded neither with despair nor confrontation. Rather, the event proved a mainspring for an extraordinary investment in science and technology, transforming school curricula and leading to low-cost loans for STEM students through the National Defense Education Act.

Sputnik I also inspired a generation of young men and women to pursue careers in space technology and related fields. Watching the satellite cross the West Virginia sky propelled future Rocket Boys author Homer Hickam to a job as a NASA engineer; the event drove Alan Shepard, the first American in space, to become an astronaut.

Americans today face a grave crisis in COVID-19. Yet as thousands of healthcare workers serve on the front lines, fighting the virus and caring for their fellow citizens, we have an opportunity to make this pandemic our Sputnik I.

Despite increases in medical school applications and leaps in therapeutic offerings, perceptions of the medical profession have been in decline for some time. A 2014 study by Robert Blendon and colleagues found that only 58% of Americans agreed with the statement, "All things considered, doctors in the United States can be trusted." That compared with 76% in Great Britain and 75% in France. Increasingly, the burdens of electronic documentation and lost autonomy have thinned the ranks of physicians and scared away would-be replacements. If that were not deterrent enough, the average medical school graduate now carries more than $200,000 in debt.

COVID-19 may change some of those perceptions. In New York City, physicians have been cheered the way first responders were hailed after 9/11. Should we be fortunate, this newfound appreciation will prove the first step toward recruiting a future generation of passionate researchers and clinicians.

But inspiration is not enough. If our society is to make the most of this challenging moment, we must re-envision the healthcare workforce. Community buy-in for public health measures is essential during a crisis. Having a physician to whom one can relate is just as crucial for optimal care in non-pandemic times. This is best achieved through a diverse corps of physicians whose backgrounds and experiences reflect those of the broader population.

We are not there yet. For example, Black men have suffered disproportionate mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the total number of self-identified Black males entering U.S. medical schools last year was 604. Other underrepresented groups include first-generation college students, those from low-income backgrounds, Latinos, Native Americans and veterans. Children of blue-collar workers, single parents, and the disabled still face counterproductive barriers to entry.

Several marquee medical schools now offer free tuition, while others cap debt. That is a step toward equity. However, this approach largely helps candidates already in the pipeline.

What is needed are free post-baccalaureate programs for highly talented individuals who did not have a meaningful chance to pursue science education in high school or college so they can complete the preliminary coursework necessary to apply. Alternative pathways to entry are also essential: linkage programs that guarantee admission to "career changers" as long as they meet certain academic benchmarks. Low-income students giving up stable jobs to pursue pre-med courses should know that there is place for them in a medical school class if they succeed.

Finally, the country desperately needs more medical schools. At present, the number of seats for students is set artificially low, which in turn generates higher reimbursement for doctors. Yet the patient demand, especially in primary care, continues to grow. In essence, in a world of markets, doctors belong to a medieval guild. Why not let anyone capable of practicing first-class medicine join the field?

Much as Sputnik I transformed American scienceultimately leading to the first human steps on the moonmedicine is ready for its own moon landing. Let us make this the positive legacy of the current tragedy.

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Let COVID spark a new drive to expand medical education - ModernHealthcare.com

The deans of University of California Health's six medical schools announced today (June 30) that all medical school, residency and fellowship interviews for the 2020-2021 academic year will be held in a virtual format. The decision creates a consistent approach of no in-person interviews so that all applicants who advance to the interview stage have the same setting for presenting their skills and are not encumbered by COVID-19 related travel concerns.

"We want to create an equitable process for all," said Dr. Cathryn Nation, vice president of health sciences for University of California Health. "Applicants to UC medical schools and residency programs rigorously prepare academically and usually travel for in-person panel interviews. We don't want these individuals to feel their chance for success is influenced by their ability to appear in-person at this time when the risk of coronavirus transmission remains a very real concern."

The announcement comes at the start of summer so that prospective students, residents and fellows can plan and prepare appropriately. Prospective medical school students typically submit their applications through the American Medical College Application Service in the summer with some applicants starting interviews in the fall. Those who apply for residencies submit applications by October. Students typically apply for fellowships, a phase of subspecialty training immediately after completion of residency, throughout the year depending on the area of specialization.

The shift to all remote interviewing was driven by a variety of factors including:

"We are adapting in real-time to unprecedented circumstances that disrupt typical practices," said Dr. Carrie L. Byington, executive vice president of University of California Health. "The shift to online interviews is consistent with our public health response to reduce the risk of viral transmission. Our goal is to support all applicants in pursuing their dreams without the additional stress related to the cost, logistics and transmission risk associated with interview travels."

This spring, UC medical schools also adapted 2020 Match Day ceremonies by moving to an online format. Match Day is when graduating medical students learn where they will serve their residencies, a critical step to become a licensed physician.

University of California Health's six medical schools - UC Davis Health, UC Riverside Health, UC San Diego Health, UCI Health, UCLA Health and UCSF Health - are all nationally ranked. UC's schools of medicine have approximately 3,500 medical students enrolled. Approximately 5,600 residents and fellows are advancing their post-graduation training in UC and affiliated hospitals.

About University of California HealthUniversity of California Health comprises five academic health centers, a community-based health system in Riverside and 19 health professional schools. All of UCs hospitals are ranked among the top ten in California and its medical schools and health professional schools are also ranked among the best in their respective areas. More information and news from University of California Health is available here.

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All UC Schools of Medicine to interview applicants virtually - University of California

The clock was ticking steadily as I finished the last medical consultation for the day. It was already 58 minutes past 1pm, and I was looking at my watch nervously, hoping that this was the last of the long list of queries that the patient sitting in front of me had. I had already politely refused consultation to a couple of patients who were late, something that my receptionist could not fathom. I did not blame him, for not only was I facing a lot of aggressive competition in my field of medicine, but also my comeback to practice was very recent that too for limited hours. And the message that his expressions always conveyed to me was: Such an attitude towards work will take you nowhere! An attitude that was clearly completely opposite to my colleagues.

Was my love for medicine lesser than his? No I dont think so.

It had taken passion and loads of hard work to sift through those years in medical school, far away from family and friends. Experiencing innumerable instances of utter embarrassment at the hands of professors during clinical rotations in internship and going through the intense stress of medical examinations during post-graduation.oh, noit had been no easy task. And I had loved every bit of it. The joy of dissecting a corpse, my first friend in this journey to becoming a doctor; buying my first anatomy kit of human bones and painfully learning the tongue-twisting Latin name for every bony landmark (I dont understand why simple English has never worked in medicine; you have to be a complete sadist to make the subject more difficult than it already is!); trudging through the narrow lanes of the small village to the primary health care center for my community medicine posting; operating my first hernia under the expert guidance of a senior surgery resident; or delivering babies in a small crowded government obstetric set-up (no, I am not a gynecologist or a surgeon)I enjoyed every bit of my journey towards achieving my goal.

Story continues

And then came the residency and consultancy jobs in hospitals. The back-breaking night shifts, the medical rounds of patients that I admitted and re-assessed multiple times in the nights to make sure my treatment was helping them, the critical patients that we lost in spite of my teams best efforts in the emergency room, the lengthy discussions I had with my colleagues about difficult cases, and the welcoming comfort of home that I reached back to exhausted to the core, yet exalted after a days worth of hard work. Yes, I had loved it all.

Yet, I was ready to give it all up when I became a mother.

Despite having a great academic record during medical school and loving my profession for what it was, my family and my relationships had always taken a precedence over my work. Was it right? I do not know. But when my daughter was born, I knew that her tiny being needed me the most in those early years; and I would not deny her what she rightly deserved.

Unwittingly, I became her constant companion, while my husband toiled at the hospital, equally, or maybe more passionate about his work than me. During those years, despite enjoying those joyful moments with my daughter, I had pangs of regret for breaking my careers journey and intense longings for going back as well. But the thought of leaving her alone with nannies and maids in a city that was always in the news for its crimes, gave me the worst possible nightmares. And as usual, I gave my family a precedence over my work. When my son arrived, at a time when I had just started working a few hours at our clinic, the cycle repeated.

And even now, since I restarted my work two years ago, albeit with limited hours, I try to make sure that I reach my six- and four-year-olds on time to pick them up from school and be with them during their time at home. I see mothers (and fathers) who are passionately toiling away at their jobs, while their children are being picked up by nannies and being whisked away from one activity class to another, until their parents arrive back home in the wee hours of the evening. I am passing no judgement here; I know that not everyone has the option to pick their children up, and Im privileged to have that ability. But the joy that you see in your childs eyes when he catches a glimpse of you at the school gate, the contentment you feel when you pick him up safe and sound, the excitement in his voice when he chatters non-stop about his day at school (and believe me, the excitement is at a different level when parents are at the listening end), the satisfaction of seeing him eat his meal properly under your supervision, the joy of being able to spend some time with him playing or reading before he retires for the night these little moments are irreplaceable and will never come back.

