Rowan University adopts test-optional admissions policy for 2021 – Rowan Today

Rowan University is joining the ranks of many of the nations top colleges and universities in adopting a test-optional admissions policy for 2021.

The decision to make the SAT or ACT exam optional stems from the struggle high school students face this spring to take those tests the COVID-19 outbreak has made sitting for an exam difficult or impossible.

Many students and families face challenges due to the pandemic and this policy will alleviate some of the stress involved with the college application process, said Dr. Jeffrey Hand, senior vice president for Student Affairs.

Many top colleges and universities, including Yale, Brown, Cornell and Harvard announced in recent weeks a decision to suspend, for one year at least, the requirement for prospective undergraduate students to submit the standardized test scores due to challenges in scheduling for them.

Rowans decision to go fully-test optional, and to rely on other means such as high school grades, activities and essays, would apply to freshmen applicants seeking admission for spring or fall 2021.

Rowan has had a test-optional admissions policy for several years, but it has been limited by major and required a minimum 3.5 high school GPA.

Exceptions to the test-optional policy include students seeking admission to Rowans 3+4 medical program through Cooper Medical School of Rowan University or the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine;homeschooled students; and students applying for admission with a GED.

While Rowan has always taken a holistic approach to applicant evaluation, more emphasis will now be placed on transcripts, curriculum, GPA, recommendations, essays, activities and leadership, Hand said.

For years, the SAT and ACT tests have been falling out of favor with admissions officers nationwide with many believing that high school transcript, GPA and curriculum provide a better assessment of future success.

For more information, please visit the Rowan University Admissions page.

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Rowan University adopts test-optional admissions policy for 2021 - Rowan Today

Medical school appoints new wellness lead to help doctors in training – The Sudbury Star

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine has announced Dr. Louise Logan will lead the schools program that helps doctors in training stay well.

She will begin her duties at Lead Clinician of the Resident Wellness Program with the Postgraduate Medical Educations Wellness Office on July 1.

This is a critical role at NOSM and Im very proud to pass the baton to Dr. Logan, Dr. Jonathan DellaVedova said in a release. I look forward to supporting her transition into this role and seeing her further develop the Resident Wellness Program, said Dr. DellaVedova, the schools inaugural Lead Clinician of the program.

His term ends Sept. 30, with overlap for a transition.

Dr. Vivian Leung, the chief resident in general surgery, sat on Dr. Logans interview panel as the NOSM resident representative.

Dr. Louise Logan continues to be a strong resident advocate, qualities she has exemplified since her time as chief resident. She stands out and we are thrilled that she has accepted this critical role at NOSM, Dr. Leung said.

Dr. Logan is Francophone from Northern Ontario and the current Emergency Medicine Clerkship Lead for NOSM in Sudbury.

She is an emergency physician and Medical Lead of Continuous Quality Improvement for the Emergency Department at Health Sciences North.

Dr. Logan holds an undergraduate degree at Laurentian University, an MD at the Universit de Montral, and Family Medicine and Special Competency in Emergency Medicine training from the Northeastern Ontario Family Medicine Program.

She was a founding member of NOSMs Francophone Reference Group, as well as several NOSM administrative committees including Admissions and Learner Affairs and, sat as a member of the NOSM Board of Directors and Academic Council.

The NOSM PGME Wellness Office and the Lead Clinician of the Resident Wellness Program are available to residents for coaching and guidance on wellness issues and resources.

Any resident experiencing academic or occupational distress is encouraged to reach out for support. Visit the Resident Wellness page for more details.

sud.editorial@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @SudburyStar

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Medical school appoints new wellness lead to help doctors in training - The Sudbury Star

Dr. Hopson left lasting legacy on Vicksburg and Warren County – The Vicksburg Post – Vicksburg Post

With more than five decades in the medical field, Dr. Briggs Hopson Jr. touched countless lives and influenced those who followed.

He has been described as a gentleman, a family man, a mentor and a visionary.

On Saturday, Hopson died. He was 82.

Briggs has been a leader in our medical community for almost 50 years, Dr. Paul Pierce III said. He has been very important to Vicksburg medicine and to me in particular.

Pierce recalled the impact Hopson had on his decision to go into the medical field.

I started out as an engineer and when I first started thinking about going to medical school, I went to Briggs to get his advice and he was encouraging, Pierce said. I started talking to Briggs on a Sunday and the next day Briggs called me up and wanted to know if I could come talk to Dr. Rowlett and I did.

All three men had been part of the 412th Engineer Command and before becoming a doctor, Rowlett, too, had been an engineer.

Dr. Rowlett was very encouraging to me, and so Briggs was important for me personally in assisting me in making up my mind to go back to school to be a doctor, Pierce said.

Pierce also credited Hopson for the current hospital facility in Vicksburg.

I think Briggs was the driving force behind that almost 20 years ago and that in my mind is his legacy, Pierce said. There were two big clinics competing with each other. Briggs had a large part to do in getting the clinics together so we could take two moderate size hospitals and have one large hospital.

Leigh White, Merit Health River Region Marketing Director, agreed.

Along with other key individuals, (Hopson) was instrumental in the vision, planning and oversight of the construction of our beautiful facility on Highway 61 North, White said.

While practicing in the Vicksburg healthcare systems, White said, Hopsons tenure included his leadership as Chief of Surgery for Mercy Hospital, Chief of Staff for Parkview Regional Medical Center, member of the Board of Directors at Merit Health River Region and Vice President of Medical Affairs at Merit Health River Region.

He was well known as an accomplished surgeon and loved by the many patients who received his skilled, compassionate care, White said. It was truly an honor to know him and work with him. He will be truly missed by everyone at Merit Health River Region.

In addition to his medical career, Hopson was also committed to the Miss Mississippi Corporation and the annual Miss Mississippi Competition and the Miss Mississippi Oustanding Teen Pageant.

During his tenure as CEO and chairman of the board, he took Miss Mississippi to the next level of excellence and as a result, Miss Mississippi has had a long successful track record, Miss Mississippi Board Chairman David Blackledge said. During his time we had 13 preliminary swimsuit winners, three preliminary talent winners, eight top 10 finalists, nine runners-up to Miss America and two Miss Americas. What an accomplished record he had of his over 40 years of service to the Miss Mississippi Organization.

Blackledge said Hopson spent hours working to obtain patron and scholarship money in an effort to assure all of the contestants, not just the winner or runners-up, would have funds to further their education and career.

And in my opinion, that was one of his greatest accomplishments. He truly took pride in that because Miss Mississippi was one of the top cash scholarship givers in the Miss America Organization for many many years, Blackledge said. He wanted to see all of these young ladies do their best and further their education.

Funds raised also help provide for award-winning Miss Mississippi productions.

We had one of the best TV productions that you could have because of his efforts and obviously he worked very close to Pat (Hopson) to make that happen, Blackledge said. We laughed and kidded that Doc raised the money and Pat made it happen.

On a personal note, Blackledge said, Hopson served as a mentor to him.

Not only did he advise me all those years with the pageant, Blackledge said. He was a father figure to me after my dad had passed away. He certainly gave me advice and Godly wisdom to help me in my life.

Pierce called Hopson a gentleman and someone who was easy to get along with.

He conducted himself in a gentlemanly fashion and was a motivation to us all. He was also a good family man. All his children were excellent. He and Pat did something right, Pierce said. They raised wonderful children. All of them are good kids who live meaningful lives.

Briggs Hopson meant a lot to people, particularly me, Pierce said. He will be missed.

As dynamic as Hopson was in the medical field, and in being a key leader in the Miss Mississippi Corporation, his children him remembered him for far more.

My dad was a rock with his quiet presence and his unconditional love and the way that there was nothing we could do that would make him say anything but I love you, Hopsons youngest daughter, Kathy Ricks said. He didnt have to discipline us because we knew he loved us so much, we wanted to make him proud. I know he got mad at us, but I honestly cant remember a time when he was, because everything he did, he always said, I love you no matter what and you truly knew it.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete, but a drive-by visitation is planned for Friday afternoon along Dr. Briggs Hopson Boulevard in front of the Vicksburg Convention Center.

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Dr. Hopson left lasting legacy on Vicksburg and Warren County - The Vicksburg Post - Vicksburg Post

Family announces the death of beloved Dr. Hopson – The Vicksburg Post – Vicksburg Post

A man, a doctor, who became a pillar of the Vicksburg community died Saturday.

In a post on social media Sunday morning, local attorney and state senator Briggs Hopson III announced his father, Dr. W. Briggs Hopson Jr., had joined the company of angels in heaven.

Dr. Hopson was 82.

His life was marked by great joy and accomplishment, Briggs Hopson III wrote. His legacy is rich. I am blessed beyond measure to be his son. While sad for his loss, my family celebrates a life well lived and the hope of eternal peace with our Heavenly Father. We love you, Dad!

Dr. Hopson retired as a physician in September 2017 after serving 50 years as a physician and an advocate for the medical profession and better medical care in the state. He served as a community activist who served many local organizations from the Red Carpet Bowl to the Miss Mississippi Pageant, and was recognized as a driving force in the design and development of what was then called River Region Medical Center.

Ive known Briggs for 50 years, said Dr. Paul W. Pierce III at the time of Dr. Hopsons retirement. He has been a wonderful leader for the medical community. He has an excellent reputation and served as a medical director for 30 years. I think he has been good for the community. I hate to see him retire; I think it will mean a loss of leadership for the community and the physicians.

When he retired, Dr. Hopson told The Post in an interview that he would miss being a surgeon.

Its been a joy. I love going to work, Dr. Hopson said in 2017. The greatest thing I miss is performing surgery and seeing the patient leave the hospital and come back cured of cancer; cured of whatever disease they had. I enjoyed seeing my patients do well. That was my joy in life.

A graduate of the University of Tennessee Medical School in Memphis, Tenn., Hopson began his practice in Vicksburg in 1967 after completing his internship and residency at the schools medical center, serving as chief surgical resident and an instructor in surgery.

