TouroCOM Middletown students volunteered at the Orange County Department of Health.

This week, students from the Middletown campus volunteered with epidemiologists at the Orange County Department of Health to reach out to residents who tested positive for COVID-19. (Another group of students are volunteering to answer the public health phone line in Orange County.) Students called residents after they had been informed by their primary care physician that they tested positive for the disease. Students answered any questions residents had along with reiterating basic guidelines for quarantining and self-isolating to contain the spread of the disease.

We made sure that people understood what they had to do once they tested positive, said OMS-I John Zakhary. We explained how long they had to be quarantined and isolated from the date of diagnosis and what their family members had to do as well. We also told them when they could come out of isolation after they had become asymptomatic.

We also told them that their quarantine was mandatory, and a court order would be in the mail, added OMS-III Steven Silverman.

After discussing the necessary precautions, students then gave the patients lengthy questionnaires about their occupation, travel history, and who they might have interacted with over the course of their illness. Students then collated lists of individuals who might have been exposed to the disease that they gave over to the Orange County medical staff. Several students likened the experience to becoming a medical detective.

Our clinical rotations have been halted so this was a nice way to give back, said OMS-III Bahadar Srichawla. Many individuals were anxious and scared, so in some cases we were able to provide reassurance. Seeing the public health aspect of medicine is quite beneficial. Hopefully we wont have another pandemic, but as future physicians its great to know the public health perspective.

OMS-11 Oksana Levchenko spoke with three residents who tested positive for the virus. One resident refused to discuss who he had been in touch with.

As students we stare in books all day so there are a lot of eye-opening moments when youre actually dealing with this firsthand and seeing it unfold, said Levchenko. My general feeling is that theres probably no better way to get experience and understand medicine than taking part in something like this. Times like these are why were in medical school and its moving to see the effects our profession can have on the future of a lot of people.

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Stopping the Spread - Touro College News

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) Following the passage of the new state budget, Brody School of Medicine officials are encouraged by the emphasis state lawmakers are putting on expanding medical education in the state.

Brody will continue to receive $8 million a year to help cover the cost of training and teaching future doctors. But, that money doesnt cover the cost needed to fulfill one of the biggest future goals of the school expanding class sizes.

There are not enough physicians today to take care of our population, and that will only get worse in the years ahead, said Interim Dean Dr. Nicholas Benson.

Benson said the school remains committed to moving towards growing class sizes. This year, they will add one or two additional spots, bringing the total size up to 82 students.

That increase, that very minimal increase, is not going to be able to really make a positive impact on the healthcare of people across the state, Benson said.

To make that bigger impact, Benson said classes must be expanded much further. The goal for Brody is to have classes expand from the current 80 students a year, to 120 students.

Benson said he was encouraged to see the General Assembly set aside $1 million for UNCs Medical School to expand their current facility.

In order to expand Brodys class sizes, Benson said they would need to hire additional instructors, and also construct a new building, which would cost millions of dollars and take years to complete.

Another obstacle to overcome is the lack of residency and fellowship spots in the East.

Were lagging behind because were younger, said Dr. Herb Garrison, the Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education.

Whereas medical schools at Duke and UNC have between 750 and 1,000 residency and fellowship spots, Greenville only has around 400. Garrison said you cant bring on more students until you have a place for them to train following graduation.

He wants to expand the number of spots in the East for one simple reason.

Youre more likely to stay where you train, so thats why keeping them here is more likely, he said.

Improving access to care in the East is one of the big driving factors in wanting to expand in the first place. Garrison was excited that in the new budget, the General Assembly allotted money to expand residency programs in rural areas.

If you train in a rural areas for two years, you get to know the community and you become part of the community, youre more likely to stay in that community and thats what we really want to see, he said.

Rep. Greg Murphy (R-Pitt) said he requested and additional $2.5 million for Brody in the new budget to help cover planning cost for an expansion. However, that money was not put in to the finalized budget.

Benson said local fundraising efforts to start getting money in line for a new building have already begun. He hopes to continue receiving support from the state moving forward.

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Sacramento Bee

Want a medical degree in three years? It's an option at UC Davis, Kaiser Sacramento Bee For most medical school students, summer means fun in the sun and a much-needed break from studies. But Aljanee Whitaker was hard at work in mid-June, having just started a year-round UC Davis program that fast-tracks primary care doctors to graduate ...

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Collaboration seeks to conduct pre-clinical testing followed by first-in-human clinical trials

SAN DIEGO and SINGAPORE, March 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Arcturus Therapeutics (the Company, NASDAQ: ARCT), a leading messenger RNA medicines company,and Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS), a research intensive, graduate entry medical school, today announced their partnership to develop a Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine for Singapore. The development of a COVID-19 vaccinewill be based on the Companys STARR technologyand will take advantage of a unique platform developed at Duke-NUS allowing rapid screening of vaccines for effectiveness and safety.

The STARR Technology platform combines self-replicating RNA with LUNAR, a leading nanoparticle non-viral delivery system, to produce proteins inside the human body. Due to superior immune response and sustained protein expression, Arcturus STARR Technology is expected to produce a vaccine response at much lower doses compared to traditional mRNA vaccines. This could lead to the ability to treat many more people with a single GMP-manufactured production batch, thereby greatly increasing efficiency and reducing time required to produce sufficient quantities of vaccine for large populations.

We have observed STARR technology in pre-clinical models to be effective at extraordinarily low doses -- greater than 30-fold more efficient than traditional mRNA. The Arcturus manufacturing process has been applied in multiple large GMP batches of highly pure RNA in our LUNAR-OTC program. If successful, Arcturus could develop a vaccine capable of vaccinating millions of people for a fraction of the cost of traditional mRNA vaccines, said Joseph Payne, President & CEO of Arcturus Therapeutics.

Duke-NUS has been on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19, developing the first serological tests for COVID-19 and was among the first groups to isolate and culture the virus. The partnership with Arcturus Therapeutics combines complementary strengths as we work together to fight this global outbreak, said Professor Thomas M. Coffman, Dean of Duke-NUS Medical School.

COVID-19 belongs to a family of coronaviruses that can cause serious respiratory disease. Arcturus plans to apply its STARR Technology toward the development of a vaccine to protect against COVID-19. The self-replicating RNA-based therapeutic vaccine triggers rapid and prolonged antigen expression within host cells resulting in protective immunity against infectious pathogens.

There is a tremendous urgency to develop an effective prevention for the current Coronavirus crisis. The Duke-NUS and Arcturus partnership could expedite a solution to this urgent need as we utilize STARR Technology to bring a vaccine candidate for clinical testing in the shortest time possible, said Professor Ooi Eng Eong, Deputy Director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases programme at Duke-NUS.

Arcturus Corporate Deck has been updated accordingly, and is available at ArcturusRx.com

For more information and potential collaboration opportunities regarding Arcturus Coronavirus vaccine, please contact Arcturus by email at Vax@ArcturusRx.com

About STARR TechnologyThe STARR technology platform combines self-replicating RNA with LUNAR, a leading nanoparticle delivery system, into a single solution to produce proteins inside the human body. The versatility of the STARR technology affords its ability upon delivery into the cell to generate a protective immune response or drive therapeutic protein expression to potentially prevent against or treat a variety of diseases. The self-replicating RNA-based therapeutic vaccine triggers rapid and prolonged antigen expression within host cells resulting in protective immunity against infectious pathogens. This combination of the LUNAR and STARR technologyTM is expected to provide lower dose requirements due to superior immune response, sustained protein expression compared to non-self-replicating RNA-based vaccines and potentially enable us to produce vaccines more quickly and simply.

About CoronavirusCoronaviruses are a family of viruses that can lead to respiratory illness, including Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). Coronaviruses are transmitted between animals and people and can evolve into strains not previously identified in humans. On January 7, 2020, a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was identified as the cause of pneumonia cases in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China, and additional cases have been found in a growing number of countries.

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About Duke-NUS Medical SchoolDuke-NUS is Singapores flagship graduate entry medical school, established in 2005 with a strategic, government-led partnership between two world-class institutions: Duke University School of Medicine and the National University of Singapore (NUS). Through an innovative curriculum, students at Duke-NUS are nurtured to become multi-faceted Clinicians Plus poised to steer the healthcare and biomedical ecosystem in Singapore and beyond. A leader in ground-breaking research and translational innovation, Duke-NUS has gained international renown through its five signature research programmes and eight centres. The enduring impact of its discoveries is amplified by its successful Academic Medicine partnership with Singapore Health Services (SingHealth), Singapores largest healthcare group. This strategic alliance has spawned 15 Academic Clinical Programmes, which harness multi-disciplinary research and education to transform medicine and improve lives.For more information, please visit https://www.duke-nus.edu.sg/

AboutArcturus TherapeuticsFounded in 2013 and based in San Diego, California, Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. (ARCT) is an RNA medicines company with enabling technologies LUNAR lipid-mediated delivery, Unlocked Nucleomonomer Analog (UNA) chemistry, STARR technology and mRNA drug substance along with drug product manufacturing. Arcturus diverse pipeline of RNA therapeutics includes programs to potentially treat Ornithine Transcarbamylase (OTC) Deficiency, Cystic Fibrosis, Coronavirus (COVID-19), Glycogen Storage Disease Type 3, Hepatitis B, and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Arcturus versatile RNA therapeutics platforms can be applied toward multiple types of nucleic acid medicines including messenger RNA, small interfering RNA, replicon RNA, antisense RNA, microRNA, DNA, and gene editing therapeutics. Arcturus technologies are covered by its extensive patent portfolio (182 patents and patent applications, issued in the U.S., Europe, Japan, China and other countries). Arcturus commitment to the development of novel RNA therapeutics has led to collaborations with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., part of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical, Inc., Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, CureVac AG, Synthetic Genomics Inc., Duke-NUS, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. For more information visit http://www.Arcturusrx.com

Forward Looking StatementsThis press release contains forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties for purposes of the safe harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements, other than statements of historical fact included in this press release, including those regarding strategy, future operations, collaborations, the likelihood of success of the Companys Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine or other products, the status of preclinical and clinical development programs and the planned initiation of clinical trials are forward-looking statements. Arcturus may not actually achieve the plans, carry out the intentions or meet the expectations or projections disclosed in any forward-looking statements such as the foregoing and you should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on managements current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties, including those discussed under the heading Risk Factors in Arcturus Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018, filed with the SEC on March 18, 2019 and in subsequent filings with, or submissions to, the SEC. Except as otherwise required by law, Arcturus disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they were made, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise.