Do I miss my work? Oh yes! Tremendously! I see colleagues of mine doing so much more, and so much better, than me. I see cases landing in emergency that I would love to handle, but I am no longer a part of that department. I see mothers at school looking incredulously at me for being there every day, dropping and picking up my kids what kind of doctor does that? And I wish tremendously that I could go back to full-time work at the hospital a place I loved, a profession I loved, a job I slogged at for so many years. But I see much younger colleagues taking up the mantle and I wonder if I will ever fit the profile once again.

Not that it takes away anything from my present day work profile that entails outpatient consultations and outpatient procedures, and yet keeps things flexible for me. The procedures are specialized, done by only a few in India, where I live, and I had the opportunity to study and learn them during my full-time job of parenting. It has given me a niche area of expertise, and I love the few hours I can devote fully to the job I have presently chosen. It may not compare to what I had aspired for and loved so much, but I am grateful for it, hoping that these baby steps will lead me to more fulfilling heights. Because aspirations and passions never die they always hunt you down!

Would I do things any differently if given a chance to turn back the clock? No, I dont think so. I may have missed out a lot in my career, but my childrens growing years will never come back, and missing out on them would have been the biggest regret of my life. Seasons are often fleeting; they come as fast as they go. It is evident in the rapid pace at which babies grow up. We should embrace these seasons or else we miss out on the beauty of each one. After all, we only have a small window of opportunity to shape our childrens hearts and minds.

Its a coincidence that all of us, my two sisters and I, have scaled down our full-time professions to take care of our families; maybe its the genes, or maybe its the sheer joy we felt to have our mother around us always.

There are days when one feels wasted and frustrated, days when one wants some relief from the constant responsibility of the family, days when one just wants to turn the clock back but it takes a lot of love, passion, hard work and sacrifice to balance the things that are important to oneself.

I hope that someday we can go back to taking out time for ourselves, doing the things we love, going back to jobs that we cherish, being who we were without guilt or hesitation. But for today, the best thing we can give our children is time.

See the original article on ScaryMommy.com

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I Went Through Medical School For A Career I Loved And Put It To The Back Burner For My Kids - Yahoo Lifestyle

For many fourth-year medical students, the process of applying to residency is marked by anxiety, fierce competition for a select number of spots and, often, difficulty gauging which residency programs are most likely to meet their needs.

Its a scenario that has led many students to send out dozens of applications in the hopes of increasing their odds of matching into a program, consequently adding to their own stress and forcing programs to wade through an inordinate pool of candidates.

To help MD and DO students and international medical graduates make better-informed decisions about where to apply, the AAMC has partnered with eight national boards and associations that play critical roles in medical education and licensure to develop Residency Explorer. The tool, which launched on June 26, is intended to give medical students a clear picture of how they compare in experiences and exam scores to applicants who matched previously to programs, as well as provide dozens of characteristics of specific residency programs.

Students told us that the information they previously had access to was fractured, incomplete, and unreliable, says William Mallon, EdD, AAMC senior director of strategy and innovation development and one of the leaders of Residency Explorer. Students had difficulty finding any one source that had everything they needed.

Residency Explorer is designed to personalize medical students search for residency programs by allowing each student to create a profile that represents what they will be putting on their applications, including exam scores, peer-reviewed publications, volunteer work, and research experiences.

Once a student has created a profile and selected a specialty, they can refine the results to be limited to a certain state, region, or distance from ZIP code.

The tool will then show the student how they compare to applicants who matched with specific programs from 2016 to 2020 in each of the various criteria.

Students told us that the information they previously had access to was fractured, incomplete, and unreliable.

William Mallon, EdDAAMC senior director of strategy and innovation development

Beyond matching criteria data, the tool provides a page for each residency program that gives a snapshot of its characteristics, including how many people applied and what percentage were offered an interview, the programs self-reported USMLE or COMLEX-USA exam score ranges or minimum requirements, salary and benefits information, average hours per week a first-year resident works, the demographic makeup of the residents, and other information.

Students can select multiple programs and the tool will generate a spreadsheet to show side-by-side comparisons on the various metrics.

David Bernstein, MD, MBA, first learned about Residency Explorer when it was in its initial phases and he was serving as the chair of the AAMC Organization of Student Representatives. At the time, he was a fourth-year medical student at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and he was beginning to think about his own residency applications.

He was happy to hear that there would be a reliable source of information that could help him as he began the process of narrowing down which programs he would pursue.

Theres a lot of unverified data and information out there, Bernstein says. Understanding that this was coming from the keepers of the true data was of interest to me and of value to me.

He notes that he and his peers could turn to mentors and advisors for guidance about various programs, which was helpful, but he believes that the verified data provided by Residency Explorer helped give him a more complete picture.

You didnt have that before, he says. It was just a guesstimation.

Bernstein is now starting his first year of residency in orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School, a program he chose because he believed it would not only prepare him to be a great surgeon but also foster his interests in patient advocacy, public policy, and the business of health care.

Right now, the students apply to a lot of programs and see what programs offer them an interview. Its like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Donna Elliott, MD, EdDVice dean for medical education at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California

Its factors like these that should play a major role in matching decisions for both students and residency programs, says Donna Elliott, MD, EdD, vice dean for medical education at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.

The students have trouble figuring out at the 30,000-foot level whats a good fit, she says. The values, the opportunities, the patient populations does it match what Im interested in?

Shes seen students become overwhelmed by options, with those pursuing particularly competitive subspecialties applying to as many as 120 residency programs.

Right now, the students apply to a lot of programs and see what programs offer them an interview, she explains. Its like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Research conducted by the AAMC shows that there is a point at which a students chances of matching does not increase with the number of additional applications. That number can vary by specialty and depends on the students testing scores, but it suggests that students can save time, money, and administrative hassle by limiting the number of programs to which they apply.

Elliott believes Residency Explorer will take some of the guesswork out of the process and may help applicants make better informed decisions about where to apply. In turn, that could potentially help residency programs by giving them fewer applications to consider.

And with fewer submissions to sift through, Elliott hopes that, in the future, residency programs might be able to loosen up on policies that disadvantage learners with lower testing scores in favor of looking at each student as a whole.

The program will put a filter at [a USMLE score of] 240, she says. Programs are probably missing some excellent residents when they do that.

The path to Residency Explorer began several years ago when nine national associations and boards came together to help students with the struggles they faced in transitioning from medical school to residency. In addition to the AAMC, the groups were the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, the American Medical Association, the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, the Federation of State Medical Boards, the National Board of Medical Examiners, the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners, and the National Resident Matching Program.

Our organizations realized that none of us had all the data and information that students wanted to help them make more confident decisions about where to apply, Mallon explains. But if we pooled our resources, we could provide a tool with the source-verified information that students desired and could trust.

After building and testing multiple prototypes with input from scores of medical students and their advisors, the organizations launched Residency Explorer on June 26, designed for rising fourth-year medical students and applicants for the 2021 ERAS and Match season.

This is one piece of a very complex, high-stakes, high-stress period in the life of medical students and others applying to residency, and this tool addresses one of those factors that contribute to that.

Angelique JohnsonAAMC senior director of integrated learner services

In feedback provided on the 2019 working prototype, 9 out of 10 users said that, after using the tool, they felt more confident about which programs to apply to and more informed about the characteristics of their programs of interest.

This is one piece of a very complex, high-stakes, high-stress period in the life of medical students and others applying to residency, and this tool addresses one of those factors that contribute to that, says Angelique Johnson, AAMC senior director of integrated learner services and one of the leaders in developing Residency Explorer. Thats one thing we can move out of the way.

This year is proving even more stressful than usual for fourth-year medical students.

On top of the anxiety that comes with applying to residency, students are now having to deal with the disruptions that have come with the COVID-19 pandemic. These include all-virtual interviews, not being able to visit a program or do audition rotations, and changes to the application timeline.

It was already stressful, and I think this year is even more so, says Samuel Bunting, a rising fourth-year medical student at Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science and an AAMC student representative.

He began using Residency Explorer when it was in a testing phase to get a sense for the psychiatry residency programs he might want to pursue.

Now, hes looking forward to the relaunch of the tool with more complete and up-to-date data as he works toward identifying the roughly 50 residency programs he plans to apply to this October.

Whats been nice is looking at specific programs beyond their STEP score being able to look at what they place importance on, Bunting says. Now, more than ever with this modified cycle, having that data is going to be really important.

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Applying to residency? The Residency Explorer tool can help - AAMC

Defund the police has become one of the slogans of the protests shaking our nation amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. But what does this term truly mean, and could defunding the police be helpful for both the police and the healthcare community? Here, we define why reallocating police funds to health services could be in the best interest of both parties.