Hopson was hired by Dr. Gus Street and did most of his practice at Mercy Hospital.

In medical school, he said, I worked with some good surgeons at that time, and when you first started out, the first two or three cases, the senior surgeons and the teachers would work with you. When they saw you could do it, they gradually let you do more and more.

He said the medical school had exacting standards for its students.

They were so strict, it was unreal, he said, adding his medical school class began with 60 students and finished with 29. They would cut you like that (from the program); they didnt put up with anybody.

He recalled two cases from those early years. One was a man who shot several other people and was also wounded. He saved the mans life, And he cussed me, and called me a name, and said, When I get out of here, Im going to kill you. I said, Man, I saved your life. He said, Well hell, you should have let me die.

Another shooting victim was more grateful. His name was James Meredith.

Hopson was the surgeon on call when Meredith was shot during his 1966 March Against Fear walk from Memphis to Jackson.

I met him later, Hopson said. I told him, You probably dont remember me, but Im the one who removed the bullet from your back.

His influence to go into medicine came from his childhood in Delhi, La.

There were three drug stores there and my dad owned one of them. I worked there, and I think my dad always wanted to go into medicine, and he couldnt really afford it, and I knew that was something he couldnt get and something I wanted to do.

He attended the University of Mississippi, where he met his wife, Pat. Although he was accepted at Tulane Medical School in New Orleans, he decided to attend the University of Tennessee, because Memphis was 70 miles from Oxford and Pat.

Two weeks before he started medical school, however, the couple married.

She has been a good wife, he said, crediting her with raising their four children, State Sen. Briggs Hopson III; Jay Hopson, University of Southern Mississippi head football coach; Kathy Ricks, regional director of the FEMA AmeriCorps program here; and Karen Hall, a Realtor in Dallas.

People tell me, You have great children. I tell them thats because of their mother, she raised them, he said. I was always at the hospital, and she raised them, took care of them, brought them up.

Hopson said his desire for volunteer work goes back to his childhood.

I was always volunteering. Id volunteer for anything anyone wanted. I just like to help. In school, theyd ask who could bring the cake, and Id raise my hand. Who could bring the Kool-Aid, and Id raise my hand. My mother would tell me, Would you please stop raising your hand.

One case of raising his hand put Hopson in the role of developing the states emergency medical protocol. He was appointed by then-Gov. Kirk Fordice to the states trauma committee, helping develop the program and teaching trauma surgery at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He also lobbied the Legislature to have bills passed to establish trauma level hospitals.

Another was his work with the development of River Region.

When we were building this hospital, I went to Nashville (Tenn.) for meetings, kept paintings and wallpaper (for the hospital) at our home. We picked out everything. My wife kept telling me, You need to go to work and stop this traveling.

His efforts to improve not just trauma care, but overall medical care in the state, earned him recognition from the University of Tennessee and the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. Both schools have placed him in their halls of fame.

When he learned of the honor from the University of Mississippi, I told them I didnt attend their school. They told me, It doesnt matter. You have done more for patients in Mississippi than anyone else has ever done. Ill never forget that; I cried.

He credits his wife, who served as a hostess for the Miss Mississippi Pageant, for getting him involved in that endeavor.

Because he was a doctor, Hopson would see some of the contestants when they were ill. It was a practice that led to him being named the pageants physician.

Thats how I became involved, and became more and more, until I was on the pageant board and then we volunteered to keep Miss Mississippi at our home, to help prepare her for Miss America, he said.

The work included accompanying Miss Mississippi to Atlantic City. He also served as a trustee and later chairman of the Miss Mississippi Board, and on the board of directors for the Miss America state pageants. In June, he and his wife received lifetime achievement awards.

In October 2019, a section of Mulberry Street that stretches in front of the Vicksburg Convention Center the home of the Miss Mississippi Pageant was renamed Dr. Briggs Hopson Boulevard.

I consider him a great leader, a great pioneer, and a great trailblazer, Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said during the street dedication. His guidance and counsel made all the difference, because he was a great leader then and hes a great leader now, and hell forever be a great leader.

Flaggs said during the ceremony that people know Hopson as a physician, But you dont know how much this great man has done for this city and its progress.

I dont know of anything progressive that he wasnt on that side, whether health care or civil rights, he was always there, he said. He kept his door open, not only for this city but for the state and the nation.

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Thinking outside the box – UCI News

The son had an idea. His father was all in.

It occurred to Chase Berman, 24, an infectious diseases researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Susan Huang UCI Healths medical director of epidemiology and infection prevention back in late March that mobile testing labs for COVID-19 would be needed should a surge in cases happen.

So he called his father, Chris Berman, 63, a former Navy SEAL who has the particular skills to build them. Since 2004, hes been manufacturing armored vehicles for the military and converting shipping containers for other functions, including as mobile kitchens for troops, through his privately held company, Granite Tactical Vehicles, based in Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Hey, Dad, the younger Berman said on the phone, youre great at repurposing shipping containers into useful products. Lets try to do something to help out during this pandemic by making drive-thru COVID-19 testing units.

Sure, Chris Berman responded. Lets build something!

Chase Berman, who in addition to his clinical research is involved in COVID-19 outbreak prevention in Orange County nursing homes, had some ideas about how to make the mobile unit as safe and efficient as possible for workers and the public.

His father had the engineering smarts to craft what is now a prototype they call the Mobile Pathogen Testing Unit. It can be transported via a flatbed trailer but needs to be on the ground for drive-thru testing so healthcare personnel are at the same height as people in cars.

My dad didnt go to school to study engineering, Chase Berman says. But hes an incredible engineer. He just thinks of things, and hes able to make them.

He sent his father sketches of how he thought the unit should be designed and equipped. After several rounds of tweaking, the two believe they have a winner and say theyre prepared to mass-produce them if theres a COVID-19 surge this fall.

The 20-foot MPTU can accommodate as many as four individuals inside. It has both drive-thru and walk-up windows with a canopy that extends 4 feet for bad weather.

The hand-washing station in Mobile Pathogen Testing Unit Chase Bermans father Chris builds them at his warehouse in North Carolina. Chris Berman

Our design focuses on reducing contact among healthcare workers [as well as with the public] and also reducing the need for them to walk in and out of a unit repeatedly during a shift, Chase Berman says.

Accordingly, the MPTU has two slots in the wall think of the post office for regular and COVID-19-related trash. A person inside the unit puts waste through the appropriate slot, and it slides into containers outside.

A full Plexiglas barrier shields workers from those being tested, reducing the need for personal protective equipment.

I had to make a lot of changes at the beginning because I would do something and Chase would be like, Nope, we cant do that, Chris Berman says.

For example, he didnt initially include a hand-washing station in the restroom.

I was all proud of my prototype, and Chase said, Dad, I hate to tell you, but it wont work, the elder Berman recalls.

What do you mean it wont work?

The sink is 2 feet outside the bathroom. That means the user would have to touch the door handle and leave to get to the sink.

So, Chris Berman says, I had to tear out that bathroom and put a hand-washing station in the toilet area and two in the common area. That was a result of him thinking things through.

He adds with a laugh about all the design revisions: It became somewhat of a complicated project. I almost wanted to get rid of my kid.

Chase Berman is currently applying to medical schools and says he became interested in a career in medicine because of genetic health issues in his family he has four siblings as well as some health scares involving his father, who had a quadruple bypass 10 years ago and, after a motorcycle accident in 2016, acquired the bacterial infection MRSA while hospitalized.

My dad is the strongest person I know, and seeing him at his weakest just showed me how fragile life is, says the young man, who took some immunology courses as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he earned a bachelors degree in biology. He came to UCI a year and a half ago to research infectious diseases.

Theres a lot going on now with people losing loved ones, people getting sick and losing their jobs its just impacting all walks of life, he says of the COVID-19 pandemic. To be able to help our country and the world get back to a state of normalcy. If I can be a part of that change, then Ill do whatever it takes. I really want to make a difference.

Chris Berman, who was on active duty from 1974 to 1978 and served as a reservist from 1995 to 2007, says he launched his business after a close friend, fellow Navy SEAL Scott Helvenston, was killed in a March 2004 ambush in Fallujah within days of arriving in Iraq to work as a security contractor.

Hes made arrangements with a contractor to produce interiors that could slide into the shipping containers for rapid production of the MPTUs if necessary, he says, adding: I have an empty 112,000-square-foot warehouse that isnt being used. About 60 to 70 containers could fit in it for quick assembly.

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Thinking outside the box - UCI News

Coronavirus Coverage and the Silencing of Female Expertise – Undark Magazine

For a sweeping and much-lauded New York Times article on how the pandemic may play out over the next year, veteran science reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr. consulted nearly two dozen experts in public health, medicine, epidemiology, and history. Initially, I only scanned the nearly 5,000-word story, and the names of experts sluiced by as I picked out predictive nuggets on lockdowns, death tolls, and vaccines. But after several women scientists called out McNeil for bias towards men on Twitter, I went back for a closer look.

Sure enough, only two of 19 experts cited were women: Luciana Borio, a former director of medical and biodefense preparedness at the National Security Council, and Michele Barry, director of the Center for Innovation and Global Health at Stanford University. McNeil included quotes from both that mention family.

Once you notice the dominance of the (typically White) male expert, its hard to un-see it. Writing for prominent outlets, journalists have hailed men as scientific heroes of the coronavirus era and defenders of fact. Theyve quoted all or nearly all male scientists on epidemiological models, herd immunity, viral spread on surfaces, why some people get sicker than others, and how to prepare for a likely Covid-19 resurgence.

Not only are women being passed over and ignored, but also were getting people that dont know what theyre doing supporting decision makers, said Caroline Buckee, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

By having these very loud, usually male, voices in the media touting expertise when they dont have it, she added, that risks undermining the public trust in science itself.