ContactArcturus TherapeuticsNeda Safarzadeh(858) 900-2682IR@ArcturusRx.com

LifeSci Advisors LLC Michael Wood (646) 597-6983 mwood@lifesciadvisors.com

Duke-NUS Medical School CommunicationsLekshmy Sreekumar, Ph.D. (+65) 6516-1138lekshmy_sreekumar@duke-nus.edu.sg

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Clinical teams ready; research for vaccines, drugs underway

Postdoctoral researchers Brett Case, PhD, (left) and Adam Bailey, MD, PhD, wear full personal protective equipment to study the COVID-19 virus. Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis physicians and researchers are preparing for COVID-19 cases and working on drugs and vaccines to fight the disease.

Soon after a novel coronavirus first appeared in China in late 2019, researchers, doctors and staff at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis began preparing for the possibility of an outbreak. Infectious disease physicians started planning how to respond if a person with suspected exposure to the virus arrived on campus, and researchers set to work finding drugs or vaccines to treat or prevent COVID-19, the name given to the illness caused by the virus.

New infectious diseases emerge every so often, and we have to be vigilant, said Steven J. Lawrence, MD, an associate professor of medicine. Over the last few decades weve had HIV, Ebola, SARS, Zika and now COVID-19. Such diseases usually arise when an animal virus manages to jump into people because of close contact between people and animals. The chance of preventing that happening anywhere in the world is probably zero. What we can do is be prepared to respond as rapidly as possible when it happens.

In December, China reported the first cases of a mysterious illness characterized by fever, a dry cough and difficulty breathing. Within weeks, Chinese scientists had identified the cause as a never-before-seen member of the coronavirus family. Coronaviruses typically cause mild infections such as the common cold. But in 2002, a newly emerged strain of coronavirus caused an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that killed nearly 1,000 people before it was contained.

It quickly became evident that the 2019 coronavirus strain, named SARS-CoV-2, was more like SARS than the common cold. By late January, tens of thousands of people in China were infected. At the time, the only cases in the U.S. were believed to be in people who had been infected while traveling in China.

In January and February, we had a brief moment of opportunity to contain this outbreak in the U.S. by knowing where people had traveled, Lawrence said. Thats why the efforts to identify and isolate people with the virus were so robust, even though we had such few cases. Once the virus started spreading from person to person in the U.S., it became much, much more complicated.

Washington University infectious disease physicians (from left) Stephen Y. Liang, MD, Steven J. Lawrence, MD, Hilary M. Babcock, MD, and David K. Warren, MD, are preparing for the possibility of COVID-19 cases in St. Louis. Pictured is the team, in 2014, discussing emerging infectious diseases.

Hilary M. Babcock, MD, a professor of medicine and medical director of the Infection Prevention and Epidemiology Consortium for BJC HealthCare, and David K. Warren, MD, a professor of medicine and the medical director for infection prevention at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, did not wait for the virus to start spreading in the U.S. In January, they established a virtual incident command center at BJCHealthCare and called twice-weekly meetings to develop a coronavirus outbreak response plan for all BJC hospitals, including hospitals and clinics staffed by Washington University physicians. The team started by dusting off a plan developed in 2002 for SARS and adapting it to COVID-19 as more information emerged.

The data on mortality for COVID-19 remains a moving target and continues to be assessed. So far, people who are older and those with underlying health conditions, such as heart disease, lung disease or with compromised immune systems, have a higher risk of death. Early data suggests that the illness is more deadly than seasonal flu. Like SARS and the flu, COVID-19 spreads easily through droplets released when infected people cough or sneeze. The viruss contagiousness means that proper use of personal protective equipment is crucial to protect health professionals caring for coronavirus patients.

Communication is one of the most important tools at a time like this, Babcock said. We needed to make sure that our front-line clinicians can very quickly recognize that someone might be infected, and that they know what to do if a potentially infected person presents at their clinic. We also developed guidance regarding which personal protective equipment to wear when working with a patient suspected of having COVID-19 mask, gloves, eye shield, respiratory equipment, and gown how to put it on so it is most effective, and, most importantly, how to take it off without contaminating yourself.

Babcock and Warren also are keeping a close watch on outbreaks in other countries and implemented new travel screening recommendations across the university as the virus has spread to other countries, notably South Korea, Italy and Iran.

We are ready, Babcock said. Weve been ready for weeks. Its only a matter of time before we get our first case.

Building the toolkit to fight COVID-19

Across campus, a team led by Sean Whelan, PhD, the Marvin A. Brennecke Distinguished Professor and head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology, and Michael S. Diamond, MD, PhD, the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine, is looking for ways to treat COVID-19 or reduce its spread.

We had a discussion in early January and decided then to work on advancing therapeutics and vaccines for coronavirus, because it had the potential to be a significant problem, said Whelan, who took over as head of the molecular microbiology department on Jan. 1. It is our responsibility as part of the biomedical research community to do this. The consequences of this virus in places where there isnt a good health-care system could be dire.

Whelan called weekly meetings to coordinate the School of Medicine coronavirus research effort. He and Diamond have special expertise in emerging viral infections. Diamond led the School of Medicine response to Zika virus, during which he and others developed a mouse model of Zika infection and identified an antibody that is now used as part of a diagnostic test. While on the faculty at Harvard, Whelan studied Ebola and identified a critical protein that the virus exploits to cause deadly infections.

Whelan and Diamond built a research team including influenza experts Jacco Boon, PhD, an associate professor of medicine, and Ali Ellebedy, PhD, an assistant professor of pathology and immunology, who provided advice and scientific tools for studying respiratory viruses; structural immunologist Daved Fremont, PhD, a professor of pathology and immunology, who has begun studying the interactions of coronavirus proteins with antibodies and other human proteins to facilitate vaccine design and improved diagnostics; David T. Curiel, MD, PhD, the Distinguished Professor of Radiation Oncology,who began designing a potential vaccine; and Siyuan Ding, PhD, an assistant professor of molecular microbiology, who is investigating whether the virus also can be transmitted through the fecal-oral route.

The team is analyzing the structure of the viruss proteins to find possible targets for drugs or vaccines, looking for antibodies that might protect against disease, creating potential vaccines using multiple strategies, and developing a mouse model that can be used to test potential drugs and vaccines.

In addition, geneticist Ting Wang, PhD, the Sanford and Karen Loewentheil Distinguished Professor of Medicine, and members of his lab built a genome browser to help researchers study the genetics of the COVID-19 virus and compare different strains. Greg Bowman, PhD, an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics whose work focuses on how proteins take their shape, has mobilized his crowdsourced Folding@home Consortium to find the shape of coronavirus proteins to inform drug and vaccine development.

The speed of research on coronavirus has been extraordinary, Diamond said. Chinese scientists identified the virus, sequenced its genome, identified the probable animal source, and released the genomic sequence to the public in a matter of weeks. Groups around the world have been creating and sharing the tools we need to interrogate this virus. But even so, these things take time. Every day, the U.S. is seeing new cases. We are racing against the clock.

Washington University School of Medicines 1,500 faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals. The School of Medicine is a leader in medical research, teaching and patient care, ranking among the top 10 medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

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School of Medicine physicians, researchers tackle coronavirus Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis - Washington University School of...

The costs of applying

Hernandez, who comes from a lower-middle class family, graduated from Duke University in 2016. Although he received a full-tuition scholarship for medical school, he said he still took out around $20,000 in loans to cover other living costs like housing, food and insurance.

Hernandez said he felt early on that he was part of a minority, both in terms of socioeconomic background and ethnicity. Most importantly, he said in many of his premed classes, he was surrounded by peers from legacy physician families.

And so what I think that does, is it sets up this disparity of people that know the plan to get into med school, like people that know you have to volunteer, you got to shadow, you gotta they know what boxes to check to get into med school, Hernandez said.

The Association of American Medical Colleges offers a Fee Assistance Program to help students address potential financial barriers in the application process. Hernandez said while fee assistance did lower the price of the MCAT and provide some study resources, he took out a $1,000 loan to pay for books.

He said as a student of lower socioeconomic status, these additional costs are constantly in the back of his mind.

It pervades every thought throughout med school of when you see that stethoscope and youre like, Damn, you know, thats a lot of money, those kinds of things, he said.

According to the Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships, the cost of attendance per year at UNC School of Medicine is $70,920 for in-state students and $98,314 for out-of-state students. The "cost of education", or COE, takes into account expenses for items like school supplies, transportation and room and board.

Like Hernandez, first-year UNC medical student Noelani Ho believes the financial burden of attending medical school begins in the application process. She co-authored an article on the issue, which was published in October in the New England Journal of Medicine. Ho said the cost of applying can be daunting, and acts as a barrier to increasing diversity in the profession.

Our argument there was like, it's great that we're starting this conversation about free tuition, we definitely think thats the direction we need to be going in and it's definitely helping the cause, Ho said. But we also need to address the fact that the pool of applicants that medical schools are picking to give this free tuition to, is in and of itself not as diverse as it needs to be, both in terms of race and socioeconomic status.