Defunding the police represents a divest and invest model: a fraction of the polices revenue is taken and diverted somewhere else. There is proof of concept that this process works: the police department in Camden, NJ was dissolved and recreated as a smaller force in 2012. By reorganizing the police department and drastically reducing their funding, the city of Camden was able to allocate money towards the partnership between police and social services. This changed the culture of the police in the city; rather than antagonizing one another, residents and officers entered a mutual partnership. From increased hiring of Black and Brown officers to visiting individual homes simply to say hello, this department achieved effective community-oriented policing. As a result, crime decreased forty-two percent over seven years, and the people of Camden felt safer. The point is clear defunding leads to more effective policing and lower violence.

Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it alarmingly clear that our healthcare system is not funded adequately. As an example, we look at our own community. Our medical schools free clinic, aptly named Bridge to Care, is located in Prince Georges county in Maryland. The community largely benefits from this clinic location because of the especially high rate of uninsured patients in Prince Georges county. Over the course of this pandemic, Prince Georges county recorded over 17,000 cases, the highest among any county in Maryland. According to the fiscal summary, the approved 2020 budget for Prince Georges county police department is $367,280,300. Unfortunately, the funding for the health department for a community in dire need of affordable medical care was merely 25% of that, at only $93,472,500.

Allocating a portion of these funds from the police department to the health department would provide great benefit to the marginalized Black and Brown populations that attend free clinics. The abilities of our free clinic and many others are largely limited by funding. In our case, limited remote electronic medical records access, telemedicine ability, limited public insurance and inadequate supply of PPE have all significantly slowed down the pace at which we admit and care for patients. Many, if not all, of these issues could be rectified with increased monetary support, which is why we believe that the divest and invest model from the police department to healthcare services could make a meaningful impact on community health and social support.

While healthcare communities need money to treat physical ailments, there is another aspect where our clinic remains inadequate: mental health. Many patients do not have the means to afford regular visits to mental health professionals. There are compelling reasons to divert police funds into this sector of healthcare. People with mental illness account for only 3-5% of violent crimes, yet they are ten times more likely to be victims of violence compared to the general population. Specifically, there are numerous reports of people with mental illness being shot and killed by police. Let us examine the NYPD: in 2015, the City Hall established a crisis intervention training to educate police officers on methods of de-escalating encounters with mentally ill suspects. Theres significant evidence that officers who undergo such training have reported improved attitudes and reduced stigma. For example, CIT-trained officers are less likely to escalate to the use of force in confrontational encounters.

As of last year, however, just 11,970 of the NYPDs 36,753 officers have been formally trained in de-escalation, and it is unclear if the remainder will ever receive the necessary training. Only a small portion of the NYPDs massive funds would be required to address the mental health crisis by hiring mental health professionals in high-need areas. Divesting from law enforcement will not necessarily hurt police departments; however, investing these funds in mental health and medical services could drastically improve healthcare outcomes.

With the recent news revolving around the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, a significant portion of the population is distressed and threatened by those who are meant to protect us. We believe that to see the necessary changes nationally, we need to counter the funding imbalances between police spending and healthcare budgets. With targeted interventions such as funding free clinics or diverting resources towards mental health, the United States may be able to address both its police problems and the health crises affecting its most vulnerable neighborhoods.

Image Credit: Defund the Police projections in Seattle(CC BY 2.0)byBackbone Campaign

Contributing Writer

The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Sangrag Ganguli is a second-year medical student at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington D.C. In 2017, he graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts in biological sciences. In 2019, he received his masters in immunology from Harvard University. He enjoys working out, reading, and FaceTiming his family. After graduating medical school, Sangrag would like to pursue a career in general surgery.

Contributing Writer

The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Varun is a medical student at The George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, DC 23. In 2018, he graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelors degree in neuroscience. He enjoys cooking, meeting new people, and playing tennis in his free time. Varun would like to one day pursue a career as a physician educator/researcher.

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Here's Why Defunding the Police Can Change Medical Care for the Better - Pager Publications, Inc.

Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center.

During a family medicine rotation at Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU), third-year medical students are preparing for a patient visit. Only, instead of entering a clinic room, students sit down at a computer. The patient they're virtually examining a 42-year-old male cattle rancher with knee problems is an actor.

He asks for an MRI. A student explains that kneecap pain calls for rehab rather than a scan. The patient pushes back. "It would ease my mind," he says. "I really need to make sure I can keep the ranch running." The student must now try to digitally maintain rapport while explaining why imaging isn't necessary.

When COVID-19 hit, telehealth training and remote learning became major parts of medical education, seemingly overnight. Since the start of the pandemic, students have contended with canceled classes, missed rotations, and revised training timelines, even as the demand for new doctors grows ever more pressing.

Institutions have been forced to rethink how to best establish solid, long-term foundations to ensure that young doctors are adequately trained. "They may find themselves the only doctors to be practicing in a small town," said Stephen G. Post, PhD, bioethicist and professor at New York's Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. "They have to be ready."

With limited hands-on access to patients, students must learn in ways most never have before. Medical schools are now test-driving a mix of new and reimagined teaching strategies that aim to produce doctors who will enter medicine just as prepared as their more seasoned peers.

Soon after starting her pediatrics rotation in March, recent Stanford University School of Medicine graduate Paloma Marin-Nevarez, MD, heard that children were being admitted to her hospital for evaluation to rule out COVID-19. Marin-Nevarez was assigned to help care for them but never physically met any an approach called "virtual rounding."

In virtual rounding, a provider typically goes in, examines a patient, and uses a portable device such as an iPad to send video or take notes about the encounter. Students or others in another room then give input on the patient's care. "It was bizarre doing rounds on patients I had not met yet, discussing their treatment plans in one of the team rooms," Marin-Nevarez said. "There was something very eerie about passing that particular unit that said, 'Do Not Enter,' and never being able to go inside."

Within weeks, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) advised medical schools to suspend any activities including clinical rotations that involved direct student contact with patients, even those who weren't COVID-19positive.

Many schools hope to have students back and participating in some degree of patient care at nonCOVID-19 hospital wards as early as July 1, says Michael Gisondi, MD, vice chair of education at Stanford's Department of Emergency Medicine. Returning students must now adapt to a restricted training environment, often while scrambling to make up training time. "This is uncharted territory for medical schools," Gisondi said. "Elective cases are down, surgical cases are down. That's potentially going to decrease exposure to training opportunities."

When students come back, lectures are still likely to remain on hold at most schools, replaced by Zoom conferences and virtual presentations. That's not completely new: A trend away from large, traditional classes predated the pandemic. In a 20172018 AAMC survey, 1 in 4 second-year medical students said they almost never went to in-person lectures. COVID-19 has accelerated this shift.

For faculty who have long emphasized hands-on, in-person learning, the shift presents "a whole pedagogical issue you don't necessarily know how to adjust your practices to an online format," Gisondi said. Instructors have to be even more flexible in order to engage students. "Every week I ask the students, 'What's working? What's not working?' " Gisondi said about his online classes. "We have to solicit feedback."

Changes to lectures are the easy part, says Elisabeth Fassas, a second-year student at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Before the pandemic, she was taking a clinical medicine course that involved time in the hospital, something that helped link the academic with the practical. "You really get to see the stuff you're learning being relevant: 'Here's a patient who has a cardiology problem,' " she said. "[Capturing] that piece of connection to what you're working toward is going to be tricky, I think."

Some students who graduated this past spring worry about that clinical time they lost. Many remain acutely conscious of specific knowledge gaps. "I did not get a ton of experience examining crying children or holding babies," said Marin-Nevarez, who starts an emergency medicine residency this year. "I am going to have to be transparent with my future instructors and let them know I missed out because of the pandemic."

Such knowledge gaps mean new doctors will have to make up ground, says Jeremiah Tao, MD, who trains ophthalmology residents at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. But Tao doesn't see these setbacks as a major long-term problem. His residents are already starting to make up the patient hours they missed in the spring and are refining the skills that got short shrift earlier on. For eligibility, "most boards require a certain number of days of experience," he said. "But most of the message from our board is [that] they're understanding, and they're going to leave it to the program directors to declare someone competent."

Robert Johnson, MD, dean of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, in Newark, says short-term setbacks in training likely won't translate into longer-term skill deficits. "What most schools have done is overprepare students. We're sure they have acquired all the skills they need to practice."

To fill existing knowledge gaps and prevent future deficits, institutions hope to strike a balance between keeping trainees safe and providing necessary on-site learning. In line with ongoing AAMC recommendations, which suggest schools curtail student involvement in direct patient care in areas with significant COVID-19 spread, virtual rounding will likely continue.

Many schools may use a hybrid approach, in which students take turns entering patient rooms to perform checkups or observations while other students and instructors watch a video broadcast. "It's not that different from when I go into the room and supervise a trainee," Gisondi said.

Some schools are going even further, transforming education in ways that reflect the demands of a COVID-19era medical marketplace. Institutions such as Weill Cornell Medicine and OHSU have invested in telemedicine training for years, but COVID-19 has given telehealth education an additional boost. These types of visits have surged dramatically, underscoring the importance of preparing new doctors to practice in a virtual setting something that wasn't common previously. In a 2019 survey, only about a quarter of sampled medical schools offered a telemedicine curriculum.

