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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What to Expect in Medical School | The Princeton Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Med School Admission Counseling

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What to Expect in Medical School | The Princeton Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Source: The Toy Book

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Mother daughter duo celebrate med school graduation together

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This story was reported from Cincinnati.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

COVID-19 Puts EMS Fellows to the Test at N.C. EOC – EMSWorld

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Wake County EMS (N.C.) shared with us the following story.

For two medical fellows, the EOC is as much a classroom as a jobsite.

This springs sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has upended lives. Gatherings have been canceled, weddings postponed, businesses shuttered, families separated and, tragically, lives have been lost.

Yet, for some, this time of trial is an opportunity to grow and learn.

During the pandemic, the Wake County Emergency Operations Center is helping forge two future leaders of emergency medicine. The young doctors were wrapping up EMS fellowships at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine when the crisis hit, and since then, Dr. Johannah Merrill and Dr. Mariecely Luciano-Feijoo have served in equal measure alongside Wake Countys full-time emergency medicine staff in the EOClearning firsthand more they ever could about public health response from a text book.

This is a horrible thing to have happened, but Im glad it happened at this point in my training and not next year, when I wouldnt have had the experience that I have now, said Dr. Johannah Merrill, who will move to Massachusetts next month to become an EMS medical director.

For Dr. Mariecely Luciano-Feijoo, who was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the eventual goal is to take what shes learned stateside back home to improve her islands EMS system.

I could not have asked for better teaching than to be actively learning like this, Dr. Luciano-Feijoo said. It is easy to read and try to understand certain things, but theyre not easy to apply unless youve lived through them.

It takes a certain personality to thrive in EMS.

Where most grow flustered when a days plans go awry, these women thrive on the chaos of a day spent running from crisis to crisis. Sit them down for an interview, and they exude that powerful, calm sense of energy that comes with competence, and they look ready to leap into action at any moment.

Dr. Merrill, who graduated in 2016 from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in her hometown of Charlottesville, said the fast-paced, ever-changing nature of EMS work drew her to the field. In 2019, she completed a residency in emergency medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

Aside from the thrill of the job, Dr. Merrill said she appreciates being the first physician to see a patient after an emergency.

Some of a patients most critical moments occur in the pre-hospital environment, she said. Thats when we have a really big ability to make a difference.

For Dr. Luciano-Feijoo, COVID-19 is the second disaster to have shaped her career. She completed medical school in 2016 at the University of Puerto Rico and, the following year, Hurricane Maria hit during her residency in emergency medicine at a local hospital. In the days and weeks that followed, Dr. Luciano-Feijoo found her homes emergency medical infrastructure to be underfunded and out of date.

Our EMS system has a lot of limitations, and that did not help the Puerto Rican population in that kind of disaster, she said. That brought me to the states to get a better sense of a proper EMS system, and a better understanding of how I could bring that knowledge back to Puerto Rico.

The program at UNC-Chapel Hill caught her eye, because fellows split their time between Wake County and neighboring Orange County. Working with Wake County has allowed her to see whats possible in a large EMS system, Dr. Luciano-Feijoo said, and Orange County, which has about 1/7th of Wakes population, has taught her how to operate on a scale closer to what shell see back in Puerto Rico.

Although she didnt set out for a career in EMS, Dr. Luciano-Feijoo has a heritage of running toward disasters. Her mother, Celia Feijoo-Nieves, was one of the first two women to become firefighters in Puerto Rico in 1989. It was later that year, during a routine physical following her first big fire, an examiner told her she was pregnant.

So Ive been going into emergencies since before I was born, Dr. Luciano-Feijoo joked. And throughout my childhood, I sometimes went with my mother to emergencies on the fire truck when she was able to take me.

The fellows will tell you theyre learning a lot in the EOC, and most of that comes as a byproduct of hard work. Each takes turns rotating into the role of EMS medical director, which is a position with defined duties in the EOC command structure.

The days vary widelyjust how the doctors like italthough their time is spent planning and directing others rather than rendering aid. Wake County activated its EOC in response to COVID-19 on March 5 and, as the county moved to combat a never-before-seen virus, the fellows helped create new workflows and protocols for public health and EMS staff.

These days, Drs. Luciano-Feijoo and Merrill are working closely with facilities that have reported outbreaks, making sure theres follow-up on positive tests results and coordinating strike teams, along with any other tasks that arise throughout the day.