Addressing education debt

Admissions officers at 70 medical schools in the U.S. and Canada were surveyed in a separate Kaplan poll, in which only 4 percent of officers said they believed their institution would be able to offer free tuition in the next decade.

Jeff Koetje, Kaplan Test Preps director of pre-health programs, said moving toward tuition-free options involves a number of factors.

"What is within the realm of possibility for a school is going to depend on what is that mix of sources of funds that are currently available to the school to support its operations, and tuition is a pretty significant aspect of that, Koetje said. The elimination of tuition or the reduction in tuition coming into the school means that the school really needs to think about how is it going to make up that loss of that particular source of funds.

UNC School of Medicine currently offers a number of scholarships and financial aid to its students, although the majority of awards are loans. 78 percent of UNC medical school students received scholarships, according to 2017-2018 data from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.

Beat Steiner, senior associate dean for medical student education, said UNC School of Medicine supports trying to find ways to reduce tuition burden for students.

I think it's important to note that were a state-sponsored school, right, so were a state medical school, Steiner said. And if it was the will of the citizens of North Carolina to go in the direction of tuition free, that would be just wonderful.

Steiner said two-thirds of UNCs cost of education is paid for by student tuition, while the remaining one-third is funded by state and donor support to the School of Medicine. He said one way the school tries to reach students of underrepresented backgrounds is by encouraging professional development in state high schools.

Obstacles for free tuition

Julie Byerley is the vice dean for academic affairs in the UNC School of Medicine. She said although she supports lowering students debt, she has also heard the argument that its unfair to single out education debt in medicine given the number of other valuable professions in the United States. But she also said one reason medical education may be more costly is because it happens in an apprenticeship sort of way, and is therefore expensive to carry out.

She also said increasing tuition-free options could lead to a potential devaluation of initiatives that incentivize students to go into needed areas of medicine, like the Kenan Primary Care Medical Scholars Program. The program offers financial support and opportunities to students pursuing careers in rural medicine and primary care.

Ariel Harris, a first-year in UNCs School of Medicine and first-generation college student, said when she was applying to UNC, the school placed a lot of emphasis on going into primary care.

Harris said she received a $20,000 scholarship for medical school, but like Hernandez, she had to take out loans to cover the other parts of the cost of education. Both Harris and Hernandez said despite the benefits of the fee assistance program, the costs of applying limited the schools they chose to apply to.

Ho said perhaps one way to level the playing field for prospective medical school students is for the Association of American Medical Colleges to place a cap on the number of schools students can apply to or for schools to encourage more virtual interviews to cut down on travel costs.

Harris said she hopes medical schools can be more transparent about costs, particularly at events like pre-health fairs for undergraduate students.

They talk about all the great things that come with their school, but then you see this really big price tag, and then people kind of shy away, Harris said.

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Students note the challenges of medical school debt and look toward tuition options - The Daily Tar Heel

It isnt always easy to detect when a friend or colleague is suffering from burnout, and even if you do, it can be uncomfortable to speak up about it. But while it may be difficult conversation, speaking up can make all the difference for a struggling physician.

In the second of two AMA Moving Medicine podcast episodes featuring a panel discussion on burnout, the AMA's team of experts on physician burnout discuss what to do if you think a friend or colleague is dealing with burnout and how the health care system can cultivate physician resiliency. Kathleen Blake, MD, MPH, leads the panel with Marie Brown, MD, Jan Kief, MD, Ryan Ribeira, MD, MPH, and Hunter Pattison, MD.

Below is a lightly edited full transcript of the presentation. You can tune in on Apple Podcasts,Google PlayorSpotify.

Dr. Blake: I'm going to just, from a personal anecdote, share the fact that going into residency or into internship, my husband and I made a pact. And it might seem silly, but it worked. And the pact was that during that year that we knew would be incredibly stressful, we were not going to make a baby, we were not going to change religions, and we were not going to know the word divorce.

So, literally, what we did is we just said, "Park it." And like I say, it might seem silly. But I would tend to ruminate. And I could have ruminated myself probably into changing religions, possibly getting a divorce. Probably not making a baby. But it's something where you just say, Certain thingsthey can wait.

I'm going to go to Hunter next and ask our third question, which is, what do you do if you are starting to observe that a friend or colleague and you think they might be about to burnout? Or they're acting in a way that you think they've already reached that stage?

Dr. Pattison: No one is walking around with a low-battery logo above their head. People will experience burnout differently. And you may not always recognize that. A lot of times, the most common ways that people will say residents and medical professionals will burn out will be with patient care or being late to meetings or late to reply on things, big changes in personality and things like that.

If you're starting to see that and starting to recognize that, I think it's important to point it out to the person, because they may not realize what's going on. They may not realize that they are burning out or they're experiencing symptoms of burnout in their system. And the same goes with you as well. You may not realize that you're burning out, but you are being less efficient in your clinical duties and your other duties. Or you're not finding satisfaction in the things that you used to get a lot fulfillment out of. I think trying to be that helping hand and trying to connect people to wellness resources or encourage them to seek out those wellness resources is important.

But again, it puts the blame of burnout on the person in that, when you think about burnout, it's not the person, it's not the fact that they're weak or they aren't able to get through the system or through their training and become the doctor that they're supposed to be. It really is a systems issue. I think the best advice would be to try and realize what's causing that burnout. Whether it's shift scheduling, or whether it's administrative tasks. Or if its extremely burdensome with the EHRthings like that. And work with your community and your organization to try and fix that.

Because that's the only way you're going to prevent burnout is by trying to help fix the system that's causing it. I also would definitely put in a plug for state involved organized medicine too, because I think coming to meetings like this and staying involved in your communities and your hospital organizations, state organizations, things like that, that's how you can make a difference. And that's why I think everyone on the panel is still involved, because they feel like they can help make a difference in the system.

Dr. Blake: Jan, Marie, Ryan, anything you'd like to add to that?

Dr. Brown: I think depersonalization, saying something really negative about the patient. They're not Mrs. Jones in room two, they're that train wreck. We know, looking back, depersonalizing the patients and playing silly games where you've got points for certain hits that you got that night: that was depersonalization. We didn't know it at the time, but that was us dealing with burnout. If you see that, and somebody's really angry, there is a script and talking points on STEPS Forward. Because those are hard conversations because you're struggling toobut say something. ...

If you say, "I'm really struggling, I just feel whatever," reflect and then see what comes from that other person. But if you don't feel comfortable, bring it on to the program director or your medical student, the clerkship director, or whoever is a safe person for you. I know when I was in residency during internship, now the CEO of Rush was my chief resident. And one of my colleagues was burned out, my dearest friend, and I didn't know that she was burning out. So, he had the two of us come over for beers and pizza to just have a quiet time.

The people whoI'm afraid some of you are in this roomwho say yes to everything, and are the least likely to be considered burning out because you're always happy, you always say yes, you're the go-to person, you can go to the AMA, you can run this meeting, you can make everybody else better.

That person, we've seen across the country, without anybody knowing, that perfect medical student, that perfect resident, that perfect doctor, we found out with some horrific event when they just let it go. So, watch out for yourself, if you're the yes person, and you know somebody who's always the yes person. Say: "We might be adding to that person's burnout because they may be the last person that you think."

Dr. Blake: Thank you. Last question, and we'll start with Ryan to answer this one. How do we cultivate resiliency throughout our medical career? And are there any particularly useful toolswe've heard a bit about some of them alreadythat you've encountered to enhanceand I'm going to modify the question a little bitnot just your personal resiliency, but the resiliency of the people around you, so that this is a more systems approach?

Dr. Ribeira: Yeah. I'm glad that you said that, because my first response to this question was that I kind of object. Generally speaking, I object to utilizing the term resiliency in these conversations too much. I think it is a worthwhile concept, but always needs to be coupled with the fact that providing tools for resiliency is just to help you get through a system that really needs an overhaul until we can fix it. We talked about cultivating resiliency through your medical career. I think, honestly, currently the way that medical training is structured does a disservice for us, kind of, for the rest of our lives.

And this has really been punctuated for me having recently finished my residency. I talked to my friends who are in other fields and they say, "Oh, how are you doing?" And I say, "Oh, it's pretty good, I'm pretty busy. I usually travel for my business Monday, Tuesday. I do administrative meetings Wednesday, Thursday. I do shifts Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And they're like, "Oh, that sounds like a nightmare." And I'm like, "Oh well, I guess. It's way better than residency." And I really, in my mind, I'm always comparing my life to the 90 hours a week or so that you are doing residency, and this seems way better.

I think by taking people through their very formative years of life, and then for three to nine years making them work 80 to 90 hours a weekand never go to the dentist, and never work out, and eat like garbage, and all these thingshow do we expect them then, for the rest of their lives, to reverse all those horrible habits that we have forced upon them and live a normal and mentally healthy life? I think it is the system itself that is ingraining in us those bad habits.

Consequently, I think the solutions that are most appealing to me are solutions that facilitate the development of good habits during training. Some of the things I've seen that have been successful: At Stanford, in our residency program, in lieu of mandatory wellness lectures, once they kind of got the message around, they said, "Well, you know what we're going to do? We're going to give you residency conference credit for doing wellness activities. So instead of going to conference, you can go work out for an hour. And you'll get an hour of conference credit for that."

Or, "You can go to the dentist, or you can go get a massage, or you can go do whatever you want to do for your own personal wellness, and we'll give you conference credit for that as if you were there." That kind of solution I think is excellent. It helps foster those good life habits.

Also at Stanford, the surgery program just started scheduling people for days to meet with their primary care doctor and giving them the day off. They're like, "Hey, we gave you Thursday off. And we also scheduled an appointment with your primary care doctor. You don't have to go if you don't want to. But you know, just to help you out a little bit." Things like that, that help you develop those good habits and those life skills that are going to be important for the rest of your life, I think are some of the more useful interventions.