Simulated telehealth consults such as OHSU's knee-pain scenario serve several purposes, says Ryan Palmer, EdD, associate dean of education at Northeast Ohio Medical University, in Rootstown. They virtually teach skills that students need such as clearly explaining to patients why a care plan is called for while allowing the trainees to practice forging an emotional connection with patients they are treating remotely.

"It's less about how you use a specific system," said Palmer, who developed OHSU's TeleOSCE, a telehealth training system that has interested other schools. He sees this as an opportunity, inasmuch as telemedicine is likely to remain an important part of practice for the foreseeable future.

To that end, the AAMC recently hosted an online seminar to help faculty with telehealth instruction. But training such as this can only go so far, says Rutgers' Johnson. "There are techniques you do have to learn at the patient's side."

Johnson says that a traditional part of medical school at Rutgers has been having students spend time in general practitioners' offices early on to see what the experience is like. "That's going to be a problem I expect many primary care practices will go out of business. Those types of shadowing experiences will probably go away. They may be replaced by experiences at larger clinics."

Some learning in clinics may soon resume. Although fears about COVID-19 still loom large, Tao's ophthalmology residents have started taking on something closer to a normal workload, thanks to patients returning for regular office visits. As people return to medical facilities in larger numbers, hospitals around the country have started separating patients with COVID-19 from others. Gisondi suggests that this means medical students may be able to circulate in nonCOVID-19 wards, provided the institution has enough personal protective equipment. "The inpatient wards are really safe there's a low risk of transmission. That's where core rotations occur."

In settings where patients' viral status remains uncertain, such as emergency wards and off-site clinics without rapid testing, in-person learning may be slower to resume. That's where longer-term changes may come into play. Some schools are preparing digital learning platforms that have the potential to transform medical education.

For example, Haru Okuda, MD, an emergency medicine doctor and director of the Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation at the University of South Florida, in Tampa, is testing a new virtual-reality platform called Immertec. Okuda says that, unlike older teaching tools, the system is not a stale, static virtual environment that will become obsolete. Instead, it uses a live camera to visually teleport students into the space of a real clinic or operating room.

"Let's say you have students learning gross anatomy, how to dissect the chest. You'd have a cadaver on the table, demonstrating anatomy. The student has a headset you can see like you're in the room." The wrap-around visual device allows students to watch surgical maneuvers close up or view additional input from devices such as laparoscopes.

Okuda acknowledges that educators don't yet know whether this works as well as older, hands-on methods. As yet, no virtual reality system has touch-based sensors sophisticated enough to simulate even skills such as tying a basic surgical knot, Gisondi says. And immersive platforms are expensive, which means a gap may occur between schools that can afford them and those that can't.

The long-term consequences of COVID-19 go beyond costs that institutions may have to bear. Some students are concerned that the pandemic is affecting their mental well-being in ways that may make training a tougher slog. A few students graduated early to serve on the COVID-19 front lines. Others, rather than planning trips to celebrate the gap between medical school and residency, watched from home as young doctors they knew worked under abusive and unsafe conditions.

"Many of us felt powerless, given what we saw happening around us," said recent University of Michigan Medical School graduate Marina Haque, MD. She thinks those feelings, along with the rigors of practicing medicine during a pandemic, may leave her and her colleagues more prone to burnout.

The pandemic has also had a galvanizing effect on students some excited new doctors are eager to line up for duty on COVID-19 wards. But supervisors say they must weigh young doctors' desire to serve against the possible risks. "You don't want people who have a big future ahead of them rushing into these situations and getting severely ill," said Stony Brook's Post. "There is a balance."

All these changes, temporary or lasting, have led many to question whether doctors who complete their training under the cloud of the pandemic will be more or less prepared than those who came before them. But it's not really a question of better or worse, saysRutgers' Johnson, who stresses that medical education has always required flexibility.

"You come into medicine with a plan in mind, but things happen," he said. He reflected on the HIV pandemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s that influenced his medical career. He hopes young doctors come through the COVID-19 crucible more seasoned, resilient, and confident in crisis situations.

"This is a pivotal event in their lives, and it will shape many careers."

Elizabeth Svoboda is a science writer in San Jose, California. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Discover, and elsewhere. She is also the author of What Makes a Hero?: The Surprising Science of Selflessness.

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How Well Trained Is the Class of COVID-19? - Medscape

When 7-year old Owen McKay says, I swim in hot weather, his mother Dr. Sandra McKay hears so much more like progress and perseverance in the face of a coronavirus challenge.

McKay, a Missouri City resident, can tell that her son has perfected the s in swim and is almost as accomplished with the th in weather. These are milestones McKay assumed would be postponed during the pandemic, when Owen was away from his speech therapist provided through Fort Bend ISD.

That is until a group of students at McGovern Medical School created the Covert Undercover Virus Response Team to find ways to help faculty during the pandemic. Their effort has made a world of difference for Owen.

Hes actually progressed, McKay said. And I was shocked.

Owen was 4 years old when McKay and her husband noticed he struggled with certain sounds. Owens parents could understand him. We had the attitude that well just give it a little more time, McKay said.

As preschool approached, making sure other students and teachers could understand Owen became a top priority.

The Fort Bend ISD diagnosed Owen with an articulation disorder a problem with pronouncing certain sounds, which often includes substitution of one letter for another.

Treatment for articulation disorder is speech therapy, and Owen made quick progress with a professional assigned to help him through the school district. Before long, he conquered k and g.

Then COVID hit, McKay said.

The district provided a packet of information to continue Owens speech therapy at home.

But Im not a trained speech therapist, McKay said.

Still, in addition to being a busy pediatrician and assistant professor of pediatrics at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, McKay took on the role of Owens speech therapist, teacher and parent, taking turns with her husband.

The McKays two older children, Emily, 16, and Jacob, 12, were able to adapt to their online classes and were self-sufficient. But Owen needed more time and help. And after the first week or two, he began getting frustrated with his parents becoming his speech therapist and teachers as well.

Then McKay stumbled upon a solution.

Students at the McGovern Medical School Michael Bagg, Helen Burks, Bili Yin and Kyle Meissner approached her with an idea to start the Covert Undercover Virus Response Team. They asked her to share the concept with faculty colleagues and gauge their interest. McKay agreed to pass along the information and jumped at the opportunity, asking if anyone would be willing to help Owen.

My kid needs some help, she explained.

Bagg explained that the idea for the group started soon after the coronavirus forced him and other medical students to take classes online.

People go to med school because theyre an altruistic bunch, Bagg said. And just because they were sent home did not mean their desire to help went away. We wanted to brainstorm how we could still contribute, while also doing everything safely.

At first, that meant helping connect medical facilities in need with personal protective equipmentand providing child care for physicians on the front line.

Theyre still at the hospital, and their kids were home from school, Bagg said.

Some students wanted to help in other ways including those who had returned home to other cities during the lockdown. They realized they could offer virtual tutoring services for children of attending physicians and residents regardless of where students sheltered in place.

We wanted to do something that doctors would want, Bagg said. We wondered if there was anything we could do virtually. We settled on tutoring. It really gives parents a break, and its a way to engage with kids that was safe.

Med students, for once, had free time. Bagg said the question became, How do we use it?

First-year medical student Caroline Andrews, 23, felt the same way. After a couple weeks with her family in Dallas, she fell into a routine with her studies and online lectures. She remembers thinking, I just wish there were something I could do to help.

Then she saw Bagg post a sign-up sheet for the Covert Undercover Virus Response Team on the McGovern Medical Schools Facebook page.

I had done some tutoring in the past, she said. I thought, this is definitely something I can do.

Andrews signed up right away. A couple of days later, she received a text about Owen.

Ive never done speech therapy before, but Ill definitely try, she responded.

McKay explained to Andrews how to work on the sounds with Owen. Andrews also watched some YouTube videos to prepare for her tutoring sessions. For the past couple months, Andrews has met with Owen for 15 minutes each day.

We started with s, and now hes mastered those, Andrews said. Hes also doing so well on th. The next one, were doing is r.

Even though the sessions are short, Andrews said Owen has made serious advances in his speech.

Its been so cool to see how these small, consistent routines can pay off, she said. Having that consistency in a time thats so uncertain is probably good for him, too.

Helping Owen has only increased her desire to work with children as a pediatrician.

He makes me laugh, Andrews said. Its confirmed to me that there are so many ways to help people. Right now, thats not working on the front line but there are always ways to help.

Thats exactly what the Covert Undercover Virus Response Team is all about. While med students werent quite ready to join the doctors on their rotations, the group still found a way to safely make a difference.

These students are incredible, said McKay. They latched on to figure out exactly what the faculty needed. They were reaching out to help the community, and that speaks volumes about their character. Im excited about the future of medicine.

Shes also excited about Owens progress.

I never expected Owen would actually make progress, McKay said. I was aiming for, Lets not regress.

Not only did he not lose the advances that he made, but the Covert Undercover Virus Response Team is helping him continue to move forward.