The EOC brings together staff from across disciplines to coordinate quick and decisive action. While Dr. Merrill has years of experience in EMS, she said her time in the EOC has helped her see how various departments fit together into the bigger picture of emergency management.

The thing thats been the most beneficial has been learning how to coordinate between a bunch of different services, such as fire and law enforcement, she said. They all have different priorities, because they have different things to worry about, and its been beneficial to see how that all fits together.

In addition to their long hours in the Wake County EOC, each doctor works shifts as attending physicians in the emergency department at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill and Hillsborough, and they provide telemedicine for troopers at the N.C. State Highway Patrol.

At the end of the month, Drs. Merrill and Luciano-Feijoo will complete their yearlong fellowships and begin the next chapter of their careers.

Dr. Merrill will head up to Lawrence, Mass., a city of about 80,000 near the border with New Hampshire, where shes slated to become the next EMS medical director at Lawrence General Hospital. She will have a few months as an attending physician to work alongside the current director before taking over.

While shes eager to get home to friends, family and tropical weather, Dr. Luciano-Feijoo will join the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill and spend another year working as an attending physician in the universitys hospitals. She plans to keep soaking up the best practices of how EMS operates in the states, and then shell work to understand how things can change back home.

I am not well-versed on the pre-hospital system in Puerto Rico yet, she said. Thats one of my next projects.

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the press release above belong solely to the company/vendor/author and do not necessarily reflect those of EMS World or HMP.

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COVID-19 Puts EMS Fellows to the Test at N.C. EOC - EMSWorld

Professors, Parenting Expert Share How to Talk to Children About Racism in Live Chat Wednesday – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

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How do parents start a conversation with their children about the George Floyd protests? How can parents explain what racism is? When should you have a talk with your children about how to deal with the police? These questions and more will be answered by Fort Worth area medical and parenting experts.

Faculty members with Texas Christian University and the University of North Texas Health Science Center's School of Medicine will answer questions and discuss the best ways to talk about racism and police violence with children during a Facebook Live chat on Wednesday.

Two members of the medical school's faculty, Amani Terrell, M.D., a pediatrician and associate professor, along with Debra Atkisson, M.D., a psychiatrist and associate professor, will join special guest Odette Tomlinson, LPC-S, TFT-dx, the clinical director at The Parenting Center in Fort Worth, in the discussion.

The latest news from around North Texas.

The event begins at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday on the FWMD school's Facebook page.

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Professors, Parenting Expert Share How to Talk to Children About Racism in Live Chat Wednesday - NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Local medical and nursing school graduates prepare to enter the front lines during the pandemic – Los Angeles Times

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Medical school graduates are preparing to take their place on the front lines in the battle against COVID-19.

Richelle Roelandt Lu Homo, who recently graduated from the UC Irvine School of Medicine, said she is ready to begin working in a hospital despite anxieties posed by the pandemic.

We are entering the world of medicine with greater responsibility, Lu Homo said. That increased level of responsibility is scary but exciting because it means we are doing something right.

The 24 students in Vanguard Universitys nursing pre-licensure program, which started in 2018, is its very first graduating class.

(Courtesy of Vanguard University)

Andrew Bailey, one of the 24 graduates from Vanguard Universitys nursing pre-licensure program, said many of his fellow students are nervous about their schooling coming to an end.

Its totally unprecedented being in nursing school and graduating, and a global pandemic hits, Bailey said. Within our group, people are having anxiety just in the finality. We are such a tight-knit group.

These medical and nursing students are also graduating amid mass social upheaval. Protests have been held around the country in response to the killing of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin.

Lu Homo said that doctors need to be aware of the racial and social disparities in the healthcare system.

Its not just about the pandemic, you are graduating during a period of unrest where many innocent black lives have been lost, Lu Homo said. Graduating medical school and earning this degree at this time means we are in a place of privilege.

This particular degree on the one hand is hard-earned 20 years of education but also a means to an end for a purpose, and that purpose is we have this duty to be able to recognize that there are inequities in our healthcare system.

Hung Nguyen takes a photo of his nephew, graduate Ryan Nguyen, along with Ryans mother Van Lam and his brother Preston Nguyen at the UCI School of Medicines first drive-through commencement ceremony on May 30.

(Raul Roa / Staff Photographer)

But these early-career healthcare workers are needed now more than ever.

I am a Christian and I believe God has placed a calling in my life to become a nurse, Bailey said. So right now I believe there is more of a need for myself and people like me than any time that we have experienced in our recent history.