Dr. Blake: Great. Are there comments from the panel? Jan?

Dr. Kief: I've got a couple of comments. Those are very good, Ryan. You do have to have a very supportive institution. And this issue of burnout, it's lifelong. There are diverse factors. But there are certain things you can do yourself. Then, certain things, like organized medicine, where you can hopefully change the system, or with teams, you can suggest that things at your institution be changed.

One of my dear friends is an astronaut at the International Space Station, Kjell Lindgren. Hes also a physician. The astronauts adhere to this program of self-care, then team care, and then the mission. Self-care: you can't show up being a mess. Tell yourself: Three aspects of gratitude a day. Religiously practice that. My students think that is a huge thing. Always: Three things that you are so grateful for every day. Science has proven that's more effective than SSRIs. Take care of yourself in nutrition, your health. Have a personal physician. All of that stuff, you just have to do. So, self-care, that's No. 1.

Then team care. We really need the efficient, empoweredyou have to be able to innovate, that makes you happyphysician-led teams. And that's going to take a lot of the administrative burden off. It's going to make you have fun at your work every day and give you a sense of purpose so that, you look at the three pillars of burnout, it's going to help alleviate those. So self-care, team care, and then the mission will be able to happen. ... There are toolkits out there with all sorts of things you can do in your institution and in your personal life.

Dr. Blake: Other comments?

Dr. Brown: Many of you may be going back, and hopefully your organization is looking to you for some ideas. I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days at Penn State last year and the medical student group had some very good ideas that I'll share with you that'll be posted up on Steps Forward in the not-too-distant future. One was they had the therapy dogs that are there for patients, and they just had them in the student lounge, and it was so popular.

And then, you're also experiencing what the patient might experience or when the patient says, "No, I don't want to do this." She said, "Well, I did it. It really feels good." And the other thing they did as a group, they made teddy bears or sewed some things for the pediatric ward, and they phrased it more as surgical suture technique and sewing. So, there are things you can do on site that are pretty creative.

Dr. Pattison: I'll just make it quick. I know we do talk a lot about like the systemic burnout, but at the end of the day, if you are feeling burned out or if you know someone who is feeling burned out, a lot of it comes down to that person trying to do stuff for their own wellness. Are you taking control and trying to do stuff to make you feel less burned out and give you that life satisfaction, or those things in your life that can bring you that fulfillment?

I remember starting out residency and people were like, "Oh, don't forget to cook food and go to the gym every day or go to gym every week and still enjoy the things that you want to do and take time to do that." And one month in, I was like, "How do people have time to do this?" All I wanted to do was sleep when I got home. And I'm sure that a lot of you feel that same way in medical school too, but it really takes a conscious effort to still maintain those aspects of your outside life that allow you to be the person that you are.

So, I think making that conscious effort to, if you like running, still try and run three times a week. Maybe not every day, or if you like gardening, or if you like reading, or if you like watching Netflix or anything, just taking that time to yourself and taking that little bit of control that back into your own hands, I think will help.

You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts,Google PlayorSpotify.

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When a colleague struggles with burnout, here's how to reach out - American Medical Association

Is there an ideal educational destination to prepare you for medical school? If there is, its going to depend on a number of individualized factors, according to one expert who has been working in the field for more than four decades.

According to Robert Cannon, PhD, professor emeritus in the biology department at the University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNCG) who has advised prospective medical students for 40-plus years, there are two common metrics that any medical school applicant who attends any undergraduate institution will apply with: scores on the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) and a grade-point average (GPA).

Beyond that, he said, medical schools are looking for people who know why they want to be doctors and, more importantly, have done things to prove it. That includes hands-on patients care, in-depth health-related or other sorts of volunteerism, and some physician shadowing.

Much of the criteria Cannon lays out can be gained through most undergraduate institutions. Still, there are a few factors he pointed to that may make some colleges better for premeds.

Just about any accredited, brick-and-mortar university is going to give students a path to get their medical school prerequisites. For those who have fears that smaller liberal arts colleges may be viewed differently by admissions officers, Cannon said not to fret.

You could look at those schools as schools of both liberal arts and sciences, he said.

In terms of the size of a university: Its possible that a big university that has a lot more majors might give a student more choices. The issue there is, can a student who is in a nonscience major fit the premed prerequisites in their course schedule? The prerequisites may be taken as electives outside your major. At my university, for example, to be a music performance majorit takes extraordinary time and effort. Can a student fit in the premed requirement in addition to the major requirements? It would be hard.

GPA is among the most heavily weighted factors in the medical school admissions process. The mystery of that number comes in terms of how GPAs are weighted depending on the perceived prestige of where they were earned.

Medical school admissions committees, Cannon said, may be prone to judging applicants based on preconceptions about the competitiveness of a given college or university based on previous experiences with applicants from those colleges and universities.

College such as the Ivies, private university with medical schools, and large state universities that have research missionsthese are elite college and universities that accept students with high [high school] GPAs and high standardized test scores, Cannon said. Applicants from these schools may be favored over students who come from universities that arent quite as elite.

Cannon is leery of undergraduate institutions that tout the number of graduates who move on to medical schools. Instead of looking at that numberwhich the majority of institutions dont publicize in any casehe advised looking at the support programs a school has that let students find the right volunteer opportunities and help to make them more competitive medical school applicants.

These days, all colleges and universities know that they have to do more than just deal with students in the classroom, he said. The key is the whole experience.

Universities have student-services offices related to community service and leadership. Cannon cautioned that students should demonstrate a commitment to the kinds of activities that would translate to a career in health care.

Its not that you had 18 different volunteer experiences, he said. Medical school admission deans arent looking for dabblers. They are looking for people who really showed depth of commitment to serving others who are often different from themselves.

Getting into medical school isnt easy. Undergraduate institutions that offer some assistance, typically in the form of an experienced prehealth adviser or a prehealth advising office, can help students reach that goal.

A school that has experienced health professions advisersthat would be a good school to think about going to, Cannon said.

Those opportunities may be more readily available at a college with larger enrollment.

Some larger universities have decided to put premedical/health professions advising into their career centers, Cannon said. They are often staffing these offices with individuals who arent necessarily academics. Their full-time jobs are to do everything they can to help students prepare for their post-college health careers.

Read more here:
What makes for the best premed school? 4 key considerations - American Medical Association

MADRID, SPAIN MAY 17: Jennifer Gates and Nayel Nassar during Madrid-Longines Champions, the International Global Champions Tour at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid on May 17, 2019 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Samuel de Roman/Getty Images)

(CNN) Bill Gates daughter Jennifer Gates has announced her engagement.

The Microsoft founders eldest child shared a photo on her Instagram account Wednesday revealing that she had accepted the proposal of Nayel Nassar.

Nassar, 28, is a professional equestrian with the Paris Panthers, the team that Jennifer Gates manages and also rides for. Born in Chicago, he competes under the flag of his parents homeland, Egypt, and he helped that nation qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Both Gates and Nassar attended Stanford University. She graduated in 2018, he in 2013.

Nayel Nassar, you are one of a kind. Absolutely swept me off my feet this past weekend, surprising me in the most meaningful location over one of our many shared passions, Gates, 23, wrote alongside a photo of the pair sitting on snow.

She added that she cant wait to spend the rest of our lives learning, growing, laughing and loving together.

Gates told CNNs EQ equestrian show last year: Horses are just one part of our life, but we love the sport.

Hes a professional, and I do this as an amateur. So, to be able to share our love and passion for horses with each other is just incredible.

In an interview last summer with CNN Sports, Gates said she will go on to medical school after taking some time off for the equestrian tour.

Gates said she planned to attend the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. The New York Post reported that her parents bought a $5 million condo on Fifth Avenue adjacent to the campus.

In October, Nassar helped Egypt qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games by winning the CSIO4*-W Nations Cup of Rabat. The feat led to the countrys first Olympic qualification for the sport in 60 years.

Nassar also posted two other photos of the wintry proposal on his own Instagram account Wednesday, writing: SHE SAID YES!!

Im feeling like the luckiest (and happiest) man in the world right about now, he captioned his pictures with his wife-to-be.

Jenn, you are everything I could have possibly imagined and so much more. I cant wait to keep growing together through this journey called life, and I simply cant imagine mine without you anymore.

While Bill Gates has yet to release a statement on his daughters pending nuptials, his wife, Melinda, shared their daughters post on her Instagram story and said she is thrilled for the couple.

Bill and Melinda Gates have two other children: Rory, 20, attends the University of Chicago, and Phoebe, 17, is a high school junior with an interest in dance.

The-CNN-Wire & 2020 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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Bill Gates daughter Jennifer engaged to fellow Stanford alum - East Bay Times

Meeks and her colleagues, including senior author Bonnielin K. Swenor, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Johns Hopkins Universitys Wilmer Eye Institute, note that their results arent necessarily representative of all medical schools, because of lower participation in the survey by schools in the south and the studys focus on allopathic schools.

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However, the schools that participated represent more than 41,000 medical students in 2018.

Doctors with disabilities have a valuable perspective that can uniquely drive scientific innovation and improve patient care," says Swenor. "While our results signal a promising increase in representation of persons with disabilities in medicine, further work is needed to determine if representation translates to inclusion, which is critical to achieving diversity in medicine."

The new study comes at a time of increased attention to the issue of disability and health among medical trainees.

The AAMC is committed to working with leaders at the nations medical schools and teaching hospitals to shape the culture, establishing accountability and allocating necessary resources to enhance access and inclusion for individuals with disabilities, said Geoffrey Young, Ph.D., senior director of student affairs and programs at the AAMC.