Owens come such a long way already, McKay said. We dont have to worry about him making s sounds anymore.

Lindsay Peyton is a Houston-based freelance writer.

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How Houston med students are helping doctors through the pandemic - Houston Chronicle

The process of becoming a physician is a journey that starts for each of us at a different point.

For me, it started with a traumatic event a life-threatening injury that I suffered in the sixth grade after a fall through a window, which resulted in substantial blood loss and progressed to hemorrhagic shock. I did not fully understand my proximity to an untimely death until many years later as a surgical intern on the trauma surgery team at Tampa General Hospital at the University of South Florida.

By then, I was far along on my individual journey, one that included catalysts as well as areas of struggle and achievement. Without question, those who are making this journey during the COVID-19 pandemic are facing challenges unlike any in the history of medicine. Many have had disruptions in their undergraduate education or gap year in preparation for medical school. They have had disruption in their ability to take the MCAT exam. And those who are applying to medical school this year will likely face additional disruptions, through virtual rather than in-person interviews.

But I would like you to know that however different the process is this year, it is being shared by premed students all over the United States. One of the advantages to the current way in which most medical schools admit students is the use of a holistic admissions process to decrease emphasis on any specific test (MCAT) or GPA and rather emphasize an individuals journey to becoming a physician and the distance traveled in getting there. Many medical school applicants will have poignant stories related to their respective journeys and, undoubtedly, most will include specifics related to the current pandemic. These stories should be included in applications as a sign of strength and resilience. And while it is true that many applicants will have missed some opportunities for in-person clinical or research experiences during the pandemic, most of the premed students I advise have taken this time to connect and grow in other meaningful ways that will contribute to their career paths and their application processes.

For those of you applying to medical school this year, I would encourage you to think about the application process as a journey that will require perseverance and, for some, perhaps another application cycle. If medicine is your passion, embrace this path forward as well as the experience and always keep learning and growing as you move forward.

In my years as dean of the school of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, I frequently share the following insights, which are even more pertinent during these challenging times:

First, the calling to become a healer and a physician is one of the greatest endeavors that a human can embark upon. It has been this way since the dawn of time and in every culture and every era. That journey is enriched by the special trust and bond that occurs between patient and doctor, and it is strengthened by the expectation of humanism, empathy, and social justice that is at the core of medicine. I would encourage all physicians-to-be, wherever the path takes you, to ensure that social justice is rooted in your outlook for your career and more broadly your communities. As physicians, you will have the ability and opportunity to change not only your patients outcomes but also those of your communities and the broader world.

Second, the path you are choosing will include struggle but also enormous reward. The struggles will include the choices between dedication to patients or time with family. They will include the enormous difficulty around maintaining well-being in the face of many pressures, demands, and illnesses. They will include finding paths to increased health equity when so many disparities occur in our current society and systems of providing care. The rewards will include the ability to put someones arm back together (if you are a surgeon) so that they can live life to its fullest. They will include helping to heal other parts of the human anatomy in different specialties as well as knitting together hearts and souls in a rewarding and lasting way. And, in times when your skills and the current knowledge available are not able to offer a cure, you will be with your patients and their families at an incredibly vulnerable time but also a time when your words, touch, and emotion can provide bridges to healing of another sort.

Finally, the process of becoming a physician is a journey that should never end. It certainly does not end when the medical school dean hands out a diploma bearing the initials MD behind ones name for the first time. It does not end after residency or even when one feels they have mastered the craft of their respective discipline. With changing technology and information medical knowledge now doubles about every 20 to 30 days (a significant increase from approximately every five years when I was in medical school!) physicians can never be complacent. Even in retirement, we will always be doctors, possessing the responsibilities that come with the title and continuing to make those around us, and the world, a better place. For those of you just now beginning your journey, I hope it is successful and I look forward to the day, in the not-too-distant future, when we will be physician-colleagues.

Joseph Kerschner, MD, is dean of the school of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, provost and executive vice president of the Medical College of Wisconsin, and chair of the AAMC Board of Directors.

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The pandemic has disrupted medical school admissions. I urge you to apply anyway - AAMC

Health workers and others rallied in Seattle during a Doctors For Justice event on June 6, protesting police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's death. Medical training needs a hard look too, doctors say: Students of color and LGBTQ people often bear the brunt of what can be a bullying culture. David Ryder/Getty Images hide caption

Health workers and others rallied in Seattle during a Doctors For Justice event on June 6, protesting police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's death. Medical training needs a hard look too, doctors say: Students of color and LGBTQ people often bear the brunt of what can be a bullying culture.

As doctors and nurses across the United States continue to gather outside hospitals and clinics to protest police brutality and racism as part of the White Coats for Black Lives movement, LaShyra Nolen, a first-year student at Harvard Medical School, says it's time to take medical schools to task over racism, too.

The fight for equality in medical education isn't new, says Nolen, the first black woman to serve as Harvard Medical School's student council president. But she's hopeful that the national conversation around racism in society will force hospitals and medical schools to address racism within their own institutions.

"It wasn't until over a week of riots that people started to pay attention," Nolen says. "We bring black med students to these institutions, and they fill quotas, and they make institutions look good. But we're not protecting them. We need to protect them."

Studies show that students of color and those who are LGBTQ are more likely than other classmates to experience mistreatment during their training. Research published earlier this year in JAMA Internal Medicine, for example, suggests that minority students are more likely to face discriminatory comments, public humiliation and inappropriate sexual advances during their medical education.

Nolen has been heartened by the outpouring of online and in-person activism she's seen, ranging from Twitter testimonials to opinion pieces in major medical journals. She's been involved in efforts at Harvard and nationally to combat racism in medical education.

But there is much work to be done, she says.

The JAMA Internal Medicine study of more than 27,500 medical students in 2016 and 2017 found that 38% of students nationwide from racial and ethnic groups that are under-represented in medicine including students who are black, Latino or Native American reported mistreatment. That's compared to only 24% of white students across the U.S. who said they had been mistreated during medical school.

The results raise questions, the study authors say, about racism in medical education and its implications for the persistently low numbers of people of color who become doctors.

"If these small disadvantages accrue throughout medical school, it could be contributing to keeping certain populations out of medicine," says Katherine Hill, the study's lead author and a medical student at Yale. "Discriminatory comments can have a negative impact both on the people who are targeted, and on bystanders."

Hill and her team used a data set known as the Association of American Medical Colleges Graduation Questionnaire. It's a survey about medical school experiences that almost every medical student completes right before graduation, covering topics ranging from student debt to how prepared they feel they are to practice medicine. The data in Hill's study included responses from about 72 percent of all med school graduates in 2016 and 2017.

Mistreatment during training was a major focus of the survey. Students were asked if they had been publicly humiliated, for example, or been asked to perform sexual favors in exchange for good grades, or been subjected to offensive remarks or names.

More than 35% of the students responding to the survey said they had experienced some kind of mistreatment during medical school.

"It's almost part of the medical school culture that a faculty member may try to embarrass you or humiliate you," says Dr. Dowin Boatright, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Yale and the study's senior author.

The roots of that bullying culture in medical training are complex, Boatright adds, but he guesses it often occurs in high-stress environments in the hospital, or because it's perceived as an accepted hazing ritual.

Previous research corroborates Boatright's observation that these kinds of experiences are common for students of all races, particularly during clinical training, when students are no longer in the classroom. During that clinical period, students are the least powerful members of a hierarchy, joining teams of medical residents and attending physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals as they care for patients.

What's new in his study, Boatright says, is just how much more likely minority students are to experience this harassment, bullying behavior and abuse.

Women and students who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender were also more likely to experience mistreatment, whatever their race or ethnic group. Above 40% of women reported that they experienced mistreatment, compared to about 25% of men. Similarly, about 43% of LGBTQ students reported an incident of mistreatment, while just over 23% of heterosexual students did.

Boatright and Hill both note that not only are minority students more likely to experience racist or bigoted incidents, they are also more likely to experience mistreatment in general such as being humiliated in front of a team even when the harassment doesn't seem specifically related to race or ethnicity.

Take the experience of Dr. Michael Mensah, who had to listen as one of his professors repeatedly used the N-word at work when Mensah was a medical student in 2015 at the University of California, San Francisco.

Mensah, who is now a psychiatry resident at the University of California, Los Angeles, says he and colleagues were sitting in a hospital workroom at the time, listening to music as they prepared to round on their patients. A song came on that used the expletive. To Mensah's shock and to the shock of everyone else on his team his supervisor casually repeated the expletive multiple times.

"I had a repugnant choice: swallow my lump of anger and sadness to preserve group harmony, or risk my grade and reputation by confronting my superior," he wrote in a 2017 essay in JAMA Internal Medicine about the incident.

More than five years later, the words still sting.

"If that person was willing to speak so frankly to us, and so rudely ... Imagine how that person treats their patients of color," Mensah tells NPR.