I am excited for the challenge. I know Vanguard has prepared me to be a novice nurse in the hospital, and I trust the organizations I work for will be doing the best they can to protect the employees.

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Local medical and nursing school graduates prepare to enter the front lines during the pandemic - Los Angeles Times

Providing health care to tribal communities in the face of COVID-19 – UMN News

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Long before the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, tribal nations suffered from higher mortality rates from infectious diseases than the general population. Add to that an underfunded healthcare system, higher rates of poverty, and a limited inventory of personal protective equipment, and Native American communities could only expect the worst outcomes during the pandemic.

Thats exactly what were experiencing in Indian Country right now from the Navajo Nation, saysMary Owen, director of the Center of American Indian and Minority Health and assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Biobehavioral Health, both at the U of M Medical School, Duluth campus. They are third in the nation on being the most impacted by COVID-19, after New York City and New Jersey.

Owen has teamed up with two Native American-owned companies that help match physicians and healthcare professionals to tribal communities most in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. But its not just the immediate health problems that the disease brings to Native American communities; it's also setbacks to primary funding sources like casinos and tourism, which help support essential functions.

Now, without those economic bases, we know that health is going to be impacted for a long time to come, says Owen, who is also president-elect of the Association of American Indian Physicians.

So far, six full-time providers from Minnesota, including two family physicians, have signed up to volunteer their time and care at tribal sites.

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Providing health care to tribal communities in the face of COVID-19 - UMN News

Mount Sinai Health System Appoints Kristin Myers, MPH, as Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer, and Dean for Information Technology -…

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Newswise (New York, NY June 9, 2020) Mount Sinai Health System has appointed Kristin Myers, MPH, as Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer, and Dean for Information Technology (IT). Ms. Myers most recently served as Senior Vice President for Technology.

In her new role, Ms. Myers will provide visionary leadership and steer IT transformation efforts to align and support Health System strategy. Her main objectives will be to drive agility in the department to support the Health Systems mission of clinical care, research, and education; to optimize the departments operations; and to enable the Mount Sinai Health System for digital change.

Ms. Myers joined Mount Sinai as a Director of IT in 2004. Her many accomplishments include leadership of the Epic clinical and revenue cycle implementations and the organizations transition to ICD10 coding, and establishment of the IT Program Management Office and Change Management as a discipline within IT in 2009. Under Ms. Myerss leadership, Mount Sinai was awarded the prestigious Health Information and Management System Society (HIMSS) 2012 Enterprise Davies Award of Excellence for its electronic record implementation to improve quality of care and patient safety. Most recently, Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West received HIMSS Stage 7, the highest level of technology adoption.

Kristins accomplishments and extensive work in the IT sector give her necessary insights to lead the Health System as we continue to implement modern infrastructures, programs, and policies that maximize efficiency and facilitate communication that positively impacts the care and safety of our patients, said Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System.

Prior to joining Mount Sinai, Ms. Myers worked at Cap Gemini, Ernst and Young, and the Cerner Corporation in Australia. She holds an Executive Master of Public Health from Columbia University and an Executive Chief Information Security Officer certification from Carnegie Mellon. She has been designated a Fellow of HIMSS; has previously received certifications in Program Management (PgMP), Project Management (PMP, Prince 2), and AIM Change Management; and is a Certified Professional in Health Information and Management Systems. She was recognized by IT Health Data Management as one of the Most Powerful Women in Healthcare in 2019 and by Beckers Hospital Review as one of the women to watch in healthcare for each of the past three years.

I am honored to move into this role and look forward to working with Mount Sinai leadership to enable digital transformation and innovation to support our mission, said Ms. Myers.

About the Mount Sinai Health System

The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City's largest academic medical system, encompassing eight hospitals, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai is a national and international source of unrivaled education, translational research and discovery, and collaborative clinical leadership ensuring that we deliver the highest quality carefrom prevention to treatment of the most serious and complex human diseases. The Health System includes more than 7,200 physicians and features a robust and continually expanding network of multispecialty services, including more than 400 ambulatory practice locations throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, and Long Island. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 14 on U.S. News & World Report's "Honor Roll" of the Top 20 Best Hospitals in the country and the Icahn School of Medicine as one of the Top 20 Best Medical Schools in the country. Mount Sinai Health System hospitals are consistently ranked regionally by specialty by U.S. News & World Report.

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

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Mount Sinai Health System Appoints Kristin Myers, MPH, as Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer, and Dean for Information Technology -...