The 2018 report, Accessibility, Inclusion, and Action in Medical Education: Lived Experiences of Learners and Physicians With Disabilities, served as the first comprehensive examination of the experiences of medical learners with disabilities and gave a voice to medical students, residents and physicians with physical, psychological, sensory, learning or chronic health disabilities, he says. Since the publication of this report, we have begun collecting data on the percentage of students who self-identify as having a disability and whether they requested and received accommodations. We are using this data to provide enhanced support to students.

Meeks own institution has made a commitment to accommodating admitted students with disabilities.

SEE ALSO: A Seat at the Table: Why U-Ms Medical School Wants More Students with Disabilities

At Michigan, we are committed to a more inclusive learning environment in the fullest sense of the word, says Rajesh Mangrulkar, M.D., the associate dean for medical student education at the U-M Medical School. The crucial, ongoing research that Dr. Meeks and her team are doing show that we are beginning to move the needle on understanding the lived experience for our medical students who have both apparent and non-apparent disabilities. And while we are making progress, far more work is required for us to build the culture for these students to thrive and develop; all for the betterment of their future patients.

"Students with disabilities who have been admitted to medical school have already shown academic excellence to a significant enough extent to make them attractive candidates for admission," adds Steven Gay, M.D., M.S., assistant dean for admissions at the U-M Medical School. "A better understanding of their needs and potential accommodations they may require works to not only to insure their success, but to insure better healthcare to all of the diverse populations we hope to serve."

The authors are already conducting further research that will go beyond documenting the current rates of disability disclosure and accommodation. Theyre seeking to better understand issues such as the career trajectories and experiences of medical students with disabilities, and the potential benefit to patients of having a doctor who has a disability.

In addition to Meeks and Swenor, the papers authors include Ben Case, M.P.H., and Melissa Plegue, M.A., of U-M, and Kurt Herzer, M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc., of Johns Hopkins.

Paper cited: Change in Prevalence of Disabilities and Accommodation Practices Among US Medical Schools, 2016 vs 2019, JAMA. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2019.15372

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More Medical Students Are Disclosing Their Disabilities, and Schools Are Responding, Study Finds - Michigan Medicine

When the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) released its comprehensive report in October, Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout, an estimated 40% to 54% of US physicians reported experiencing burnout.1 In light of this, burnout is increasingly being recognized as a crisis in healthcare.1-5

The NAM report found that physicians in private practice are at significantly higher risk for burnout (almost 30% greater) than physicians in university-based settings, and physicians in specialties with high patient contact such as medicine, family medicine, general internal medicine, and neurology reported higher rates of burnout than other disciplines.1

Burnout is thought to be the direct result of occupational demands that consistently outweigh the physical, mental, and psychological abilities of individuals suffering from it. While the problem has been well documented and studied since the 1990s, the scope of burnout has only increased over the past decade.1-4

Categories of Symptoms

The Maslach Burnout Inventories, the most common tool used to assess burnout, identifies 3 main categories of symptoms associated with occupational stress.1-4:

Other descriptions have attempted to capture the distress of burnout. A 2017 review by DeCaporale-Ryan defined it as the emotional manifestation of a profound mismatch between high expectations for ones future and the reality of daily life.5

Burnout can occur in all phases of a physicians career, from medical school to advanced practice.3 The consequences often extend to physicians personal relationships and can compromise their desire and ability to perform job functions, which can lead them to consider leaving their jobs and even the medical profession.1,2,4 In a 2017 study of 1289 physicians, a sense of calling was strongly associated with a high perception of meaning in life.6 Another study found that physicians with burnout were less likely to identify medicine as their calling.7

Factors Contributing to Burnout

The literature shows that the issues contributing to burnout are institutional and systemic, including excessive workloads, insufficient staffing, procedural inefficiencies, poor leadership culture, and lack of support for physicians contributions and individual needs. These large-scale issues have a negative impact on physician satisfaction with their work and impede their ability to effectively perform their jobs.

Numerous occupational stressors have also been identified1-4:

Lack of Autonomy

Recent studies have pointed to high degrees of oversight by regulatory agencies and healthcare organizations and the restrictions posed by insurance companies as major contributors to physician burnout.2,4 Fred and Scheid observed that physicians may feel constrained in their decision-making abilities regarding time spent with patients, tests ordered, and treatment choices.2

Interrupted Workflow1,2

Time Management Challenges1,2

Electronic Health Record

The requirement to maintain electronic health records (EHR) has been cited in the literature as a major stressor that affects all 3 Medicare Administrator Contractor Satisfaction Indicator (MSI) domains by depersonalizing the physician-patient interaction, extending the administrative functions physicians perform, and shifting the focus from the patient to the task.1,2 The NAM report stated that clinicians view administrative tasks as less meaningful work, and incomplete mastery of the system extends the time required to perform EHR tasks, which can increase frustration at work.1

Conclusion

Awareness of physician burnout has peaked in the past few years with many new investigations exploring its underlying systemic causes. However, while interest in burnout research has increased, changes to the way in which physicians practice are slow in coming. Until the culture of medicine begins to shift, clinicians will continue to be exposed to situations that set the stage for individual burnout.

References

1. Taking action against clinician burnout: a systems approach to professional well-being. National Academy of Medicine, 2019. http://nap.edu/25521. Accessed 10/30/19.

2. Fred HL, Scheid MS. Physician burnout: causes, consequences, and (?) cures. Tex Heart Inst J. 2018;45(4):198-202.

3. Dyrbye LN, Varkey P, Boone Sonja L, et al. Physician satisfaction and burnout at different career stages. Mayo Clin Proc. 2013;88(12):1358-1367.

4. West CP, Dyrbye LN, Shanafelt TD. Physician burnout: contributors, consequences and solutions. J Intern Med. 2018;283:516-529.

5. DeCaporale-Ryan L, Sakran JV, Grant MBE, et al. The undiagnosed pandemic: Burnout and depression within the surgical community. Curr Prob Surg. 2017;54:453-502.

Tak HJ, Curlin FA, Yoon JD. Association of intrinsic motivating factors and markers of physician well-being: a national physician survey. J Gen Intern Med. 2017;32(7):739-746.

Jager AJ, Tutty MA, Kao AC. Association between physician burnout and identification with medicine as a calling. Mayo Clin Proc. 2017;92:415-422.

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Awareness of Physician Burnout Has Peaked, But What Is the Next Step In Addressing It? - Medical Bag

Engineering senior Ryuji Arimoto is on the tail end of the stressful cycle of medical school applications. After multiple rounds of online applications and 10 interviews, hes finally started to receive acceptances.

But Arimotos hard-earned acceptances have come at a cost. Factoring in testing fees, his primary and secondary applications to 40 different medical schools and the travel costs of interviewing at schools across the country, Arimoto estimated hes already approaching $10,000 in total expenses, and he hasnt finished the process yet.

Thats an obscene amount of money, Arimoto said.

The pricey application process begins with the Medical College Admission Test, or the MCAT. According to Arimoto, many students take a prep course, which can cost a few thousand dollars. The test itself costs over $300, and its not uncommon for students to take the MCAT several times.

Second-year University of Michigan Medical School student Vy Tran, a first-generation college graduate who identifies as someone from a low-income background, said even though MCAT preparation is expensive, she took a course to make sure she was setting herself up for success.

Medical school is a huge process, Tran said. You want to do everything you can, you dont want to be cheap on these things.

Next come the primary applications. Primaries are streamlined so students submit a single application package through the Association of American Medical Colleges online service. Students who applied this past cycle paid $170 for the first school and $40 for each additional one. For the 2019-2020 cycle, students applied to 17 schools on average, according to the AAMC.

If a student meets the qualifications for a medical school, theyll be asked to submit a secondary application answering school-specific questions. The cost of secondaries varies, but Arimoto said its often around $100 per school. The U-M Medical School charges $85. After secondaries, Arimoto said his total application costs were already in the range of multiple thousands of dollars, not including MCAT-related fees.

Secondary is a cash grab, Arimoto said. Obviously, you dont need a hundred dollars from every single applicant for them to send you, what, two essays?

Without family support, Arimoto said, he would have been in financial distress at this point in the cycle.

Even before my interviews started, I wouldve just been drained monetarily, Arimoto said. There would have been no question about that.

Steven Gay, assistant dean for admissions at the U-M Medical School, said though secondaries are expensive, the school-specific aspect makes sense.

Every school has its own secondary, and I think thats very appropriate, Gay said. Just like students are looking for certain things in schools, we should be attempting to get the best students to succeed in our curriculum, to become the type of physicians we feel its our mission as an institution to create.

Gay acknowledged the cost of secondaries, noting the U-M Medical School does try to alleviate it by offering fee waivers to students who reach out and demonstrate need. In addition, Gay said when the University began accepting a people skills test called CASPer as part of medical school applications, the Office of Admissions did not raise secondary fees, recognizing that students were now paying to submit those scores.

Weve worked to keep our secondaries lower in terms of the top institutions, Gay said.

There are also some scholarships available through the AAMC. For instance, Tran said she was able to get 15 or 16 schools worth of primary and secondary application fees waived, covering all the schools she applied to.

As a final step, qualified applicants hear back from medical schools with interview invitations. Arimoto said someone who applies to 20 schools might expect to get five interviews if theyre fortunate. The travel costs are not reimbursed.

If youre lucky enough to get interviews, they dont pay for your interviews, Arimoto said. If you have to fly out to California from Michigan, its like $500, and then you have to buy a hotel, thats $200 a night, and if you have to spend two nights there, then youre already at a grand for one interview.

Gay said medical schools have some ways of mitigating the cost of attending interviews. Schools in similar locations may try to coordinate interview dates so students only have to make a single trip. In addition, Gay said the U-M Medical School works to provide interviewees with more affordable housing, food and transportation options, as well as travel reimbursements for some applicants.

We tend to give travel reimbursement for our students who are low-income so that its not an issue to travel, Gay said. We have an extensive program where students can stay with other students on their visits and arent paying for places to stay.