While he says he heard from many other students who experienced racism during training physicians mocking non-white patients, peers telling their classmates of color they were accepted to medical school because of their race some other people who read the essay dismissed his experience as a one-time incident.

Instead of questioning whether structural racism might be built into medical training, they dismissed that supervising physician as "only one bad apple," Mensah says.

Evidence from the JAMA Internal Medicine study and others like it confirm that these types of racist incidents are common in health care.

"It really validates my personal experience, which is remarkable because of how isolating these experiences can be," he says. "It makes clear that I wasn't the only one to experience differential, unequal and discriminatory treatment. It helps me feel like what I went through wasn't my fault."

Mensah worries that the prevalence of mistreatment toward students of color, women, and LGBTQ students has another legacy: normalizing discrimination in health care, and ultimately affecting the way future doctors treat their patients.

"There's a direct link between this abuse and how some of our health care disparities play out," he says.

Now, Mensah is focusing much of his energy on addressing racism in health care institutions. He recently wrote, along with several co-authors, an op-ed in Scientific American about how the misuse of medical language in George Floyd's initial autopsy report overemphasized the role of coronary artery disease and hypertension in his death.

Mensah also spoke at a rally this month in Los Angeles sponsored by White Coats for Black Lives. But because there are still such persistently low numbers of black people working in medicine, Mensah found himself addressing a sea of white faces.

"I was the only black male there, unfortunately," he says.

Mara Gordon is a family physician in Camden, N.J., and a contributor to NPR. You can follow her on Twitter: @MaraGordonMD.

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Medical Schools Taken To Task Over Racism, Hazing And Other Abuse : Shots - Health News - NPR

The nation is likely to be short of physicians until 2067 even if the government increases the annual quota of medical school admissions by 1,500 from 2021, a study showed.

The study assumed that the current supply and demand of physicians remain at a desirable level. The university entrance quota is now set at 3,058 students for medical schools.

Professor Hong Yun-chul of Seoul National University College of Medicine released the Research on the Optimal Level of Physicians Manpower at a round-table meeting, which celebrates the 28th anniversary of The Korean Doctors Weekly on Friday. The meeting was broadcast live on a YouTube channel K-Healthlog, operated by The Korean Doctors Weekly.

Hong led the study, which was commissioned by the Korean Hospital Association.

According to government statistics, Korea had 2.3 clinicians per 1,000 people as of 2017, which was the lowest among OECD members. The OECD average is 3.4 clinicians per 1,000 people.

On the other hand, a Korean patient went to see doctors 16.6 times a year, which was the most among OECD members. The average number of hospitalization was 18.5 days in Korea, the second-longest in OECD.

Korean doctors amount of labor is 3.37 times larger than the OECD average, according to Hong.

Hong predicted the number of outpatients and hospitalizations based on Statistics Korea's population data. He forecasted that the demand for outpatient care would peak in 2043, which will be 1.24 times higher than the current level. The demand for hospitalization is expected to peak in 2059, which will be 2.56 times larger than it is today.

Assuming that the supply and demand of physicians in 2018 were appropriate and increasing the quota for medical school admissions from 2021 will fail to prevent a shortage of doctors until 2067, the study showed.

If doctors retirement age is assumed to be 70 years old and the medical school admission quota is maintained at 3,058, the nation will be short of 55,260 doctors, Hong went on to say.

Even if the government expands the university quota by 1,500 from 2021, Korea will be short of up to 27,755 doctors in 2048.

Pushing up the retirement age at 75 years old and assuming the elderly doctors aged 65 or more have 50 percent productivity, an increase of medical university quota by 1,000 will still fail to prevent a shortage of physicians until 2067. Hong went on to say.

Hong emphasized that the country needs to address the imbalance of physician supplies among regions rather than the shortage of overall doctors.

In 2045, the total number of physicians will fall short of the demand, but those in Seoul will be in oversupply, he said.

In 2020, 15 percent of the total population will be aged 65 or more. In 2030, the proportion goes up to 25 percent, Hong said. This means not only the elderly population but their diseases will increase. It is highly likely that the medical demand will surge.

However, it is still controversial whether Korea is short of doctors because the nation is suffering from a severe imbalance of physician supply among regions, Hong noted.

Without addressing the regional imbalance, it is difficult to relieve the shortage of physicians, he added.

soo331@docdocdoc.co.kr

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[Special] 'Korea will be short of doctors even with more medical school admissions' - Korea Biomedical Review

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Medical school Dean and MFA CEO Barbara Lee Bass said the initiative will have a "durable" and "sustainable" impact within the medical school and beyond.

School of Medicine and Health Sciences officials announced the creation of an anti-racism coalition at a recent medical school and Medical Faculty Associates town hall, according to arelease Friday.

The Anti-Racism Coalition will focus on four pillars of anti-racism work, including individual, interpersonal, institutional and structural forms of racism, according to the release. Interim Senior Associate Dean for Diversity and Faculty Affairs Yolanda Haywood who will co-lead the coalition with former National Institutes of Health anesthesiology chief Karen Williams said all members of the GW medical community must engage in anti-racism work.

While the Anti-Racism Coalition will be housed within the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, this work does not belong to any one person or any one group, Haywood said in the release. All of us will be included in this fight, and each of us should take responsibility for anti-racist work.

The idea for the coalition resulted from a grassroots discussion between Haywood and medical school Dean and MFA CEO Barbara Lee Bass following the police killing of George Floyd, according to the release.

Either you are an anti-racist or you are not, Haywood said. And if youre not, then you need to start educating yourself. If you are, then you need to further educate yourself. We are all in this together.

Bass said the initiative will have a durable and sustainable impact within the medical school and beyond.

It is my hope that we use this genuine moment in our history to utilize all of our tools to craft a new normal relative to race, equity, integrity and opportunity, Bass said. A new normal that fights for true equality for all. Weve got a lot of work to do, but it is our responsibility to take advantage of this moment and create something that will make a difference.

This article appeared in the June 26, 2020 issue of the Hatchet.

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School of Medicine and Health Sciences to form anti-racism coalition - GW Hatchet

EAST LANSING Going to medical school was always part of the plan for Mohaymin Kadir.

He grew up in Hamtramck where many of his neighborslackedaccess to affordable medical care and affordable nutrition. Sometimes, he did, too.

Kadir's sense of the health care system'sdeficiencies was only sharpened during his studiesat the University of Michigan, where he earned a master's degreeinpublic health focusing on epidemiology.

I learned more about the disparities and how they cement themselves, said Kadir,who was born inBangladesh. We need more diversity in medicine and more representation to sustain positive change in medicine.

Which is why he'sstarting this fall at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, one ofthousands of hopefuls who submittedapplications to the College of Human Medicine and other medical schools around the state, one of the successful ones.

Lots of people want to be doctors these days.

Nearly 9,000 prospective students have applied for seats in the next 190-student class, said Joel Maurer, assistant dean of admissions for the MSU College of Human Medicine,up from 7,959last year.

For the entering class of 2019, six of Michigan's medical schools received 43,602 applications,up 4,193 from 2018 and up 15,157 from 2014. These numbers likely reflectprospective students submitting applications at multiple medical schools.

The number of applicants nationwide trying to get into medical schools also grew, hitting53,371 prospective studentsin 2019. That comparesto 49,480 in 2014 and 33,623 in 2002.

This means more people are vying for spots in what's become a significant competition. To meet the demand, some schools increased their class sizes or are considering expanding.

TheCMU College of Medicine accepted 64 students for its first year in 2014 and increased the class size to 104 for each year since, Austin said.

The medical schoolcould consider adding 20 more spots to the incoming class in 2021, he said.

TheWestern Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, a private school affiliated with WMU, first accepted a class of 54 students who graduated in 2018. Since then, the class size has grown to 60, to 72 and now to 84 students, according toJean Shelton, WMed assistant dean of admissions and student life.

A sign at the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing, Michigan.(Photo: LSJ file photo/Derrick L. Turner)

Some schools, like the MSU College of Human Medicine, say they're at capacity with their current class size of about 200 students. Hiring more faculty and adding more training space and buildings at their East Lansing and Grand Rapids campuses would be the only way to increase the class size, Maurer said.

They may have to consider changes as more people apply.

The University of Michigan Medical School saw 7,896 applications submitted in 2019, about 2,269 more than in 2011.

Medical schools across the board have seen more and more applicants in recent years, including the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine, which received 6,653 applications in the last window, said Katherine Ruger, the college's associate dean of admissions and student life. That's up from the 6,169 applications in 2019 and a growth from 5,015 in 2014.

Enrollment officials from different medical schools pointed to a variety of reasons for the trend. Ruger suspects this year's applicants had more time for submissions since COVID-19 shut downs reduced their opportunities for traveling, working or volunteering.

The MSU College of Human Medicine's efforts to increase marketing and recruitment and additional work to increasepublic interest in science, medicine and human service may have helped, Maurer said.