Women are also noticeably less visible in the flurry of scientific publishing on the pandemic. Early analyses of both research databases and preprint servers, which publish studies before theyve undergone peer review, suggest that women are starting fewer projects and publishing less research than men. Right now, in Covid, we know for a fact that women are submitting fewer papers, theyre submitting fewer grants, and there are real downstream effects for that, said Lisa Carlson, an instructor at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health and president of the American Public Health Association. If you arent getting recognized, funded, and published, she said, youre not going to succeed as an academic scientist.

Not only are women being passed over and ignored, but also we're getting people that don't know what they're doing supporting decision makers.

As a Black woman, Sara Suliman, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School, said that its been especially hard as the global protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd last month bring to the fore centuries of dehumanization and discrimination. Being disenfranchised during the lockdown period wasnt just about being a woman, she said. I felt it was just a cumulative effect of all the microaggressions that I have been feeling in academia for a long time.

In a commentary published last month in Times Higher Education magazine, lead author Buckee and 34 other women scientists from North America and Europe expressed frustration bordering on rage at losing ground during a pivotal moment in scientific discovery. We all share the same experience: The scientific response to Covid-19 has been characterized by an extraordinary level of sexism and racism, wrote the women, who span the academic pipeline from graduate students to tenured faculty.

The worst impacts of the coronavirus will undoubtedly be the loss of lives, the collapse of economies, the disruption of humanitarian aid, and the decay of democracies, they acknowledged. But we fear that the hard-won progress for women in science will be collateral damage of this crisis.

The idea that women in science face systemic barriers is hardly news. Last year, the Lancet medical journal devoted an entire issue to research, commentary, and analysis on gender inequities in science, medicine, and global health. Women of color face the double jeopardy of racial as well as gender bias.

Amid the current pandemic, several women who contributed to the Times Higher Education commentary told me that those barriers started to seem insurmountable. The checks and balances meant to promote merit and protect against the default bias towards White men have broken down, said Buckee. The emergency and chaos of the pandemic has triggered longstanding male networks, with a lot of ad hoc, quick linking of men to decision makers.

One complaint is that the media and policymakers overwhelmingly turn to men as figures of scientific authority. When I asked about the controversy over why her story on European scientific heroes was devoid of women, New York Times Brussels correspondent Matina Stevis-Gridneff referred me to her comments on Twitter. They looked hard, she wrote, and struggled to find women who were the public face of the coronavirus response.

In fact, women outnumber men in the health sciences according to the APHAs Carlson. While scores of women are at the forefront of Covid-19 research, men are more visible, said Angela Rasmussen, an associate research scientist at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. There are just more men to choose from, she said. And they tend to be more upfront and more willing to go in front of a camera and take credit.

Suliman suggested that this is entirely common. Theres a systemic issue of men feeling like they can become experts in a new domain in a way that women feel like maybe we need more time to assert ourselves before taking up that space, she said.

Its documented that we have to work a lot more to gain the same level of external validation, she added. And we internalize that.

Women who do take a public role have to armor up. Rasmussen, a widely quoted virologist, has to deal with creepy men sending her direct messages, she said. Women are more reluctant to put themselves out there, she said. And I think a big part of it is knowing that you might put yourself at risk for these really gendered insults and slurs, and even stuff thats scarier than that.

Another issue is that women take on teaching, mentoring, and academic service work more regularly than men, and are more likely to serve in operational roles or as the Times Higher Education commentary put it: getting shit done. In the context of the current pandemic, that often means working at a breakneck pace to coordinate multiple investigations, at multiple sites, often in multiple countries, said Rasmussen. That leaves the men, who are nominally in charge, to talk to the press, she said. Its not because thats their designated job, but thats who people call rather than the women who actually would be running a lot of these collaborations.

On top of all that, stay-at-home orders have foisted absurd expectations onto working mothers. Surveys by The New York Times, the Council on Contemporary Families, and YouGov in partnership with USA Today and LinkedIn, all find that while men have taken on more housework, childcare, and homeschooling during the pandemic, women still carry the larger share of the burden.

Theres a systemic issue of men feeling like they can become experts in a new domain in a way that women feel like maybe we need more time to assert ourselves before taking up that space.

Taken as a whole, the trend towards disenfranchising women is bad for science. A review of evidence in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for example, concludes that greater gender diversity in scientific organizations pays a innovation dividend in terms of smarter, more creative teams and new discoveries. And the same is true for racial diversity, said Suliman, noting that a colonial lens prevents Americans from recognizing the expertise of China and the Global South. If theres true diversity, if theres true equality and equity, and people can actually look at experts horizontally and not vertically, I think we would have averted the kind of crisis that were having right now.

For Suliman, who said her anxiety level is multiplied by 100 when she walks by uniformed police on the street, the protests are a stark reminder that equality and equity are not part of existing power structures. Usually, Black people and women are held to a higher standard at work anyway, regardless of being in a crisis situation, she said.

Trying to do that while carrying a burden both because of the revolution and because of our gender roles in society in general, she added, puts us at a huge disadvantage.

T he Times Higher Education commentary called attention to deeply entrenched societal issues of racism and sexism. The women who wrote didnt pretend that these were easily paved over. I did have pushback from people saying Youre not suggesting solutions. This just seems like a rant, said Buckee. And, yes, more programs that have been developed over the last several decades to support childcare, examine female candidates seriously, keep checks and balances to make sure were being fair would be welcome, she said. But until you change the culture and change how people view the world, especially the people that have clout senior White men until that changes, Im not hopeful.

I dont have any tidy fixes either, but I do know that science journalists like me can work harder to better represent the world we report on. Would McNeil like to have diversified his manel of experts commenting for The New York Times? I dont know. In an email, he said that he was in the penalty box and temporarily banned from talking to press after an appearance on CNN where he sharply criticized the administrations inadequate Covid-19 response.

For my part, Ive been reflecting on my own blind spots. I realized with embarrassment that in a recent story I wrote on Covid-19, my editor and I wound up cutting sections containing the perspective of a Black female internist who specializes in infectious disease. Considering that, according to data from New York City, African Americans are dying of Covid-19 at twice the rate of Whites, her insight could have made the story stronger.

Freelance science journalist Tara Haelle told me that she follows a lot of women scientists on Twitter because they provide her with valuable information as a journalist. The grunt work, the scientific work, the meaningful, important stuff thats happening related to the pandemic, including communicating that information to the public directly without any kind of filter or gatekeepers, [is being done by] women, she said.

In a recent column for the Association of Health Care Journalists, she also advised journalists to look for high-quality sources that can speak precisely to your subject. Its not just seeking out diverse sources and ensuring that youre quoting people of color and men and women, and other genders its not just an academic issue. Its not just a ticking-the-box issue. Its not just a social justice issue, she told me. Its a journalistic responsibility to ensure that you are truly capturing all the perspectives that are relevant to the topic youre covering.

But if youre not hearing womens voices, youre not getting the best science or representing science as it actually is, Buckee said. Of course, there are inequalities, but there are plenty of really good women scientists, she said. And without reflecting that adequately during a crisis and in the press you are doing a disservice to science overall.

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Coronavirus Coverage and the Silencing of Female Expertise - Undark Magazine

What to Know About Applying to Medical School as a Nontraditional – Michigan Medicine

Then you need to find these courses. Some people find a post baccalaureate program that will hit all these requirements. If you work full-time like I did, though, and cant enroll in a full-time postbac program, you can collect these classes from colleges in your area. Depending on your location, you may have an undergraduate institution close by that will allow you to enroll as some type of lifelong learner to take the courses there without formal degree plans from their institution.

Another option, and what I did, is to find the courses scattered around different junior colleges in the area. This was the only way for me to meet the requirements by taking them around my full-time work schedule (early in the morning, late at night, on weekends). Some people worry that will look bad but when asked on the interview trail, it was a source of pride for me to explain that if I had to manage multiple schedules and travel hundreds of miles at odd hours to take these courses to pursue my medical dreams then that was exactly what I was going to do. I think most schools ended up seeing it as proof of commitment.

First, the AAMC is the absolute best resource and starting place to create a list of critical deliverables for your primary application, such as your undergrad transcripts, MCAT scores, personal statement, extracurricular activities and letters of recommendations, as well as dates when the primary application, secondary application, MCAT/CASPR, interview timeframes and commit dates are due.

Second, having a pre-health advisor and mentors are key for maximizing your responses. If you dont have a pre-health advisor like I didnt, you can request one from National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions (volunteer.advisor@naahp.org) and get matched with an advisor who has volunteered to help nontraditional students. My advisor, Gina Camello at the University of Southern California, was critical in helping me wrap my head around the process, requirements and refining my personal statement through many, many drafts (Thank you, Gina!). Other mentors who were critical came from my involvement with theAmerican Medical Womens Association. So many physicians who charted this path before me have been so generous with their time and wisdom on how to be successful in getting into medical school and beyond.

It seems like a long time, but theres much to do and gather. The best thing you can do is get organized and know what needs to be completed by when and give yourself lots of buffer time. Things like getting official transcripts sent can take much longer than you anticipate. If youre going to ask for letters of recommendations from specific individuals, give them enough time and information to be successful in helping you. I studied for the MCAT for eight months. It took six months of drafts before my personal statement was succinct enough to be worthy of application, and I had considered myself a prolific writer before this.

A high quality application takes a lot of time and introspection so make sure you get highly organized and give yourself enough time to complete things because theres no shortage of stories of people who dropped out of the application process because it was coming down to the wire for submitting items, and the pressure was too much.

I think its important to find out what about your life experience is unique, whats your differentiator, and how does that apply to what your vision is for your future medical career.

Admissions teams highlight repeatedly that applicants who really know themselves on this level and can show dont tell stand out as the most serious candidates. This means having specific life stories and examples ready that can back up the points you want to illustrate. Anyone can say yes, I am resilient, but having a real world scenario where you proved that will be taken much more seriously. If you are a nontraditional candidate, by linear time definition alone, you may have an advantage in having had more opportunities to attain these skills and experiences.

Theres a common quote in medicine that if you can see yourself being happy doing anything else, you should do that instead. I completely agree.