Din College researchers believe more reasons behind high Covid-19 Cases on Navajo – Navajo-Hopi Observer

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TSAILE, Ariz. A research paper authored by two Din College science professors about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and its impact upon Native Americans provides clarification of the transmission and virulence of the virus, the professors say.

The paper, The Medical Basis for Increased Susceptibility of COVID-19 among the Navajo and other Indigenous Tribes: A Survey, was written by Dr. Joseph DeSoto and Dr. Shazia Tabassum Hakim.

The paper concludes, in part, that ethnic and anatomic expression patterns of angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and associated pathophysiology suggests that Native Americans and Asians may be particularly susceptible to this disease (Covid-19).

It was submitted April 30 and accepted for publication May 29 in the Journal of Biomedical Research and Reviews. DeSoto and Hakim said the document represents the first comprehensive world-wide scientific understanding of the high rate of infectivity among the Navajo and Indigenous tribes of the SAR-CoV-2 from a molecular medical perspective on Covid-19.

Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a type of protein found on the surface of a number of cells in the respiratory, digestive, nervous and reproductive systems. The protein, in general, serves as a door where the virus enters the cells, the team explained.

And the key that the virus has is to open the door is a spike with the protein S, Hakim stated. When this right key S is inserted into the door lock (ACE-2), the magic happens and the virus enters the host cell, hijacks the host cells DNA machinery and starts producing its own proteins, multiplies, increases in number and infects more cells of the host body.

There are four things that aggravate COVID-19 as it pertains to the Navajo Nation, De Soto said. Medically, its the high rate of diabetes, hypertension, genetics and poor protein diets among the Navajo; poor health care infrastructure and technology; poverty, with the associated lack of water access; and dense multi-generational living arrangements.

The two professors work in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) division of the Din College. They said in December they had started talking amongst themselves about the causes of COVID-19, and then started reviewing the literature.

Late in December 2019, we read every single thing that was published out there in the scientific community, DeSoto said. We discussed it and evaluated it long before the virus came over here. Then based on the best medical evidence, we realized that this might soon be a problem. So, we started discussing, evaluating and analyzing and then we wrote and completed the paper.

Two more papers are being published within weeks in major peer reviewed Medical and Scientific Journals by De Soto and Hakim, The Medical Treatment for COVID-19, and with Dr. Fred Boyd, of Din College, a well-known molecular physiologist, The Pathophysiology of COVID-19, both of which have already received international attention via preprints.

The Navajo Nation has the highest COVID-19 rate in the United States which is 450% higher than the national average.

DeSoto, who was senior author and is a medical school graduate of Howard University. His specialty is molecular medicine and pharmacogenetics. Hakim has a background in microbiology and infectious diseases. She is a graduate of the University of Karachi in Pakistan.

Hakim said she and DeSoto are working on another manuscript related to the eating habits, food scarcity and the unavailability of the varieties of fruits and vegetables in Navajo communities.

The Journal of Biomedical Research and Review is an international, peer reviewed, open access, scientific and scholarly journal which publishes research papers, review papers, mini reviews, case reports, case studies, short communications, letters, editorials, books, theses and dissertations from various aspects of medicine, engineering, science and technology to improve and support health care.

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Din College researchers believe more reasons behind high Covid-19 Cases on Navajo - Navajo-Hopi Observer

Kaegan Sparks on the films of Jordan Lord – Artforum

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I WANT HOT PINK GLITTER IN MY ASHES, a redheaded, middle-aged woman quips, triggering nervous, scandalized laughter in a scene that evokes cinema verit as much as a home movie. Around a Thanksgiving table in Mississippi, gallows humor is a family affair, animated by tongue-in-cheek speculations about dismemberment, double indemnity, and itemized funeral budgets. At this point in Shared Resources, a feature-length work in progress by Jordan Lord, we know that Albert Lord (the filmmakers father, a graying man who observes this conversation with jaded reserve) is a former debt collector, or risk manager. The topic of cremation quickly cedes to that of resurrectionif not of whole bodies, then of severed limbs. Later, another scene offers a dark corollary to these wisecracks. As an ophthalmologist scans Alberts eyes, which have been impaired from exposure to Agent Orange, the artists voice-over explains that Alberts disability benefits are calculated per body part, with each appraised piecemeal for its worth. Insurance companies frame a persons life by certain risk factors that determine when and how theyll die, assigning their life value accordingly, Lord tells us. Under this logic, disability is a kind of debt.