It was the human service aspect and helping the underserved, an element of the College of Human Medicines mission statement, that brought Momodou Gobi Bah across the world to pursue a career in medicine.

He grew up in Gambia, a country in western Africa where Bah said there aren't enough hospitals and medical facilities. Hedreamed of studying medicine at a university and coming back to help his country.

Momodou Gobi Bah will train to become a physician at Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine starting this fall.(Photo: Momodou Gobi Bah)

I would love to know, looking at a patient, that I can help them and two weeks later the patient gets better, he said. Its a powerful feeling and I want to be a part of that world.

Central Michigan University began training future physicians in 2013. Thenumber of applicants has jumped every year since.

That first year, 2,765 students applied. The 2019 application window hit 7,442 applications, with nearly 7,000 applications so far for 2020.

Wayne State University School of Medicine, the only medical school in Detroit, may be helped by its urban environment, said Kevin J. Sprague, associate dean for admissions and enrollment management.

Wayne State has seenthe number of applicants nearly double since 2014, when the medical school received 4,588 applications, according to Sprague. In 2019, the number hit 9,993.

Wayne State is an excellent school in an inner-city, urban environment, Sprague said. Its an excellent place for medical education.

More applicants could mean more doctors to address the country's physician shortage.

In an April 2019 study, the Association of American Medical Colleges projecteda total physician shortage nationwide of between 46,900 and 121,900 by 2032. Included in that is a projected primary care physician shortage of21,100 to 55,200 physicians.

The growing number of applicantsis a good sign for those concerned about the coming shortage, saidGeoffrey Young, senior director ofstudent affairs and programs for the Association of American Medical Colleges.

"It really demonstrates a strong interest in a career in medicine," he said. "This is what we think is critical as the nation faces a shortage of physicians."

And at CMU, Austin expects the COVID-19 pandemic will motivate even more people to go into the medical field, bringing another spike in applications.

Seeing more and more people succumb to the coronavirus made Khaleel Quasem more determined than ever to enter the fight.

The MSU College of Human Medicine accepted Quasem, from Marquette, into its next class of future physicians. He comes from a family of doctors, including his father and several uncles, but he didnt feel pressure to follow in their footsteps.

Rather, thepath leading him to medical educationstarted when he wasa food service worker in the University of Michigan health system. He later becamea phlebotomist. It was when he began shadowing physicians at Memorial Endocrinology in Owosso and Marquette Internal Medicine and Pediatric Associates that it became clear the career he would choose.

Watching physicians helping the thousands of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and making dramatic changes to work styles so they can continue caring for patients fighting the contagious disease madehim want to be a part of it.

In the end, we will get through the coronavirus pandemic, but only in a way that we would be much better off than we were before, Quasem said. In a decade from now, health care education will look back on this and use it as a lesson on what we did right, what we did wrong, and how to combat a situation if it happens again.

Eneka Lamb(Photo: Eneka Lamb)

The pandemic has highlighted howeasily public health can be politicized, which disappointed Eneka Lamb, who once thought medicine was apolitical.

Still, political infighting over the disease hasnt pushed Lamb away from pursuitof a medical career. She came from Hong Kong to complete her undergraduate education at Duke University and now plans to start at the MSU College of Human Medicine in the fall. The coronavirus galvanized her desire to become a doctor.

I really dont fear going into the medical field, she said. I feel a little bit antsy. I want to hit the ground running as quickly as possible.

For many students entering medical school this comingfall, helping with future disease outbreaks is just a piece of why they chose to study medicine.

Kadir still doesnt know the area of medicine he wants to specialize in. Maybe infectious disease, he said, or a public health specialty.

He hopes to shine a light on the health disparities many people face, especially people of color. COVID-19 helped bringthe issue to light death rates were higher in communities with larger populations of African-Americans and other people of color, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

People who have looked into it have always been aware of it, Kadir said. I think having more people from that background in positions of power is key to sustain change.

Contact Mark Johnson at 517-377-1026 or atmajohnson2@lsj.com.Follow him on Twitter at@ByMarkJohnson.

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There's a pandemic and a physician shortage. In Michigan, more people are applying to med school - Lansing State Journal

UPDATED

Written long ago but resulted in a very painful trigger for many of you

Before I cant breathe became the rallying cry of the Black Lives Matter movement, the phrase was simply a direct way for patients to tell medical personnel that they couldnt breathe.

Medical patients may want to find a new way to convey their pulmonary distress, lest they be accused of triggering someone.

The Indiana University School of Medicine apologized to students for a question on a cardiovascular exam that included the phrase I cant breath[e], according to screenshots of the question (above) and message to seniors in All Sections (below) that were forwarded to The College Fix. The question reads:

A patient who missed dialysis suddenly becomes pale, diaphoretic, and screams, I cant breath! [sic] You glance at the monitor and notice the following rhythm. You are unable to palpate a pulse and initiate immediate CPR. The most appropriate next step in therapy is: [the options for answers are not visible]

The apology message, which is undated, was written by Daniel Corson-Knowles, assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine.

We are very sorry to have included content, specifically the words used to express difficulty breathing, within a case presented last week in the cardiovascular quiz in a context that was insensitive and upsetting due to the similarity to phrases associated with the killing of George Floyd and several other instances of police violence against black people in the U.S., he wrote. (The phrase took on political significance, however, because Eric Garner said it several times as New York City police pinned him down.)

Seeing the phrase in this context resulted in a very painful trigger for many of you, and the school adjusted this material as soon as we learned of this oversight on Friday, Corson-Knowles continued. (This is dubious: Robby Soave at Reason said he reviewed messages in an online chat forum from the class, which suggested most students did not seem personally offended by it, but rather were worried that others were offended.)

Corson-Knowles said the question was written long ago and reflected phrasing that patients might use when experiencing cardiac or pulmonary difficulties, but that does not excuse the school for not catching this very phrase and removing it when preparing the quiz material.

The professor added that the school was in the process of reviewing practices cases for the potential presence of intrinsic bias, microaggressions and other content that can help perpetuate stereotypes and affect how students feel, learn, perceive and treat their patients and how this translates into patients outcomes.

The medical student who shared the screenshots wrote in an email that the IU School of Medicine education overall has been effective at preparing me for a career in medicine, but this apology for a quiz questions phrasing is among the incidents that give me pause:

This is the most recent and most egregious example of the PC, trigger warning, and safe space culture that has permeated my education. [] I find it unacceptable and outrageous that my institution of medical education is not only allowing the training of physicians who can be upset and destabilized by extremely common patient presentations, but is consistently encouraging and supporting such an attitude. These are future physicians who will be expected to save lives in difficult circumstances. []

Ihave to say, this should be concerning for anyone who may find themselves in an emergency room in the future.

The student continued that many classmates expressed their outrage and fear at the prospect of being required to attend their clinical rotations during the beginning of COVID-19, slandered those who protested the lockdowns, audibly defamed the president and conservatives during class time, yet still had the ability to be active participants in the round of protests in Indianapolis and on the IU campus.

Other parts of the med school curriculum are feeding lack of trust in healthcare professionals, the student said, including required classes that teach us that transgenderism is not something to question and that gender identity can and should be chosen by pre-K children without any sort of parental interference or input.

UPDATE: Robby Soave at Reason said he reviewed classmates discussion of the quiz phrasing in an online chat forum, finding few personally offended by it. The new material has been added.

MORE: Georgetown med school will fight microaggressions for years to come

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Medical school apologizes for 'I can't breathe' question on cardiovascular quiz: 'insensitive and upsetting' - The College Fix

Fourth-year medical students across Canada are reporting stress and "agony" as the major standardized test that marks their transition from med school to residency has faced technical and communication problems.

The nine-hour Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination Part 1 made a major shift to online testing with remote supervision through virtual proctors because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there have been a series of system failures during the first month of exams.

More than 7,000 people have registered to take the test between June and September, according to the Medical Council of Canada (MCC). About a third of them are set to writethe exam remotely. It's administered by Prometric, a U.S. company.

Some medical students only agreed to speak to CBCNews on the condition of anonymity because they feared professional repercussions for speaking out against the MCC, their accrediting body.

One Ontario-based medical student saidshe was repeatedly kicked out of the online exam and struggled to be readmitted.

"I felt like it wasn't testing our knowledge, it was testing our endurance to deal with technical issues," she said.

The student said she had issues getting a Prometric security representative on video call to check her room for banned items a requirement to write the test which forced her to quit the exam and re-enter twice before she even got started. It then got worse.

"I was kicked out of the exam six times," she said. "I honestly felt like no one was on my side."

She said she rushed through her answers because she feared being forced to rebook the $1,300, day-long test at a later dateand having the qualifying exam the culmination of years of study hanging over her head for much longer.

"I'd spent so much time studying for this exam, and the exam was not even representative of how much time I studied because I was just rushing through to try to click as fast as I could," the studentsaid.

Another Ontario medical student also told CBC that his systemcrashed before he submitted the exam. This was after his virtual proctor warned the studentthat he could no longer see or hear him through his computer.