Medical school is hard: mentally, physically, emotionally. But there is a Nietsche quote that, He who hasa why []can bear almost any how. And I think this is true for medicine. Your why has to be so strong to be able to keep you going through a profession that requires so much from you. For a while I had this dream but thought I was too late or too old now. I was reminded by Earl Nightingale that time passes anyway, you may as well be doing what you love. I knew that at the end of my life if I didnt try I would deeply regret it because I know I have something very important to contribute to medicine. I also was held back for a while thinking that committing to medicine would mean sacrificing family and going into financial debt. However, so many mentors (especially through the American Medical Womens Association) reinforced that many successful physicians also have rich family lives.

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My calling for medicine had grown so loud that when I was finally ready to apply I was willing to give up any amount of time, family or money to see this through. As it turns out, you dont have to be this extreme. Ive learned that life is a great balancing act and with the right strategies, planning and preparationyou can have all the things!

There are many jobs that help people so that is not enough of a reason for any admissions officer to feel confident about a candidate. You need to articulate specifically why you want to be a physician vs. another role.

This is why its important to spend some volunteer time shadowing or on medical missions so you can really be sure this life is for you. A good format to answer why medicine in conversation or your personal statement that I was exposed to is to break it down into: 1. When your interest was piqued about medicine; 2. The further development of that interest; 3. Your final commitment point.

When you apply later in life, admissions teams want to make sure youve given this tremendous thought and that your diverse life experiences have informed the natural culmination to this decision.

First, applicants should know what the requirements are from different schools because some will want science professors, some will want non-science, etc. These are key to know and identify as early as possible, especially if you will need to (re)build these relationships.

If you have spent a majority of your time in a professional career or other venture, you should absolutely consider getting letters from people in these spheres. I had letters that covered career, volunteer work, science instructors and longtime mentors. If you have been out of school for a while and your letters are as diverse as your experience, thats also okay! I would also try to identify people who can speak to a range of your attributes that youd like to demonstrate. Maybe your director at work can speak to your innovative qualities, your volunteer manager can reflect on your ability to execute, your science teacher can reflect (beyond your science aptitude) on your teamwork with classmates, etc.

In my humble opinion from observing the process, what is competitive to one school is a liability for another. What that means is that certain schools want to be known for certain values and have curriculum, opportunities and faculty who represent those interests. The most important thing is fit, not to win them all. For example, with my technology background and vision for the future of technology/medicine, not all medical schools valued or had support for that direction and thats okay. For me, good fit meant being at an institution that valued diversity, inclusion and pioneering new health technology, which is exactly what I found at the University of Michigan. Other schools may have seen my background and thought what can we offer someone who is passionate about technology if we dont really invest in that for our students or faculty?.

A great way to know if a school is going to want to invest in you and the uniqueness you bring is to do research on the projects their faculty are involved in because I think it shows what the institution values. If your dreams are surgical and a majority of their projects are mostly around primary care, no matter how eloquently you describe being inspired by the graceful gesticulations of reconstructive surgery, it may not be a match.

The other positive tip about researching projects at the institution is that perhaps you find a lab or team you want to work with if accepted, and at the interview you can speak more concretely about that particular school and your plans. That shows admissions that you will hit the ground running if admitted and have done research about their school that makes them feel that their institution is really special to you and not just a copy, paste, change name, someone please accept me. You are going to spend the next four plus years at this institution so its very important that you have done enough research about the school to know that you actually want to go and could be successful and contribute there.

Again, sort of depends on the school and what they value. Forward-thinking, tech-inclined schools will be excited about your passion for and experience with new technology or methods. Rural schools may be more impressed with your experience on topics that affect their patient populations more severely, like health care access or perhaps substance abuse. It can be a good idea to see what kinds of things the school gets research funding for because that may tell you what traits they care most about.

SEE ALSO:Reality Checks: Michigan Medical School Students Open Up

As a general blanket statement, most schools will highlight research, diversity and service. I think ultimately, though, the pre-med life experiences that ends up being most attractive are ones that are:unique(so you will have a different perspective to share),altruistic(so you are internally, mission driven) andauthentic(which shows you are introspective and resilient).

Link:

What to Know About Applying to Medical School as a Nontraditional - Michigan Medicine

Pride doesn’t really belong in medicine – News from southeastern Connecticut – theday.com

A few years ago, I overheard a conversation a man was having as he was trash-talking his doctor. It wasnt long before I realized that the doctor he was trash-talking was me. Of course, I eavesdropped a little closer as he said:

When the nurse asked my doctor a question, my doctor said, outright, I do not know. I mean, what kind of doctor says, I dont know to a nurse? If he doesnt know, he shouldnt be a doctor. Not my doctor, anyways. I never saw the guy again.

My father, who to this day is still a practicing physician and remains the best doctor I have ever met, told me, after I had completed my three-year fellowship, three-year residency, chief residency, four years of medical school, and four years of college, that the most important thing I learned after all that training was how to say I dont know with confidence.

When I was a junior in college, I lived in Florence, Italy, and I remember going to a restaurant and ordering spaghetti alle vongole (spaghetti with and clams). I asked the waiter for some parmigiano cheese. He looked horrified angry even and said, No! His finger was waving in the air, a sign of something forbidden in his Italian hand-speak.

I said, in Italian, What do you mean, No?

With fish, you never put cheese.

I insisted, and he again said, finger in the air, NO!, adamant. I got angry and insisted and said I was paying the bill, not him, and that I wanted cheese. He muttered that I was troglodito (I didnt even know what the word meant when someone translated it into English a troglodyte is an uncultured person).

After one bite of the spaghetti with clams and parmigiano, I realized instantly that the waiter was absolutely right. The cheese completely ruined the wonderful flavor, texture and aroma of the dish. I wish I could say I had the courage to admit to the waiter that he was right, but in my pride, I pretended to love the cheese and practically licked the plate clean.

Pride is a funny thing that doesnt really belong in medicine. But when you formulate ideas, you tend to become proud and want to argue for them. I remember being a brand-new cardiologist in New London, perhaps overly cocky. I remember calling a (rather famous) cardiac surgeon about someone with a dilated aorta who I believed needed surgery. The surgeon didnt think surgery was needed. I insisted surgery was indicated, and I smugly started quoting data from a medical journal article I had just read on the subject. The surgeon listened quietly, then gently said, Well, thats interesting because I wrote that article and, unless there is a typographical error, I think you are misquoting the data, because I have the actual data right here in front of me now ...

I have worked with that surgeon since that day, and I occasionally bring it up, laughing. He has been nothing but humble, gracious, and kind with his time and even with his mentorship to this very day.

Pride seems to dominate some politicians who tend to avoid ever admitting that they are wrong or that they do not know something. These are questionable strategies given the uncertainties of a pandemic. Or when the rest of the country wants to (finally) unify to demonstrate against racial violence and injustice. So far, it doesnt seem to be going well for them.

Ah, but Im no politician. I still like things like tuna melt, which I suppose makes me a troglodyte, I often make mistakes, and theres still a heck of a lot I dont know.

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Pride doesn't really belong in medicine - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com

Stop Killing our Patients: Pandemic, Protest and the Outcry for Justice – Seton Hall University News & Events

Professor Bryan Pilkington holds weekly conversations with leading experts from medicine, nursing, and the health sciences, as well as political theorists, economists, ethicists, philosophers and legal experts.

Originally focused on the impact of COVID-19, the topic of conversation in these panel discussions has shifted as the pandemic has served to highlight structural inequalities in health care evidenced by the disproportionate number of black and Hispanic people who have fallen prey to the coronavirus.

The last panel focused on "Discrimination in the Time of COVID," and included Seton Hall alumnus Dr. Sampson Davis, an ER physician who is perhaps best known as a best-selling author of The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream, the story of the success of three young men from Newark, New Jersey who pledged to support each other in pursuing careers in the field of medicine.

This next panel, fueled by the outrage and protest that ensued from the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is entitled "Stop Killing our Patients: Pandemic, Protest and the Outcry for Justice" and will be a discussion on issues of discrimination, the health implications of racism, the role of healthcare (and other) professionals in responding to racism and structural injustice which affects practitioners and their patients.

"America faces two public health crises the COVID-19 Pandemic and the continued manifestations of structural racism exemplified by the most recent series of murders of black members of our communities," said Pilkington. "COVID-19 is real, and so is structural racism and the end result of each is lives laid waste and a system that does not work for far too many."

Pilkington, an associate professor in the School of Health and Medical Sciences at Seton Hall University and the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University, serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy and the Editorial Advisory Boards of HealthCare Ethics Committee Forum and Christian Bioethics, and is a Junior Scholar at the Paul Ramsey Institute.

"Stop Killing our Patients: Pandemic, Protest, and the Outcry for Justice," will feature Dean Bonita Stanton of the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University along with a multi-disciplinary panel of experts.

Bonita Stanton, M.D. is the founding dean of Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University. A nationally recognized expert on pediatric medicine, she is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed articles and has served as an editor of the Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics, along with many other journals and books. Among many local, national and international advisory roles, she was a member of the Advisory Board of the National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center and was president of the Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs.

Prior to her role as dean of the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall, Stanton served as Vice Dean for Research at Wayne State University School of Medicine. Previously, she served as the Schotanus Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Wayne State; Pediatrician-in-Chief at Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center; and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, West Virginia University. Earlier in her career, she was a faculty member and Division Chief of General Pediatrics at University of Maryland School of Medicine.

For five years, she lived and worked with her family in Bangladeshwhere she served as the Maternal Child Health Director for the World Bank and the Director, Urban Volunteer Program (a community-based research and service program designed to help women and children in the slums of Dhaka) at the International Center for Diarrheal Diseases Research.

"The United States is only now incorporating into our health care systems what our peer nations across the globe have been doing for years; addressing socio-economic, housing and community factors in the provision of medical care," said Dean Stanton. "Equally important is the realization that although over 13% of the US population is African American, only 5% of physicians are African American, reflecting both unequal access to higher education and ultimately, to medical care. There are no easy answers to this problem. Adequate social, economic and educational structures must be offered to Black children beginning in pre-school and lasting through grade 12, extending into college or technical school and on through graduate and professional school."