Tran received a $200 reimbursement from the University to support her interview. She also tried to offset travel costs by grouping interviews in similar locations.

I tried to group my interviews together, Tran said. There are things like that that you can do, but that being said, sometimes you dont have that choice because the school will pick a date for you.

Tran said hearing back from the University of Michigan, one of her top schools, by early October spared her the cost of additional interviews. In addition to seeking out schools that offer a quick turnaround, she said applicants should think carefully about what schools are truly a good match, rather than just applying to as many as possible.

There are some people who dont need to apply to that many, and there will be people applying to schools that are not a good fit for them, Tran said. Just think about what the schools values are.

Gay echoed Trans sentiments, noting the one-size-fits-all primary application, which allows prospective medical students to apply online to dozens of schools at once, may encourage people to apply to more schools than necessary. He said applicants should narrow down which schools actually match their interests. For instance, some schools might better prepare students for medical research, while others might fit students aspiring to become primary-care physicians.

Part of applying to medical school, just like applying to undergrad, is the onus of when its easy to apply to all of them, you just apply to all of them, Gay said. There is responsibility on the student to be an informed consumer with some discretion, saying, these are actually the things I want.

Gay said increasing the number of schools one applies to doesnt necessarily improve the chances of getting an interview. Medical schools have specific criteria, so Gay said applicants need to be honest with themselves about what schools they are likely to be accepted to.

The application process isnt a lucky thing, Gay said. Students do the very best they can to prepare themselves to be the best candidates for medical school. But once they have done that, its important to assess what you look like as a candidate and have others with experience frankly assess what your candidacy looks like.

One thing medical schools can do to help applicants make educated choices, Gay said, is to be open with pre-med advisers and prospective students about what requirements and values theyre looking for in an applicant.

All of us, as medical schools, should be transparent in our processes, Gay said. We should be very open with letting students know how we are trying to assist them, knowing that finances can be a significant barrier to the application process. But students, equally, should work hard to pick schools they feel they have not only the best opportunity of getting into but fit who they wish to be.

Arimoto, who applied to 40 schools an above-average number said hed already accepted that going into medicine would put him into debt. The cost of applying and interviewing seemed almost insignificant compared to the overall cost of becoming a doctor.

Trying to go into healthcare in general is just such a ludicrous business in itself, in that, even though this seems like a ton of money, you compare it to the tuition of a school, and its minuscule, Arimoto said. For example, if you want to attend Harvard Medical School, per year the amount of money that youre going to pay is around $95,000. And they dont hand out any merit-based scholarships.

Tran said its important to be financially savvy when applying to medical school, noting people do find ways to handle the cost. For instance, Tran worked all through college, accruing savings, and also managed to graduate from college relatively debt-free. She said these factors prepared her for applying to and paying for medical school. Still, Tran said she recognizes how stressful the costs associated with medical school are and understands the solutions people find are not always easy.

Tran added shes considered different ways medical schools could make application costs less of a barrier.

I especially advocate for people of low-income backgrounds or first-generation students like myself, Tran said. I support myself; I still have to support my family during this process. I feel it should not be a deterrent of medical school.

Arimoto said if anything, the expense of becoming a doctor has made him sure this is the career he wants to pursue.

I feel like that also allowed me to think in a way that may be more genuine towards the field, Arimoto said. Its like, Okay, I actually want to do this, Im giving up a lot, but even with that on the table, I still dont want to do, for example, research or engineering. I still want to do this. It provides a little bit of conviction.

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Students reflect on cost of applying to medical school - The Michigan Daily

OPINION:On Monday, professor Barry Taylor, dean of Otago Medical School, publicly stated that 53 students from University of Otago campuses in Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington did not attend their 12-week placements at locations overseas and their qualifications would be withheld.

Instead, the soon-to-be doctors were on an overseas jaunt courtesy of taxpayers. The 12-week elective term is funded by a Government stipend of $6689 paid as part of the $26,756 awarded to medical trainee interns in their final year.

Fifty-three students amounts to one-in five of Otago's final-year medical students.

If I were a gambling man, I would bet this rort has been going on for years and there are plenty of practising doctors hoping it all goes away. The public would be naive to believe this behaviour is restricted to just this year's cohort of final-year medical students.

READ MORE:* Placement scam medical students 'let off with a slap on the wrist'* Auckland medical students to face scrutiny after Otago students faked placements* Medical student overseas placement holiday rort 'widespread' - GP

Stuff

One in five final-year University of Otago medical students will not graduate this year after faking documents for their overseas work placements.

Taylor admitted that himself, when he saidt: "If it has been happening it's probably been ... building up over two or three years". That could possibly be the understatement of the year, depending on how much is unravelled in the weeks to come.

According to Stuff, one doctor who graduated from Otago said: "[In] my graduating year I know 100 students who spent one week or less on actual elective placements". In other words, it could also be feasible that this practice was a rite of passage and Otago turned a blind eye to it, or worse still, unofficially condoned it.

Now, the University of Auckland the only other university offering the six-year bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery qualifications has stated it is also conducting an investigation into its students.

I hope Otago and Auckland conducts thorough investigations of overseas work placements from previous yearsand perhaps decades. This lot were busted because some of them couldn't resist posting photographs of their overseas jaunts on social media.

Ten or 20 years ago, no-one was uploading images online of themselves tiptoeing on the beach with a duckface, so the chances of doctors getting caught back then were slim in comparison to now, with the "look-at-me"era.

Also, why are taxpayers funding overseas "training"in the first place? Students can choose to do their placement in New Zealand or overseas some elect to do it overseas and we pick up the tab for it. If they want to "train"overseas, let them do it at their own expense.

We are short of doctors on the ground here, so unless they need to learn how to deal with non-routine injuries or illnesses they perhaps wouldn't be exposed to here, their training should be in New Zealand hospitals and medical centres.

After all, we the taxpayers fund three-quarters of the cost of their six-year medical training.

We also pick up ongoing costs when they graduate too. For example, back in 2013, Stuff reported that "on-duty resident doctors have not paid for a meal since 1948" and were clocking up "$9 million of taxpayer-funded free lunches a year". How dare we feed the hungry kids at schools the doctors must be fed first.

Further, being a doctor remains one of the highest-paid professions in the country, with senior doctors earning an average annual salary of about $200,000.

Yet, despite their forecast large salaries and free lunches, this bunch of privileged student doctors has lied about their taxpayer-funded overseas work placementand has been let off with a slap on the wrist.

I suppose a slap on the wrist was appropriate, especially since Taylor said those affected were "heartbroken". Taylor went on to say: "The students have been quite seriously affected by the investigation.The majority have seen themselves as really honest people doing medicine for the sake of other people".

Oh, diddums.

Honest people don't commit fraud. Yes, they committed fraud.

As we all know, the Government will not hesitate to prosecute beneficiaries for fraud relating to as little as $1000. However, if you come from the right background and are at medical school, the chances of being prosecuted for fraud are zero.

Let's prove me wrong, then. Taylor, please attend your nearest police station and make a formal complaint, naming the 53 students and how each misspent taxpayers' dollars earmarked for trainingto go on holiday.

Otago University has an ethical responsibility to the public of New Zealand to report this matter to the police. I wait with bated breath.

Steve Elers is a senior lecturer at Massey University, who writes a weekly column for Stuff on social and cultural issues

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Medical school rort is fraud and students misusing taxpayer money should be reported to the police - Stuff.co.nz

Some University of Arizona medical school students are gettingfree tuition in exchange for a promise to practicein underserved rural areas for at least two years after they graduate.

The scholarship money is from state funds earmarked to alleviate a physician shortage that is particularly acute in rural Arizona, where more than one-quarter of primary-care physicians plan to retire in the next five years.

Arizona currently ranks among the worst in the country 44th of 50 statesin its number of active primary-care physicians per capita, UA officials say.

Most primary-care doctors in Arizona work in heavily populated Maricopa and Pima counties, creating vast inequalities between provider coverage in urban and more rural areas of the state.

A combined 94 students who attend the UA College of Medicine-Tucson and the UA College of Medicine-Phoenix, which isnearly one-10th of the students at both medical schools, will receive free tuition in exchange for practicing in a rural area for at least two years,UA officials announced Friday morning.

The commitment must be started within six years of graduation from medical school and completed within 10 years of graduation. Once begun, service must be continuous. Students who don't fulfill the commitment will have to return the tuition money, UA officials confirmed.

"It is a huge deal. It is very exciting," saidDr. Jonathan Cartsonis, director of the rural health professions program at the UA College of Medicine-Phoenix. "... It's an investment in the future of Arizona and in ensuring that rural areas of Arizona have access to even basic medical care."

There's also a looming problem with what are known as "ob deserts" where rural expecting mothers can't remain in their community during the later stages of pregnancy because there is no one to deliver their baby.

"It's already happening," Cartsonis said.

La Paz and Greenlee counties have no maternal care, research from the UA Center for Rural Health shows. The same research shows Pinal, Graham, Cochise andSanta Cruz counties have limited access to maternal care.

Ensuring every Arizona resident, whether in rural communities or urban cities, has access to quality health care is a top priority for Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey said in a written statement. The University of Arizona Primary Care Physician Scholarship is another example of the innovative steps the state is taking to address this critical workforce shortage facing Arizona and the entire nation."

Medical students can be reluctant to serve in rural areas because of a number of barriers, including student debt that can exceed $100,000 by the time they graduate. Rural health jobs, particularly in primary care, oftenpay less than those in urban areas,Cartsonis said.

Also, many students have grown up in urban areas and that's all they know, he said, stressing that the scholarships are only one component of getting providers into rural areas. Students need the righttraining, too, he said.