"I knew I would've had two hours remaining. Because of the system crash, that time was taken away from me," he said.

"There's no way to describe this exam as standardized or fair by any means."

Dr. Valerie Lavigne, a fourth-year student atMcGillUniversity in Montreal, said she was only able to sign up for overnight exams with start times of 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. because she required special accommodation.

Lavigne is pregnant and was entitled to extra bathroom breaks. Although she was eventually able to rebook her test during the daytime, she calledthe situation "stressful."

Dr. Adrianna Gunton, a student at the University of Sasktchewanin Saskatoon, had moved back to Kamloops, B.C., due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. She said she would haverather writtenthe test at an in-person test centre, but there were none nearby.

Gunton said no proctor was monitoring her progress during the test.

"I was just concerned that my exam would be void if I didn't have a live proctor watching me the whole time," she said.

She tried to contact Prometric during her lunch break, but it was unable to reach her proctor. So Gunton said that after her break,she redid the security check for the camera by herself, but she still doesn't know whether the lack of supervision means her test is invalid.

"For me, that's almost two weeks sitting in agony wondering about this exam, if it's going to count."

More than 2,000 people have now joined a closed Facebook group to share their frustrations about the examand pass on tips abouthow to avoid technical issues.

The MCC said about 300 students who haveso far taken the test remotely have raised issues ranging from difficulty starting the exam at home tosystem failures. Almost 1,200 remote tests have been administered.

Dr. Rishi Sharma, education director ofthe Canadian Federation of Medical Students, said students are frustrated.

"We're kind of in limbo and we don't have much support," Sharma said. He managed to take the test without incident last week, but he chalks that up to luck.

WATCH: The director's perspective

"This is an exam that runs roughly eight to nine hours, so having gone through that much time and effort, to have all of that crash and to have to reschedule that exam is unfair," Sharma said.

He said the MCC and Prometric have been pointing the finger at each other, with students caught in the middle.

"Students largely want the MCC to be accountable for these issues and compensate students because we're not typically writing the examination as it normally would," he said.

In a written response to CBC's questions, the MCC said the problems with remote exams have been "unacceptable," and it is working every day to improve the situation.

"We are meeting twice daily with Prometric senior executives to develop solutions to all reported issues, in particular those related to test accommodations, hardware compatibility, proctor responsiveness and connectivity before and during the exam," Dr. Maureen Topps, the council's executive director and CEO, said in the statement.

The MCC said candidates writing at test centres are using the same interface as people takingthe examat home and it's the same system that was used last year.

In a statement, Prometric, the U.S. testing company, blamed the bulk of the issues on internet connectivity, especially when both the med student and the remote proctor are using home wireless connections.

"The MCCQE Part 1 is the first full-day (nine-hour) professional health-care assessment program to utilize an online remote assessment platform. There is inevitably risk that accompanies innovation of new solutions," the statement said.

Prometric has set up a toll-free helpline to assist students and isworking on reopening additional in-person testing locations across Canada.

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Med school final exam plagued with technical issues after moving online due to COVID-19 - CBC.ca

Wayne State University recently established theBoard of Governors Warrior Unsung Hero Awardto honor those Warriors whose selfless efforts reflect the universitys mission of meaningful engagement.

The Board of Governors selected four recipients, two of them medical students at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. Rafael Ramos and Lianna Foster-Bey, both members of the Class of 2022, were given the award virtually during the board meeting June 19.

In April 2020, Foster-Bey created and organizedfield hand-washing stations around Detroitfor those who do not readily have access to running water. The medical student continues to check and refill hand-washing stations as part of an ongoing effort.

A member of Street Medicine Detroit, Foster-Bey is also on the leadership team of the Street Medicine Institute Student Coalition. Upon discovering that the Detroit Police Department has been moving homeless encampments during the COVID-19 pandemic, she coordinated with multiple groups on how to best provide support to any members of the homeless community who have been moved against their will.

Her classmate, Ramos, has been using his3D printer to make personal protective equipment (PPE)for clinics, hospitals and medical student-run free clinics. He has been producing these items from his apartment, personally providing the funds for his ongoing efforts.

Ramos is in the universitys M.D.-Ph.D. combined degree program. He has also brought face shields, ear savers and additional PPE to health care centers around Detroit, including Cass Clinic, Community Health and Social Services Center and Corktown Health Center.

In May 2020, members of the Wayne State community were invited to help the board identify faculty, staff and students for this award. Nominations were subsequently reviewed by members of theBoard of Governors.

It was a joy for me and others on the Board of Governors to review these nominations, said Chair Marilyn Kelly. What stood out among the nominees was their empathy, ingenuity, creativity and selflessness in volunteering time and, in some cases, their own money to others at Wayne State and to many in Detroits vulnerable populations.

The third Board of Governors Warrior Unsung Hero Award is Suzanne Brown, who spearheaded Wayne State Universityscrisis hotline for health care workersin metro Detroit, which launched in April 2020. A joint collaboration between the universitys School of Social Work and College of Nursing, the crisis line offers free, confidential support to doctors, nurses and other first responders working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The fourth Warrior Unsung Hero is David Zarrieff. In April 2020, Zarrieff created theServing our Seniors (S.O.S.) programto meet the needs of a particularly vulnerable population. Three days a week, he leads members of the Wayne State University Police Department (WSUPD) in checking on seniors living in the Woodbridge area near campus. During these checks, WSUPD officers ensure that the seniors are physically well and determine any immediate needs.

For more information about the Board of Governors Warrior Unsung Hero Award, please visitbog.wayne.edu/warrior-unsung-hero-award.

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Board of Governors recognizes two medical students with Warrior Unsung Hero Award - The South End

Kamini Parekh-Lemme of North Canton recently earned a nursing degree, years after just missing out on her chance to go to medical school.

Sometimes the harder road in life leads to a greater reward. Just ask Kamini Parekh-Lemme of North Canton.

Her dream of nursing began 25 years ago. As a teenager, she graduated from high school and took an exam for entrance to medical school. She missed the required score by a fraction of a point. This led her to earn a degree in architecture, her second choice.

In 1999, her family (a husband and two daughters) moved to Ohio to be closer to family members. Four years ago, she left an abusive marriage and started her new life. This is when her medical dreams came back to her. She enrolled in Lorain County Community College.

Parekh-Lemme now has earned her associate degree in nursing. Students will go on to take the state exam to become registered nurses. Once she officially passes the exam, she will begin work as an RN in the heart and lung transplant floor at Cleveland Clinic.

She also has earned the colleges Florence Nightingale Award. The Nightingale Award recognizes student nurses who give back to the profession, exemplifying the characteristics of Florence Nightingale.

"I had to deal with immigration issues, a divorce, three moves, working full-time with myself and both of my daughters (Tosha and Disha) all in college at one point, and I got married last June," she said. She is remarried to Don and now has a son named Kyle.

"And I thank God for giving me strength, wisdom and the persistence to pull through" Parehk-Lemme stated.

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The University of Mount Union has earned the honor of being named a national College of Distinction. This marks the third consecutive year for the award.

They received special recognition for its programs in education, engineering and nursing due to their comprehensive course material as well as practical and soft-skills development.

The university was also honored for its work in career development for students upon their graduation.

"We complete a thorough review of the programs before granting the honors," said Tyson Schritter, chief operating officer for Colleges of Distinction. "Were looking for qualities such as accreditation, breadth of program, advising and mentoring, integration of career services and successful outcomes for students. Its wonderful to see how Mount Union really exemplifies these qualities."

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The Mercy Sleep Disorders Center has been recognized for excellence by the American Association of Sleep Medicine Accreditation.

They are recognized for its demonstrated expertise and commitment in treating patients with sleep disorders and includes the Mercy Sleep Disorder Centers, located at Mercy Medical Center and Mercy Health Center of Jackson.

Sleep centers accredited by the AASM must demonstrate a commitment to the highest quality of care in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. AASM accredited facilities have a board-certified sleep medicine physician, who leads a sleep team of trained health care professionals.

To become accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, sleep centers must comply with the AASM Standards for Accreditation, the gold standard for patient care in the sleep field. These requirements incorporate the latest diagnostic and treatment advances, and these standards ensure that sleep centers provide high quality, patient-centered care.

"Mercy is dedicated to improving the quality of care for our sleep disorder patients so we are very pleased to again earn the American Association of Sleep Medicines accreditation," said Jackie Paulik, RRT/RCP, BS, Administrative Director, Respiratory, Sleep Neurology and Vascular Services at Mercy Medical Center. "This accreditation is a testament to our dedication and achievements in the sleep field and I am very proud of our teams."

Send tips about acts of kindness, anecdotes, honors or other items of interest to Necole Sims, Around Town, The Repository, 500 Market Ave. S, Canton OH 44702, necole.sims@cantonrep.com, or fax them to 330-454-5745.

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Around Town: North Canton woman reaches her medical goal - Canton Repository