In addition to Dean Stanton, the panel will include:

The panel, "Stop Killing our Patients: Pandemic, Protest and the Outcry for Justice," will take place on Friday, 6/19/20, at 1:30pm.

Meeting Information:Zoom Link: https://hmhn.zoom.us/j/99123537427?pwd=ZHB6c3F5bUs4Z256MnoyaHlnZ1B4QT09Password: 311141Or iPhone one-tap : US: +19294362866,,99123537427#,,,,0#,,311141#Or Telephone: US: +1 929 436 2866Webinar ID: 991 2353 7427

Formed with the belief that we arrive at the best answers to challenging ethical questions by practically reasoning together, "Stop Killing our Patients: Pandemic, Protest, and the Outcry for Justice," is the ninth installment of this panel program.

Previous panels have covered:

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Stop Killing our Patients: Pandemic, Protest and the Outcry for Justice - Seton Hall University News & Events

Coronavirus deadly to those over 80, but many are surviving – PennLive

Story By STACEY BURLING, The Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA (AP) Anna Marie Bresnan, who lives at Philadelphia Protestant Home, a retirement community in Northeast Philadelphia, is 84 and has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

John and Kitty Stagliano, of Exton, are both 82 and have diabetes and high blood pressure.

Norma Cammisa is 93, has dementia, takes medicine for high cholesterol, and lives in a nursing home in Collingswood.

All of them caught the coronavirus. All of them survived.

Why they did so well when thousands of other people over 80 have succumbed to the new disease is a mystery that intrigues and heartens physicians and aging experts. In New Jersey, 47% of the more than 12,000 people who have died of coronavirus were 80 and older. As of June 5, 58% of Pennsylvania's 5,886 deaths were in that age group. Age, plus chronic health problems such as heart and lung disease or diabetes, greatly increases the odds that people with COVID-19 will get very sick or die.

Even in nursing homes, which are populated by frail elders who need hands-on care, a high percentage of residents who test positive for the virus have had no symptoms or mild ones. Most survive.

Joshua Uy, a Penn Medicine geriatrician who is medical director of a West Philadelphia nursing home that had the city's first coronavirus outbreak, said about a third of the 22 residents there with confirmed coronavirus were asymptomatic, a third had mild symptoms, and the remainder got very sick. Five died.

"We had a 96-year-old guy who never had a symptom," Uy said. Some with mild symptoms have "recovered and it's like nothing ever happened to them."

Uy couldn't predict which residents at Renaissance Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center would be fine and which would "crump," or go into rapid respiratory failure. Patients with obesity another big risk factor and frailty sometimes lived. One resident with serious lung disease survived. "It's really amazing to me," he said. "It blows my mind."

Early in his center's two-week outbreak, he felt hopeless. "On my worst day, I was worried that they were all going to die, to be honest." Then widespread testing revealed how many residents were asymptomatic. Some with symptoms began getting better. "When you look at the numbers," he said, "I think most people will survive it. It just doesn't feel like it at the moment."

Other nursing home medical directors described similar proportions of residents with mild illness and equally surprising survivors. Nina O'Connor, chief of the University of Pennsylvania Health System's palliative care program, cared for a 101-year-old coronavirus patient with no symptoms. Jim Wright, medical director of Canterbury Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center near Richmond, Va., where 136 residents tested positive and 56 died, said one 91-year-old had poor oxygenation for a long time and kept removing her oxygen mask.

"She's in our memory center now," Wright said in wonderment. "Her favorite thing to say is, 'I love you.' She says it every time."

Jim Clancy, executive director of United Methodist Communities of Collingswood, where Cammisa lives, said a 91-year-old who was already on oxygen for advanced lung disease survived while the virus "wiped out" people who were not as sick.

"This is such a strange, random, and devastating virus. ... I don't think any two residents have been affected the same way," he said. Asked what was different about survivors, he said: "This is the thing. There is no rhyme or reason to it."

Wright has started analyzing the numbers at his facility and found no clear trends. He said patients there for rehabilitation, who tend to be younger and stronger than full-time nursing home residents, were more likely to survive. There were no racial differences.

"There was nothing I could put my finger on that determined your course," he said.

In this June 4, 2020 photo, Anna Marie Bresnan, 85, an independent living resident who survived COVID-19, despite having lung disease, poses in Philadelphia. (Jessica Griffin/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)AP

Doctor have theories about why some survive and some dont. Theyre waiting for science.

Scientists will sort this out eventually. In the meantime, speculation focuses on differences in the immune system, genetics, and possibly medications that could alter response to the virus. One doctor suspects that hydration and even sleeping position could be important.

Coronavirus often does not announce itself loudly in the elderly, a fact that allowed it to take hold in many nursing homes before anyone knew it was there. Instead of the classic symptoms we were all initially told to look for fever, cough, and shortness of breath people over 80 often lose their appetites, develop diarrhea, or become confused, agitated, or more subdued. Fevers over 99 are rare.

Sabine von Preyss Friedman, medical director of 50 facilities in Seattle, including one with an early and large outbreak, has learned to look for very subtle changes. "People look at you sideways and they don't look right, you're doing a test," she said.

Doctors said some patients never have more than mild symptoms. Wright said some can go from no symptoms to death in a few hours. Others develop what appears to be an overreaction of the immune system, or cytokine storm, a few days into the infection. In all age groups, this is a hallmark of very serious illness. Elderly people who get this sick typically do not do well, doctors said.

George Anesi, a pulmonary and critical care doctor at Penn Medicine who sees only hospitalized patients, said the virus is harder on people the older they are. Those with low blood-oxygen levels and high inflammation levels do the worst. Those whose problems are confined to their lungs fare much better than those with multi-organ failure.

But that doesn't explain why people have such different reactions to the disease, a question at all ages.

"It likely has to do with idiosyncrasies in their immune system and their genetics," said Amesh Adalja, a Johns Hopkins infectious-disease specialist and spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. "That's part of the bigger puzzle with this virus."

The immune system wanes and becomes less efficient with age. These changes could affect both the initial response to the new virus and the more sustained response, experts said. With aging, underlying inflammation tends to increase and cells may not clear waste products as effectively. All of these things can affect the way older people respond to disease.

Chronic illness can accelerate aging. When it comes to fighting infection, chronological age is less important than biological age. An 80-year-old still living independently is more likely to survive than an 80-year-old who is sick enough to be in a nursing home. But the body can also age unevenly. "They might have Alzheimer's, but their immunity is pretty good," said Nir Barzilai, director of the Einstein Institute for Aging and scientific director of the American Federation for Aging Research. "Their liver can be younger than their brain."

Barzilai thinks certain common medications, including the diabetes drug metformin, may improve immune functioning. Nicole Osevala, a Penn State geriatric medicine specialist, wonders about angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, which recently were shown to decrease the risk of hospitalization in older people with COVID-19. Because COVID-19 can increase blood clotting, Stefan Gravenstein, director of geriatrics and palliative care at Alpert Medical School of Brown University, wonders whether people on blood thinners could be protected.

Viral load, or how much virus a patient was exposed to, may also be a factor, Barzilai said.

Because reflux can bring the virus up from the digestive system and lead to aspiration into the lungs, Gravenstein also said older people who go to sleep immediately after a meal this increases reflux could be at higher risk. Sleeping with the head elevated could be protective, although that's hard to test.

He is among many who think that maintaining hydration is crucial for elders with this disease. Nursing-home survivors may have been better at drinking enough liquids, he said.

Providence and gratitude

When Gus Cammisa heard that his mother, who will turn 94 later this month, had the disease late in April, he wondered whether "this is what's going to take her." She was in relatively good health, although she had had a small stroke and sometimes had blood pressure fluctuations. She'd lived a clean life. With COVID-19, she had fevers, needed oxygen, and stopped eating. The staff at United Methodist Communities gave her intravenous fluids. She has very slowly returned to baseline. Cammisa credits good care and Providence. "God decided, 'Not yet.' "

John Stagliano was still delivering auto parts part time when he got sick March 23. While waiting for test results, he felt weak and feverish. He isolated in his man cave. "It's not a hardship, believe me," he said. His wife, Catherine everyone calls her Kitty took care of him. He admits he was worried. "I'm damned scared the first week and I'm thinking, 'Is this the way it's going to end?'"

His son, John Stagliano Jr., said his father's doctors at Penn Medicine Home Health urged him to go to the hospital, but he resisted. Meanwhile, the son, who is a cancer survivor, worried about the fatigue he heard in his mother's voice. He and a brother insisted she go to the hospital. When they arrived to meet her ambulance, she passed out. "I was just so exhausted," she remembered. "I thought it was from climbing up and down the stairs. ... It was the most exhausted I've ever been." She never had much of a fever or cough. Doctors said the virus may have attacked her heart.

Her husband never went to the hospital. She went twice. She's getting better but is still tired. He feels fine. "I can't wait to get back to work," he said.

Bresnan, who lives in independent living with her husband, tested positive on April 14, but she'd already been sick for quite a while. She lost her appetite, along with her sense of taste and smell. She had severe diarrhea and terrible chills. Even though she has COPD, her oxygen levels were always normal and she never had a cough or shortness of breath. She was hospitalized for dehydration and her lungs showed signs of pneumonia. She wasn't frightened until she saw all the protective garb that nurses were wearing. "I just felt so terrible, I didn't even care."

After a week in the hospital, she came home to the rehab unit at Protestant Home. Her energy is back now, but not her appetite. She has no idea why she lived and so many others didn't.

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Coronavirus deadly to those over 80, but many are surviving - PennLive

Meet PAISD’s health science instructors, using decades of experience for new generation – Port Arthur News – The Port Arthur News

Regina Cole, Dianne Marks and Barbara Minard are three women behind one of Port Arthur ISDs most successful programs.