"In a vacuum, I'd say it might not be the best plan, to just drop a large amount of money to scholarships to go to rural areas to practice medicine," he said. "But that's not happening. We have our rural health professions program, which prepares students and supports a medical school track in rural medicine."

'A PIPELINE ISSUE':Rural Arizona wrestles with serious doctor shortage

The UA is already supporting clinical education from six weeks to more than six months in far-flung areas of the state, including Williams, Fort Defiance, Page and Williams.

Another key pieceis finding students who grew up in rural areas and want to serve their home communities as health-care providers, he said.

"Pipeline programs are really important. It's so important we identify the talented and motivated youthin rural areas who want to go into medicine," he said. "We're working hard to recruit at younger and younger ages students from underrepresented backgrounds, including geography."

The scholarships will be available to incoming first-year students, as well as students in their second, third and fourth year at both medical schools, UA officials said.To be eligible, applicants must be an Arizona resident.

Arizona needs nearly 600 primary-care physicians today, and the number is expected to grow to more than 1,900 by 2030, said Dr. MichaelDake,senior vice president for UAHealth Sciences.

As the states only two designated medical schools, the College of Medicine-Tucson and the College of Medicine-Phoenix are taking full advantage of the public investment approved by our state legislators, who recognize the time to address this shortage is now.

The money is coming from $8 million in annual funding appropriated by the Arizona Legislature in May. The remaining funding is being used to expand the UA College of Medicine-Phoenix's class size.

Under the new scholarship programs guidelines, a primary-care physician is someone who successfully has completed medical school at the UAand completed residency or fellowship training in one of the following specialties: family medicine, general internal medicine, geriatric medicine, general pediatrics, psychiatry, or obstetrics and gynecology.

The scholarships are a step in the right direction, but it will be important to carefully select the students who receive them, said Dr. Judith Hunt, who has been practicing internal medicine and pediatricsin Payson for the past 24 years.

Practicing medicine in a rural area is not urban medicine in a small community, she said. Students need to be prepared for what it means for themselves and for their families, she said.

"There are fewer job opportunities for their spouses. They may feel more isolated," she said. "Rural medicine takes an incredible amount of creativity."

There may not be specialists to consult and the work is demanding.

"We are slammed. We have probably half of the primary-care doctors that we need," she said. "For patients who are new to the community, it's difficult to get a primary-care doctor. So we have higher ER visits because patients don't have access to their doctors."

A graduate of the UA College of Medicine-Tucson, Hunt initially moved to Payson fromPhoenix Children's Hospital to fill a need Payson did not have a pediatrician.

"I fell in love with the community, became part of the community. It's my home, it's my daughter's home," she said.

PRESCRIPTION DRUG BOOM:Millions of opioid pills flooded Arizona communities

Thenext step in addressing the physician shortage should be creating more postgraduate residency spots inArizona, Cartsonis said.

Mostmedical school graduates who take residency positions in other states will notreturn to Arizona, data shows.

Reach the reporter at Stephanie.Innes@gannett.com or at 602-444-8369. Follow her on Twitter @stephanieinnes.

Support local journalism.Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-health/2019/11/22/medical-students-get-free-tuition-promise-practice-rural-arizona/4259862002/

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Medical students get free tuition for promising to practice in rural Arizona - AZCentral

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Link:
Medical Education - Harvard Medical School

WEST ORANGE, NJ A daughter of immigrants rises from poverty to become a respected doctor. A man uses his triumph over childhood cancer as inspiration to enter the medical field. An AmeriCorps volunteer who once lived on food stamps now helps the homeless. A soldier who suffered through the "carnage of war" is planning to become a pediatrician.

New Jersey is full of stories about people rising above their personal challenges to pursue a common goal: healing others. Learn about a few of them below.

'Carnage Of War' Transforms Army Veteran Into Pediatrician

When Saul Bautista joined the U.S. Army, he had no idea he'd end up trading bombs and bullets for healing and hope. But that's what witnessing the "carnage of war" can do to a person, the Newark resident says.

The tragic epiphany came while he was serving as a lab tech at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the largest U.S. military hospital outside the United States. There, while helping to treat soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bautista encountered a critically wounded patient freshly airlifted from a war zone.

And it changed who he was forever.

Read the full article

Hoboken Woman Grew Up Disadvantaged. Now She Trains Doctors

Growing up, Maria Soto-Greene lived in a four-room flat in Hoboken. Neither of her parents, who came to New Jersey from Puerto Rico, graduated from high school. Her mother was still a teenager when she was born. At 16, they had little money, no health insurance and couldn't afford a telephone.

The same year, her 15-year-old brother died before being diagnosed by a doctor. Soto-Greene, an internist, said he went blind and believes her brother probably had a brain tumor. After his death she became the "go to" person to handle family concern.

Four years later, as she was about to graduate from what is now Douglass Residential College, an assistant dean at New Jersey Medical School, who taught a course she took at Rutgers University, gave her some life-altering advice. When Soto-Greene told him that she planned to begin her career as a medical technologist, he recognized her potential and encouraged her to pursue a career as a doctor. That led to the work she has been doing over the past three decades to improve the lives of minority students and encourage them to go into the medical and other health professions field.

Read the full article

West Orange Man Beats Childhood Cancer, Enters Medical Field

West Orange High School alum Joseph Ippolito doesn't remember most of his acute treatment for stage four neuroblastoma. After all, he was only 5-months-old at the time. But the medical student does remember what came afterward: years of chemotherapy, surgeries and doctor visits.

Now, after triumphing against childhood cancer, Ippolito has embarked on a new quest to dedicate his life to performing miracles for others.

Read the full article

Rutgers Medical Students Care for Area Poor and Homeless

Stephanie Oh knows what it's like to live at the poverty line. After graduating college with a degree in bioengineering, she volunteered for AmeriCorps and subsisted on food stamps. "This experience made me better understand the struggles people face trying to live healthy on a limited income," says Oh, now a medical and doctoral student in neuroscience at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick.

Today, Oh puts her knowledge of medicine and indigent and homeless populations into practice as the student director of the Promise Clinic, an initiative that provides primary health care for clients of Elijah's Promise Community Kitchen.

Read the full article

Learn more about posting announcements or events to your local Patch site. Send feedback and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com

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4 New Jersey Doctors Who Turned Hard Times Into Inspiration - West Orange, NJ Patch

Executive Summary

Indefensible differences in salary between women and men persist in medicine, with female primary care and specialist doctors earning 25% and 36% less, respectively, than their male counterparts. These differences are especially egregious given that female physicians actually outperform male physicians in some areas. Its hard to imagine by what calculus a health care organization would pay women less than men for their better outcomes. The solutions to this unacceptable state including transparency around salary data, focused coaching and sponsorship, and equitable promotions.

Despite increased attention to gender disparities in the workplace, indefensible differences in salary between women and men persist in medicine. One national study of academic physicians in 24 public medical schools found that female physicians make about 10% less than their male counterparts at all academic ranks, even after adjusting for specialty, hours worked, and other variables. Medscapes 2019 Physician Compensation Report finds even greater disparities, with full-time female primary care and specialist doctors earning 25% and 36% less, respectively, than their male counterparts.

These differences are especially notable and disappointing given that female physicians actually outperform male physicians in some areas; one study of 1.5 million Medicare hospitalizations found that female doctors patients had significantly lower mortality and fewer rehospitalizations. Its hard to imagine by what calculus a health care organization would pay women less than men for their better outcomes.

The solutions for closing this gap are complex, but achievable. Drawing on existing research, lessons from other fields, and our own experience as researchers and leaders committed to gender equity, we believe that organizations should pursue three approaches to address the problem.

Enhance Salary Data

Lack of accurate salary data creates a major barrier both to leaders seeking to address inequities and to female physicians as they negotiate. Pay audits and increased transparency could help. Organizations outside of medicine have effectively used audits to reveal pay discrepancies and enhance pay equity. For example, after a 2015 analysis of more than 17,000 salaries at Salesforce, the company found that 6% of the employees (about equally split between men and women) required a salary adjustment, including, CEO Marc Benioff told CNN, quite a few women who were paid less than men.

To create the most useful audits in healthcare it will be essential to assure that they capture total compensation. Many physicians, particularly those practicing in academic settings, receive compensation from both clinical and non-clinical activities. Evidence from outside of medicine suggests that women are more likely to volunteer or be volunteered for non-promotable work, and, within medicine, women perceive that they are more likely to be given uncompensated work (such as unpaid committee or teaching positions and office-improvement projects) alongside clinical care. Comparing compensation for clinical activities alone would not capture these differences which contribute to lower overall salaries for amount worked.

In addition, auditing should take into consideration the demands that female physicians patients make relative to those made of male physicians. There is evidence that female physicians have more female patients, and more patients with psychosocial complexity, than their male counterparts do. Patients in both groups often require longer visits and more management time outside the office. Further, research shows that patients tend to seek a different (and more time-consuming) kind of care from female doctors, often talking and disclosing more and expecting more empathic listening. Accurate auditing will need to account for patient complexity in addition to number of patients seen or the number of patients a physician has on their panel to accurately assess clinical load.

Providing salary transparency is a more controversial approach to promoting equal pay that has been explored in other industries. Public universities such as the University of California system have made compensation data publicly available for many years. In Canada, public disclosure of faculty salaries above a certain threshold reduced the gender pay gap. Some private entities have joined the trend as well. At the software startup Buffer, publicly publishing pay data did not eliminate gender-based salary discrepancies. However, it did push the company to identify and address potential sources of inequity, such as subjectivity in assessing experience and readiness for promotion. While there isnt a case of a health system that has published salary data and demonstrated the subsequent effects, experiences from other industries suggest this approach is worth discussing. We acknowledge that there are certainly many potential negative effects of pay transparency on organizational dynamics, and any transparency initiative should be rolled out with caution. A medical institution considering transparency would need to ensure careful auditing of data ahead of publication, and to have well thought out plans for addressing potential conflicts among staff, as well as between staff and management, that might emerge.