Career and Technology Educations Health Science Technology class centers on the knowledge, experience and love of teaching from directors who dedicate their lives to the medical field.

Marks, a graduate from Lamar Universitys first BSN program in 1978, is a registered nurse with a long history of experience and professionalism.

Dianne Marks

She started her career in the medical field working at a hospital in Beaumont right out of college. With a specialty in public health, Marks moved to the Port Arthur Health Department where she worked for 12 years.

The Beaumont native returned home for a little while before receiving an offer from the Port Arthur Independent School District in 1997 to take her place as the next health science lead instructor.

I always liked going to school, Marks said. It was different being in a classroom, but I saw the need for students who had the desire to become health care workers and thought I could be a benefit to them. The opportunity was presented to me, and I decided not to turn my back on it.

Marks has been the lead instructor for 23 years, noting the changes in an adapting world from within four walls.

The students still have the same goals of wanting to be successful, she said. Of course its a different generation and they have access to more technology, and fewer students drive their own cars, but I see the changes.

The students have different goals. They dont all want to be nurses anymore because there are so many other different positions, but one thing thats never changed, they all come in knowing they want to help people.

Marks said the most rewarding part of the job is seeing others go on to change lives.

The best thing is to see that there are several students who graduate from PAISD who are now working as health care workers, as nurses, nurse practitioners, dentists, etc., she said. They are in medical school, working in the military or becoming teachers. Its amazing to see the growth and I will miss interacting with the students, laughing with the students and seeing their love grow for the medical field every day.

The 68-year old completed her last year at PAISD in 2019-20.

Im not retiring as a nurse, she said. Im not leaving my co-workers. Its just a different season. Im not going to be in a classroom everyday, but Im not leaving altogether. I plan on still being a nurse for the long haul and to continue having a positive impact on the healthcare system and community.

Barbara Minard

Marks fellow co-worker and prodigy, Barbara Minard, said she is going to miss the leadership of the veteran educator.

Mrs. Marks has been a phenomenal lead nurse for our program, she said. The experiences that she brought to the students and to the faculty were amazing.

Minard said she will miss Marks ability to assist with classroom management the most.

My first year I had two students that didnt get along very well, but Mrs. Marks helped me smooth things over to bridge that gap, she said. She is just incredible with students. Im going to miss her, but we will definitely continue to stay friends.

Minards own winding path in the medical field led her to PAISD six years ago.

Initially, I started out in customer service at Walmart, she said. I found that was rewarding financially for Walmart, but I wanted something more rewarding for myself and the community so I decided to go to nursing school.

Minard volunteered at the Medical Center of Southeast Texas and the Mid-Jefferson Extended Care Hospital to learn more about the health care system from the inside.

The Port Arthur native then enrolled in the Licensed Vocational Nursing program at Lamar State College-Orange.

I wanted to really know what it was to be a nurse, so I started at the bottom, Minard said. After that I knew I was destined to do a little bit more, so I completed that program and went on to the Lamar Associated Degree Program for Nursing.

After receiving her degree, Minard started her professional career working as a fulltime nurse at St. Marys Hospital in Port Arthur.

Before heading to PAISD, Minard also made stops as a correctional nurse for juveniles at the Jefferson County Correctional Facility. She worked for the Baptist Hospital of Southeast Texas in Beaumont and was a nurse reviewer for the State of Texas.

In 2014 she finally joined the health science department alongside Marks.

Ive always been an educator as a nurse, Minard said. We are taught to teach the families of patients at the bedside, but the benefit for me was the opportunity to help shape and mold young minds to have the traditional nursing experience I had.

Minard loves her job.

There are some frustrating moments, but you learn to push through it because you know the outcome is going to be beneficial for the students, she said. If I can help shape and mold someone to replace another strong nurse, Im in it to the end.

Regina Cole-Bellard

Rounding out the team is Regina Cole-Bellard.

Cole-Bellard started as a health science instructor last year learning under the tutelage of Minard and Marks.

I was surprised when I came in, she said. They have so much knowledge and it made me feel insecure in my own abilities, but they really helped me along the way to be confident in my skills and in teaching my students.

Marks is mentoring Cole in order to obtain her teaching certificate.

I got a lot of advice from her and I will continue to get advice from her, Cole said. Its an amazing opportunity to be working alongside both of them.

Cole-Bellard said her favorite part of the past year was getting to know the students.

The senior class was a phenomenal class for me, she said. I was really excited to see them come at 12:15 p.m. every day. Their knowledge base amazed me. They really truly were intelligent and Im looking forward to what the future holds for them.

Similar to Minard, Cole-Bellard started out her career as a Licensed Vocational Nurse. After working in and out of nursing homes, she eventually became a mainstay at St. Marys Hospital from 2000-15 before transferring to St. Elizabeths where she stayed until last year.

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Meet PAISD's health science instructors, using decades of experience for new generation - Port Arthur News - The Port Arthur News

This mother-daughter duo fulfilled their goal of graduating med school together – The Week Magazine

Chad Daybell was taken into custody on Tuesday after human remains were found on his property in Salem, Idaho, Rexburg Police Assistant Chief Gary Hagen said.

The remains have not been identified, and Daybell has not been charged with anything. Rexburg police, FBI investigators, and members of the Fremont County Sheriff's Office searched the property as part of an investigation into the disappearance of Tylee Ryan, 17, and Joshua "JJ" Vallow, 7. Their mother, Lori Vallow Daybell, is Chad Daybell's new wife. The children have not been seen since September, and the Daybells previously told investigators they were staying with friends.

The case has received national attention, due to its strange twists and turns. The Daybells, who married in October, slipped out of Idaho and were tracked down to Hawaii earlier this year. Lori Daybell has since been charged with child abandonment and obstructing the investigation; she has pleaded not guilty.

Chad Daybell is a podcaster who talks about the biblical end times, and has self-published fiction books about the apocalypse. Last summer, Lori Daybell's brother, Alex Cox, shot and killed her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in Arizona, claiming it was in self-defense. Vallow had filed for divorce from Lori Daybell, saying she believed she was "a resurrected being of God" who could kill him with her "powers." Cox died in December of a pulmonary blood clot.

Chad Daybell is also under investigation in the death of his first wife, Tammy Daybell. She died in October, two weeks before Chad and Lori Daybell were married. Chad said she died in her sleep, but authorities became suspicious in December and exhumed her body; the autopsy results have not been made public. Catherine Garcia

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This mother-daughter duo fulfilled their goal of graduating med school together - The Week Magazine

Founding dean of WMU medical school set to retire – mlive.com

KALAMAZOO, MI -- The founding dean of the Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine is set to retire next year.

Dr. Hal B. Jenson announced he will retire in 2021, and a national search for his replacement is underway at the medical school, according to a news release from WMed.

Jenson arrived to the school in 2011 and helped lead the institutions founding in 2012.

Since March 2011, I have had the honor and privilege of serving as the founding dean of WMed, Jenson said. We have accomplished significant milestones as a new medical school and focused on operational excellence to become even better. I hope you share the same sense of accomplishment that I have for the medical school that we, together, have created."

Under his leadership, WMed experienced a number of key milestones and accomplishments, including the granting of full accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, as well as certification with the U.S. Department of Education. The school has graduated three classes of doctors since its creation, the school said.

The schools Board of Directors selected the search firm AMN Leadership to lead the search process and a 13-member search committee will be led by WMU President Edward Montgomery, who also serves as chair of the Board of Directors.

The search committee includes representatives from the Board of Directors, Ascension Borgess and Bronson Healthcare, as well as medical school faculty, leadership, students, residents and staff.

Finding Dr. Jensons successor is a critical task and committee members have committed their time and effort over what will be an 11-month period to assist WMed in this important recruitment process, Montgomery said. I want to thank Dr. Jenson for his steadfast and unwavering leadership of the medical school over the last 10 years and his willingness to assist in what will be an important transition over the next year.

Nominations and resumes will be accepted throughout the summer and candidates will be presented to the search committee in September. Officials expect candidates to be on campus in late fall to participate in interviews and presentations to the community, the school said.

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Founding dean of WMU medical school set to retire - mlive.com

What to Expect in Medical School | The Princeton Review

There are over 130 U.S. medical schools that award the MD to graduates. These schools train students in allopathic medicine. (A smaller number of schools train students in osteopathic medicine and award the DO to graduates). Allopathic schools train tomorrow's MDs with a common (and rigorous!) core curriculum. But beyond that core, no two schools are exactly alike. Each offers its own unique academic focus, teaching methods and research opportunities.

Medical school takes 4 years to complete, but to become a doctor you'll also spend 37 years in residency.

The first two years of medical school are a mixture of classroom and lab time. Students take classes in basic sciences, such as anatomy, biochemistry, microbiology, pathology and pharmacology. They also learn the basics of interviewing and examining a patient.

Traditionally, students take four or five courses in various disciplines at the same time. However, some schools focus on a single subject for a shorter block of timesay, three or four weeksthen move on to another. Other schools take an interdisciplinary approach to pre-clinical coursework, in which each class focuses on a single organ, examining all the anatomy, pharmacology, pathology and behavior relevant to that system. At the end of the second year, you'll take USMLEStep 1.

Third and fourth year medical students do rotations at hospitals and clinics affiliated with their school, culminating with taking (and passing) USMLE Step 2. Students doing rotations assist residents in a particular specialty such as surgery, pediatrics, internal medicine or psychiatry. During this time, you'll probably feel like a cross between a mindless grunt and a skilled apprentice. You'll interact with patients and perform basic medical procedures along with any tasks the resident doesn't want to do.

While some rotations, such as Internal Medicine, are required at all programs, others have more unique clerkship requirements. The length of time you spend in a rotation depends on the hospital's focus or strength. At some schools, the surgery rotation is three weeks long; at others, it is three months. The character of the hospital will also color your experience. If the setting is urban, you can expect increased experience with trauma, emergency medicine, or infectious disease, as well as exposure to a diverse patient population.