Data from the Harvard Kennedy School shows that women negotiate for lower compensation than men do in the absence of clear industry standards but negotiate for equal salaries when standard salary information was available, suggesting the value of creating environments in which information about compensation is shared across gender lines.

Engage Allies in Coaching and Sponsorship

Much of coaching and peer support for women physicians has focused on same-gender mentorship and peer groups. While these provide female physicians with role models similar to themselves and create comfortable spaces for reflection, given evidence that men are more likely to get explicit information about paths to advancement in management or to receive mentorship or sponsorship at all, they should be engaged as allies in systematic ways. Men can serve as sponsors who recommend women for new opportunities or as coaches who share a different perspective on salary negotiation or insight about the opportunities being presented to male mentees. Studies in other industries show that male sponsorship is crucial to closing the gender pay gap, and theres every reason to think it could have a similar impact in health care. Mixed-gender peer coaching groups can provide similar opportunities for sharing salary or tactical data.

While the most natural source for recruiting an institutions mentors and coaches is from within, there may be value to engaging diverse external coaches as well. At Brigham and Womens Hospital, we have started providing female faculty with access to external coaches in the areas of leadership, network development, time management, and technology use, in addition to more traditional peer support and individual coaching.

We acknowledge that in the MeToo era some men have shied away from mentoring or coaching women altogether, which is a loss for all involved. Its up to health care organizations to encourage mixed-gender mentorship, provide the training and guidelines needed to do it well, and outline clear consequences for inappropriate behavior or abuse of the relationship.

Facilitate Equitable Promotion

Much of the pay disparity in in academic medical centers is driven by academic rank differences, making facilitation of equitable promotion a priority. A small proportion of full medical professors across the U.S. are female, despite increased representation of female physicians on faculty and among medical school graduates (in 2017, for the first time, women outnumbered men entering U.S. medical schools).

These data suggest that new approaches are needed to ensure promotion of women in academic medicine. These may include: 1) revamping promotion guidelines to create tracks that reward activities aside from grant-funded research, such as teaching, that are often not rewarded in traditional promotions but are central to academic medicine; 2) requiring that female physicians be included on all search and promotion committees; 3) ensuring that open leadership positions are widely publicized rather than privately directed to a select group of candidates; 4) providing grants to support womens career advancement, including family travel grants that facilitate womens attendance at conferences with children and childcare providers; and 5) providing one-on-one external coaching to help female physicians create career roadmaps, tailor their CV for promotions, and identify what they need to accomplish in order to be ready for the next step in promotions.

While no institution yet serves as a clear beacon in matters of promotion equity, several have instituted programs that may help narrow the recognition and promotion gap. For example, Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston names its most accomplished clinicians as Senior Institute Physicians, ensuring that those excelling in clinical care are recognized for their efforts. Many institutions, among them UCLA and Duke, have several promotion tracks for faculty to ascend, including ones that focus on clinical care rather than research.

The initiatives we propose are just a start in solving a complex and persistent problem, and the data on what approaches will be most successful. Its high time that health care aggressively engage in and rigorously evaluate efforts to close the unproductive and unjustifiable pay gap in medicine.

The rest is here:
How to Close the Gender Pay Gap in US Medicine - Harvard Business Review

The ambulatory care complex will house 125 exam, procedure and consult rooms and is expected to support 100,000 new outpatient visits per year, according to the U. Currently, ambulatory care is housed in the medical school building and has 114 exam and procedure rooms.

U. officials said Friday the new building won't serve a significantly higher number of patients, but that it will increase efficiency. Exam rooms, for example, can be used by any department at any time instead of being designated to a specific department as is currently the case, said Kathy Wilets, U. spokeswoman.

Mary Beth Scholand, outpatient chief value officer in the U.'s Department of Internal Medicine, said Friday that officials tried to design the building to improve patient experience.

The focus was "to create a pleasant, inviting space for our patients, where they feel comfortable and where clinic flow is efficient and easy," Scholand said. "And I think we've achieved this."

Construction on a 170,000 square-foot rehabilitation hospital, also currently housed in the medical school building, will begin in about six months and is estimated to cost $95 million. Funding for this building will come from operating revenue bonds and private donations.

The rehab hospital also will be completed in summer 2019. Once patients are moved from the medical school building to the two new buildings, the medical school will be demolished. This is expected to cost $12 million and take six months, officials said.

At that point, construction will begin on the third and final building. The 350,000 square-foot Medical Education and Discovery building will go up where the current medical school is located. It will house the medical school, the Global Health Institute and "collaborative spaces for clinicians, researchers and students," according to the U.'s website.

Officials estimate the building will cost $185 million, paid for through $50 million from the state Legislature and $135 million of private donations. The expected completion date is the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022.

"After about 2021, there's not going to be any other place to build on this campus," Betz joked Friday.

During the groundbreaking ceremony, Gordon Crabtree, CFO and interim CEO of U. Health, recognition of former Health Sciences Vice President Vivian Lee's contributions to the project was met with applause.

Lee resigned in April after weeks of turmoil that began with her firing of Huntsman Cancer Institute CEO and director Mary Beckerle, who later was reinstated by the U. President David Pershing. Betz, Lee's predecessor, quickly was brought in to serve in her role until a permanent replacement is picked.

"Without [Lee's] community involvement, legislative support and vision for these facilities, this whole transformation initiative would not have gained traction and we thank her for that," Crabtree said.

astuckey@sltrib.com

Twitter @alexdstuckey

Read more from the original source:
Construction begins on first of three buildings to replace U. Med ... - Salt Lake Tribune

A new medical school set to open this month in Jackson represents a significant step forward for Mississippi in cultivating an environment of excellence in medicine, which will surely find its way to Northeast Mississippis already vast, far-reaching health care ecosystem.

Gov. Phil Bryant, University of Mississippi Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter and others gathered to dedicate the five-story, $74-million structure at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, as reported by the Associated Press.

The new facility, leaders say, could be a shot in the arm for a physician-starved Mississippi.

The medical school will expand to 155 incoming first-year students when class starts Monday, growing to 165 students in 2018, according to the AP. But the building has space to grow more, maybe as high as 200 students in each class. The student mailroom has 783 mailboxes, but only 489 currently have names on them.

The facility will utilize some of the most modern medical education technology by allowing students to simulate hands-on medical procedures through multifunctional electronic mannequins, among other innovative methods. The simulation area will move from a series of closets and converted classrooms in the old facility to an entire wing, including an operating room that could actually be used for real patients in a disaster scenario.

The dedication of the facility, which will officially open its doors Aug. 14, comes at a critical time for Mississippi as the state has fewer doctors per capita than any other state in the country, according to a report from the Association of Academic Medical Colleges. As reported by Mississippi Today, many at the University of Mississippi Medical Center the health sciences campus to the universitys main campus in Oxford and in the Capitol believe the best way to attract more doctors to the state is to invest in the medical school and its students.

Vitter called the universitys medical school one of our crown jewels. He hopes to see the program grow larger over time now that class sizes can comfortably increase.

The investment, funded through a combination of mainly state bonds but also funding from a HUD Community Development Block Grant through the Mississippi Development Authority, is an impressive one for Mississippi and should hopefully send a message loud and clear to prospective students and doctors alike across the country.

While the physical location of this facility is outside of Northeast Mississippi, make no mistake that its impact could be substantial for our region. The thriving health care industry thats already here will serve as a strong foundation when the medical school begins producing top-tiered doctors that will hopefully be eager to stay and practice in Mississippi.

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OUR OPINION: New medical school brings promise to region - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

One hundred and ninety newly minted MDs marked a critical milestone in their professional lives earlier this week when they became medical residents of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

After graduation from medical school, medical residents are matched with a residency program, where they train in a medical or surgical specialty from three to seven years.The residents who took part in the long white coat ceremony on June 27 in the Center for Tomorrow chose to start their careers as physicians in Buffalo at UB. They will provide patient care under the supervision of UB medical school faculty in Western New Yorks hospitals and clinics.

The long white coat is not only a symbol of the profession, but it also symbolizes the trust patients place in their physicians and the responsibility to act professionally while serving patients and the public, says Roseanne Berger, senior associate dean for graduate medical education in the medical school and associate professor of family medicine.

To celebrate the transition, UBs newest medical residents donned the long white coats that indicate they have graduated from medical school, leaving behind the short white coats they received when they entered medical school.

At the ceremony, medical residents recited the Hippocratic Oath and the UB Resident Code of Conduct.The ceremony took place on Education Day, during which residents received information on topics ranging from health issues in Buffalos population and communication and cultural issues to patient privacy, quality improvement and safety. There also was a focus on resident well-being, highlighting institutional support resources and advice from current residents.

It was part of UBs five-day medical resident orientation, which includes background on UB, the Western New York community, its population and its health care systems. During orientation, residents visited UB-affiliated teaching hospitals, interacted with program faculty and, in some cases, worked with UBs Clinical Competency Center to assess interactions, with actors playing patients. Before arriving on campus, residents completed online tutorials, including modules on addiction, pain medicine and safe prescribing practices.

This years class of residents of 81 women and 109 men includes 120 U.S. citizens and 70 citizens of at least 17 other countries, including 24 from Canada, nine from Pakistan and six from India.

Forty of the new residents are UB alumni 32 graduated from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and eight graduated from the School of Dental Medicine.

The long white coat ceremony was planned in collaboration with UBs Richard Sarkin/Emeritus Faculty Chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, which launched the tradition of holding white coat ceremonies in the 1990s to symbolize that humanism remains at the core of all medical care.UB is one of only 14 medical residency programs in the U.S. that is home to a residency chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society.

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UB medical school welcomes 190 new physicians to WNY - University at Buffalo Reporter