Clinical rotations will not give you enough expertise to practice in any specialty (that's what a residency is for). They will give you a breadth of knowledge and help you consider potential career paths.

You can train to be a primary care doctor at any medical school. But programs that emphasize primary care tend to include more patient contact, coursework in patient handling, and longer clinical rotations in general fields. Many are actively involved in the surrounding communities, offering volunteer opportunities in the clinical care of indigent populations.

If you're looking to pursue a career in academic medicine or biomedical research, you should look for schools with strong research programs. You will not have the same opportunities, facilities, mentors or funding at a school focused on training primary care physicians.

If you want to complement your MD with advanced coursework in another discipline, some schoolsespecially those affiliated with a larger universityallow students to register for classes in other departments. Many also offer combined degree programs.

Med students who make it through all four years (and don't worry, most do) will be the proud owner of an MD. But your education doesn't end there. You still need to pass the board exam and spend between three and seven years as a resident in a teaching hospital.

Our admissions experts know what it takes it get into med school. Get the customized strategy and guidance you need to help achieve your goals.

Med School Admission Counseling

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What to Expect in Medical School | The Princeton Review

Black mother-daughter duo start their medical careers together – TODAY

As the Kudji women prepare to start their residencies during the coronavirus pandemic, theyve embraced a unique perspective on the unusual circumstances. As a mom, I'm very concerned about starting in the middle of a pandemic. We worry about having enough PPE. I worry about my child, potentially being exposed to COVID. But at the same time, you know, this is what we signed up for.

At the same time, it also gives you an opportunity to see disease processes that you probably would never see, be a part of a solution that you probably never get an opportunity to be a part of, you know, and really get an opportunity to educate the public. So it's all about perspective and what you can contribute during this time.

Although it has been 156 years since Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African American woman to earn a medical degree and 121 years since Dr. Emma Wakefield-Paillet became the first black woman to practice medicine in Louisiana, the number of black females pursuing medicine hasnt grown much since.

In a 2019 report from the Association of American Medical Colleges, only about 5%, or 45,534 of physicians surveyed identified as black or African American. Kudji said, It's honestly not very common. Like 2% of physicians are African American women. Even at the hospital that I'm going to start working at, there's only one African American female surgeon out of probably about 50.

Female surgeons in general are just uncommon. It's not often that I see people that look like me in my field so that's why it's so important to us to make sure that we do show our faces and spread our story.

It's so important because when I was coming up, I remember watching 'The Cosby Show' or 'A Different World,' and we would all run to the television in college when that show would come on because you didn't have that. It was the first time you saw an African American doctor, African American attorney and a family and you saw that image before you," Kudji Sylvester said.

To give young black girls and women a look into their lives, the Kudjis are sharing their personal experiences online. Kudji explained, We created a blog called The MD Life, where we try to explain some things that we struggled with, like how to apply to medical school, how to get into medical school, how to become a surgeon, and explain it to people and provide information that we wish we would have had from the beginning.

Both mother and daughter will start their residencies on July 1. Kudji Sylvester will be based in Lafayette, Louisiana for three years while Kudjis surgical rotation will last five years and require her to travel between Baton Rouge, Lafayette and New Orleans.

When you're young and you don't see someone that looks like you doing something that you want to do, when you see other people doing it, you kind of start to think well, maybe these people are inherently somehow better than me," Kudji said.

"And so, that's why I think representation matters. It shows young people or even older people that, no, there's nothing inherently wrong with you, you're not less intelligent or less capable. You know, you can do it too.

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Black mother-daughter duo start their medical careers together - TODAY

Dr. Mary Mason Talks Little Medical School on the ‘Power Kid Podcast’ – The Toy Book

Source: The Toy Book

In this weeks episode of the Power Kid Podcast, host Phil Albritton of Power Kid Designspeaks withDr. Mary Mason, founder of Little Medical School.

Little Medical School is dedicated to the mission of inspiring and shaping tomorrows health care professionals through after-school programs, summer camps, birthday parties, and an award-winning line of educational toys. Forbes has called Little Medical School the ultimate STEM franchise business.

On the show, Dr. Mason shares the origin story of Little Medical School and the importance of this program for kids with chronic illnesses and how early exposure to health care role-play opens doors for kids.

Adventure Media and Events (AM&E) is the publisher ofthe Toy Book,the Toy Insider, andthe Pop Insider. Composed of an editorial team with more than 75 years of combined experience in the toy and entertainment industries, AM&E publications provide consumers, press, and trade audiences with the latest news and updates on all things play and pop culture.

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Dr. Mary Mason Talks Little Medical School on the 'Power Kid Podcast' - The Toy Book

Mother and daughter graduate medical school together and get matched at same hospital – FOX 13 Tampa Bay

Mother daughter duo celebrate med school graduation together

Dr. Cynthia Kudji and her daughter, Dr. Jasmine Kudji, be working in the same hospital system beginning July 1.

NEW ORLEANS - A mother and daughter duo recently became the first to graduate from medical school together and the first to be matched at the same hospital.

Dr. Cynthia Kudji and her daughter, Dr. Jasmine Kudji, attended medical school at the same time, though at a distance.

Cynthia attended the University of Medicine and Health Sciences (UMHS) in Maine and St. Kitts in the Caribbean, while Jasmine was at Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans, according to the a blog in which they share updates on their history-making careers.

They were surprised on Match Day when they learned they would both be working in the same hospital system, beginning on July 1. Cynthia was matched in Family Medicine at LSU Health, and Jasmine also matched at LSU in General Surgery, according to UMHS which added that they are the first mother and daughter to attend medical school at the same time and match at the same institution.

Dr. Cynthia Kudji & Dr. Jasmine Kudji display their residency announcements at LSU Health New Orleans. (Photo credit: Adrienne Battistella Photography)

Cynthia, originally from Ghana, had dreamed of becoming a doctor but had to put her career on hold after she became pregnant at 23. She eventually became a nurse and later a nurse practitioner. At age 43, she decided to pursue her medical degree after a trip back to Africa to visit relatives.

My mom wanted us to have a family trip back to Ghana and there was an incident where we were in the village and somebody just walked up to us and said that their child had a fever and was sick and wanted my mom and I to help. We put the child in water, trying to get the temperature down, and thats pretty much all I remember, Cynthia told UMHS. I just remember being so frustrated that the mom had to come to a complete stranger to get access to health care. The only thing I knew that could change that situation was to be a physician.

Cynthia enrolled at UMHS in St. Kitts, and began what she calls an extremely trying yet fulfilling time in my life. Jasmine simultaneously was attending medical school at LSU.

I think initially it was difficult because my mom and I have always been really close so I had to get used to the distance, we had to learn how to FaceTime and Skype each other, so we were Skyping each other every day and whenever I had struggles and she had struggles, we just had to learn to communicate from a distance, Jasmine told UMHS. But I think over time we figured it out.

Dr. Cynthia Kudji dreamed of becoming a doctor but had to put her career on hold when she became pregnant at age 23. (Photo credit: Provided)

Being in the health care field amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Jasmine and Cynthia said they have witnessed racial disparities firsthand. Lawmakers and community leaders in cities across the country have sounded the alarm over what they see as a disturbing trend of the coronavirus disproportionately affecting black, Latino and other minority populations.

As they continue their journeys into the medical field, both stressed the importance of educating the black community about the virus.

A lot of times we kind of take it for granted, especially with the African American population, just how sensitive the topic can be regarding protective wear, Cynthia told UMHS, adding that many black men wearing masks into stores have felt unfairly targeted as criminals.

Theyre exposing themselves to prevent being profiled. Despite these unfair situations, as a provider, at the same time you still have to educate the public and you still have to get them to wear the masks and the gloves and give them the information and the rationale behind your recommendations, she said.

Democratic lawmakers want police departments to be vigilant about any racially biased policing during the coronavirus pandemic, as people in communities of color express fears of being profiled while wearing masks or other face coverings in public.

After a challenging journey through medical school, Cynthia and Jasmine said they are excited to begin the next phase of their careers and once again be living in the same state.

I always tell people we laugh together, we study together, we cry together, Jasmine said. I think medical school is one of those experiences that you dont truly understand until youre in it. Sometimes people struggle to find someone who relates to their struggles, so for that person to be my mom was extremely helpful.

This story was reported from Cincinnati.

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Mother and daughter graduate medical school together and get matched at same hospital - FOX 13 Tampa Bay

The MCAT should be optional (opinion) – Inside Higher Ed

A few days ago, Eduardo called to tell me that his father had died of COVID-19. I had met the first-generation college student in the emergency room a few months back while taking care of his father and had kept in touch to answer any questions on the medical school admissions process. Eduardo works as a harm-reduction counselor at a needle-exchange program on Manhattans Lower East Side and aspires to be an addiction psychiatrist. He completed his premedical course requirements by attending a community college in the evenings and was scheduled to take the Medical College Admissions Test in March 2020.

Then COVID-19 struck -- leaving Eduardo and his family devastated on multiple fronts. His five-person family of service-industry workers -- deemed essential in this pandemic -- lives in a one-bedroom apartment, making it nearly impossible to isolate and minimize the risk of exposure to the virus. With the exam officially postponed by test administrators and the unimaginable burden of personal tragedy, Eduardo feels depressed and deeply anxious. Among other things, he is worried that his personal circumstances and emotional state will impact his MCAT performance and chances of getting into medical school, and he does not have the luxury of deferring applications for another year.

While many have deemed the pandemic the great equalizer, capable of sickening anyone, data show that it hasnt affected all communities equally. The latest statistics from the New York City Department of Health show that the risk of COVID-19 mortality for African Americans and Latinos is nearly double that of Asians and whites. From a socioeconomic perspective, Hispanic and African American communities are experiencing greater poverty and unemployment and bearing a disproportionate burden of disease due to the greater likelihood of having lower-paying jobs in essential sectors such as food service and delivery, transportation, and health care. Multifamily households are also common among these communities, making it difficult to self-isolate or quarantine. Aspiring medical students coming from these backgrounds might find it difficult, if not impossible, to separate the impact of these unfortunate circumstances from their day-to-day lives for months, if not years, to come.

Medical school applicants from underrepresented groups have long been challenged by the MCAT. Stratification of the latest scores by race/ethnicity reveals stark disparities: mean percentiles for Asians and whites were 74th and 71st respectively, yet 47th and 37th for Hispanics and African Americans. While this divide may lead one to assume that the MCATs design, use or predictive value are inherently biased against African Americans and Latinos, the research suggests otherwise. Rather, systemic factors such as generations of low parental income, unequal educational opportunities, food insecurity and racism are more likely contributors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these inequities. It is possible that the psychosocial and economic challenges that minority communities are facing during this pandemic, compounded with already existing structural barriers, may inadvertently lower MCAT scores for many applicants like Eduardo. Lower scores may even discourage them from applying to medical school altogether. Consequently, it may dissolve years of effort to diversify the physician workforce, which is critical to serving vulnerable communities.

But unprecedented circumstances also provide opportunities for bold measures, and one such measure may be to reimagine short-term changes to the applied use of MCAT scores in medical school admissions. Some near-term changes are already underway. The Association of American Medical Colleges is shortening the MCAT to exclude experimental questions. Additionally, California medical schools will offer secondary decisions even if MCAT scores are unavailable, with hopefully more schools following suit.

I would argue that in order to make the admissions process fair and equitable to all applicants, the MCAT should be optional in the upcoming enrollment cycle.

Importantly, there is already precedence for optional test score reporting in graduate and medical school admissions. As of last year, more than 70 institutions of higher learning, including Harvard, Stanford, Cornell and Princeton Universities, made the Graduate Record Examination optional for several biomedical master's and Ph.D. programs. Princeton reported that doing so has entirely changed the demographic landscape of its graduate school, with nearly 43percent identifying as minorities and 28percent identifying as low-income and/or first-generation students. Additionally, there are existing Early Assurance medical school programs at institutions such as Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell that dont require the MCAT at all, and others where it is optional.

Obviously, there are many factors to consider: schools often use the MCAT as a practical screening modality to select for applicants they believe can achieve academic success. Medical school is academically rigorous, and schools need to be assured that students can do the work. However, the exam does not assess other factors that are equally critical to the quality and caliber of physician one might become, including professionalism, integrity and interpersonal skills. Additionally, the weight attributed to the MCAT as a performance indicator of academic success will likely evolve once the United States Medical Licensing Examination Step 1 is offered pass/fail. Making the MCAT optional can encourage committees to weigh other attributes and metrics not only in final admissions decisions but also initial interview considerations. This can promote greater equity throughout the process, especially opportunity access for underrepresented minorities and those negatively impacted by COVID-19.

Some might argue that MCAT scores are critical to national rankings of medical schools -- which often impact student enrollment decisions. If medical schools are truly committed to equity in admissions, though, they should be able to deprioritize rankings-related concerns in the short term and instead emphasize the equitable measures they are implementing to attract the best and most deserving students. Additionally, medical scientist training programs often have MCAT reporting requirements to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). Perhaps the NIGMS can waive the requirement to account for near-term equitable accommodations.

Implementing an MCAT-optional admissions cycle would undoubtedly require a very nuanced approach. Medical schools would need to make those decisions independently. But they would also need to be explicit in their messaging to applicants that there are no ulterior disadvantages to forgoing the test, as applicants often view such policies with suspicion and caution -- convincing themselves that the policy is in name only. What about applicants who have already taken and/or retaken the MCAT prior to COVID-19-related cancellations? AMCAS, the application service, could introduce a feature whereby applicants can decide if they want to send their scores to medical schools or not. If they choose not to, the feature should require them to explain why. Medical schools could also update their secondary application templates to allow applicants to explain if and how they were impacted by the pandemic.

Every day, we deem our own professionals heroes for fighting COVID-19. Now, we must also take similar heroic steps and make sure that every aspiring physician, including disadvantaged minority applicants like Eduardo, gets a fair chance in the admissions process. The time is here, and the time is now to reimagine the richness of a diverse physician workforce. And a critical first step is through reimagining the applied use of the MCAT and making it optional.

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The MCAT should be optional (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed

Ballad Health to collaborate with Harvard Medical School and ETSU on rural health research – Therogersvillereview

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. Ballad Health announced today that Dr. Michael Chernew, the Leonard D. Schaeffer Professor of Health Care Policy and the Director of the Healthcare Markets and Regulation Lab at Harvard Medical School, will lead an independent study to evaluate hospital competition in small rural markets, and how service offerings and expenses are affected by rural hospital closures and mergers.Conducted in coordination with the East Tennessee State University Center for Rural Health Research, this work will help provide a more comprehensive understanding of health and health care in rural America.

Dr. Chernew has extensive experience in health care market research, including health care spending growth, novel benefit designs, payment reform, Medicare Advantage and pricing in commercial health insurance markets, the causes and consequences of rising health care spending, and geographic variation in spending and spending growth and quality. In addition to being recognized with multiple awards for the quality of his research, Dr. Chernew is a member of the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Health Advisors, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and editor of the American Journal of Managed Care. Dr. Chernew was recently named chair of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), on which he previously served as a member from 2008-2012 and as vice chair from 2012-2014.

The acute care hospital industry has undergone substantial restructuring during the last few decades, and in recent years this frequently involves health systems that stretch across markets and state lines, said Dr. Chernew. While several studies have examined the effect of mergers and acquisitions on prices and quality, most have focused on urban markets. Small rural and non-urban markets differ in ways that could affect the social benefits and costs of hospital consolidation.

The study announced today will examine the competitive dynamics of small hospital markets characterized by areas with relatively low population density and a small number of competing hospitals. Hospitals in these markets typically employ a substantial proportion of the local population and have a significant influence over the local economy. Recent data suggest that many hospitals in these small markets are struggling financially and failing to keep pace with the adoption of the latest technology and best practices.The project will:

Health policy should be driven by the facts, and this analysis will provide much-needed information about the dynamics in rural and non-urban markets and what happens to health care in those markets due to a variety of pressures these hospitals face, said Alan Levine, CEO of Ballad Health. Given the massive number of rural and non-urban hospitals that are failing financially, we hope this study, wherever the data takes it, will inform future policy decisions by Congress, the administration and other enforcement agencies as we try to better understand why so many hospitals are struggling.Once we have thisinformation, it could prescribe a new path forward."

This latest announcement follows on a partnership between Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, the Tennessee Legislature and Ballad Health last July to create the Center for Rural Health Research at ETSU a multidisciplinary institute for research impacting rural health. Over a 10-year period, Ballad Healths $15 million contribution commitment was matched with nearly $10 million by the governor and Tennessee legislature.

At the time of the creation of the Center for Rural Health Research at ETSU, Governor Lee said, I believe the Center for Rural Health Research at ETSU is going to be a major contributor to solving problems that have been developing in rural America for decades. This center will be a leader on this issue and will attract partners from all over the country.

Dr. Randy Wykoff, the dean of the ETSU College of Public Health and director of the Center for Rural Health Research, said, We know that health is driven not only by health care services, but income, education, race and a host of other so-called social determinants. ETSUs highly ranked public health program will combine with the best health care economics team in the country at Harvard to build knowledge that will help bridge research and policy gaps in rural and non-urban health.

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Ballad Health to collaborate with Harvard Medical School and ETSU on rural health research - Therogersvillereview

Michigan Medicine Ranked No. 5 Hospital in the US, No. 15 in the world by Newsweek – University of Michigan Health System News

ANN ARBOR, Mich. Michigan Medicine has earned the No.15 spot in Newsweeks 2020 Worlds Best Hospitals list.

The institution also came in fifth in the United States and as the top hospital in Michigan.

The rankings are based on recommendations from medical professionals, patient surveys and key medical performance indicators, including patient safety, readmission rates and staffing levels.

Its our organizations mission to advance health to serve Michigan and the world, and its an honor to be ranked in this years Worlds Best Hospitals ranking, says Marschall S. Runge, M.D., Ph.D., CEO of Michigan Medicine and dean of the University of Michigan Medical School. We are pleased to be deemed an international health care leader.

The Worlds Best Hospitals 2020 analysis lists leading hospitals in 21 countries, including the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Israel, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, Thailand, Australia and Brazil.

A new and independent global board of medical experts has helped create this years list, according to Newsweek. The board, chosen based on national and international expertise, is tasked with the constant development of the quality and scope of the Worlds Best Hospitals Project.

Newsweek has reported on advances in medicine and science since its founding in 1933. For the last two years, the group has partnered with Statista Inc. to curate a ranking of the 100 best hospitals in the world.

For 2019-20, Michigan Medicine was also among the nations best hospitals and No.1 in Michigan in the U.S. News and World Report rankings. Hospitals are rated based on high-quality patient care, commitment to patient safety, clinical resources, family centeredness and other measures.

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About Michigan Medicine:At Michigan Medicine, we advance health to serve Michigan and the world. We pursue excellence every day in our three hospitals, 125 clinics and home care operations that handle more than 2.3 million outpatient visits a year, as well as educate the next generation of physicians, health professionals and scientists in our U-M Medical School.

Michigan Medicine includes the top ranked U-M Medical School and the University of Michigan Health System, which includes the C.S. Mott Childrens Hospital, Von Voigtlander Womens Hospital, University Hospital, the Frankel Cardiovascular Center and the Rogel Cancer Center. Michigan Medicines adult hospitals were ranked no. 11 in the nation by U.S. News and World Report in 2019-20 and C.S. Mott Childrens Hospital was the only childrens hospital in Michigan nationally ranked in all 10 pediatric specialties analyzed by U.S. News and World Report for 2019-20.The U-M Medical School is one of the nation's biomedical research powerhouses, with total research funding of more than $500 million. More information is available atwww.michiganmedicine.org

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Michigan Medicine Ranked No. 5 Hospital in the US, No. 15 in the world by Newsweek - University of Michigan Health System News