An excerpt of Shared Resources was included in a virtual screening hosted by New York Universitys Center for Disability Studies last month. The events alliterative titleDisability, Documentary, and Descriptioncould have easily also included debt, a central theme of Shared Resources. While under capitalism, both debt and disability typically signify lack, Lordtogether with their frequent artistic interlocutor Constantina Zavitsanostheorizes these concepts in terms of social wealth, as entanglements with others that controvert a worldview based on self-reliance. The titles constellation of topics maps this ethic of mutual dependency onto a historical genre and related aesthetic form. Staging an immanent critique of documentary, Lords films challenge the presumed neutrality and universality of vision, upending the pet adage show dont tell, in order to reclaim the subjectivity of description. For the artist, description is more than a means of access; function bleeds into form, resulting in a multivalent narration that gives us so much in excess of what were actually shown, as artist and writer Carolyn Lazard remarked in the post-screening discussion. In the act of telling, Lazard elaborated, information cannot be disentangled from affect, noras Lord shows in the latent anxiety of the Thanksgiving scenecan crisis be severed from conviviality.

Autobiography grounds all three works screened in the program, which also included the shorts AfterAfter(Access) and I Can Hear My Mothers Voice (both 2018). Each film features Lords family and self-reflexively engages its own making, whether through documenting the process of their mother learning to use a camera, reflecting on what that camera can and cannot capture (legally and physically), or investigating the nuances of participatory consent. Throughout, open captions and audio descriptions develop a complex filmic texture, running as parallel currents to the diegetic components of the footage. These elements perform not as secondary or supplementary prostheses but as collaborative agents in Lords documentary style.

Moments of intersensory interference bring this to the fore. At one point in AfterAfter(Access), the audio description (a voice-over translating images for those without sight) addresses part of the frame eclipsed by a subtitle block (a transcription of speech for those without hearing). The audio description acknowledges this occlusion, that what lies behind the text cannot be seen or described. Throughout the films, such descriptive voice-oversmostly provided by the filmmaker and their mother, Deborah Lordcomplicate both narrative authority and temporal flow. Vision can be more fleeting than language, yet Lord deliberately subordinates the pacing of the scenes to the audio descriptions. This results in a staggered, multilayered tempo that invites sighted viewers to follow an intersubjective perceptual loop, collating their own impressions with extra-diegetic representations of what they see. For instance, in Shared Resources, Deborah reflects on a prolonged closeup of herself, poignantly identifying and interpreting subtle facial tension and gestures that are almost inappreciable to an outside viewer. I dont know if you felt any pain when you zoomed in on my face, she addresses Jordan in the voice-over, invoking both vicarious and cyclical aspects of trauma. In the post-screening discussion, Zavitsanos referred to this segmentDeborahs affective return to the experience captured by the shotas a fold in time.

AfterAfter(Access) emphasizes what disability discourse sometimes calls crip time, a somatically attuned temporality incompatible with capitalist forces of standardization and acceleration. Lords voice-over traces the etymology of access to Middle English, in which it meant a sudden attack of illness, yet the films disposition is less fitful than liminal. Its titles locution invokes the rhythm of deferral while also mimicking the naming convention for artworks created afteror influenced byanother artist. In the opening sequence, a litany of names credits Lords network of colleagues, collaborators, family, and friendsmany of whom took shifts caring for the artist while they recuperated following open-heart surgeryand the concluding voiceover suggests that the film is a product of this collective reproductive labor. Intervening scenes emphasize the tender banality of this work, and of waiting. Lord deconstructs and reconstructs a bed with an erstwhile lover, after moving into a borrowed apartment before the operation; in a cab from the airport, they hold hands with their mother, who came to see them through their recovery. The film also tracks the legal and institutional frameworks that delimit its scope, as Lord recounts the producers repeated attempts to obtain permission to record the surgery. The hospital required a multimillion-dollar insurance policy in order for Lord to document the process by which their own body was opened and repaired. Ultimately, they were denied access.

The first shot of AfterAfter(Access) frames a body in extreme proximity, encompassing only skin, hair, and the edge of a shirt collar. This vantage deprives sighted viewers of immediate apprehension. We are told that were witnessing the filmmakers pulse, and later learn that its barely perceptible movement is an index of Lords leaking heart. This condition, too, is only tenuously imaged in the film through an MRI animation, unfathomable to the untrained eye, including the artists. Visibility (and its converse, opacity) are pervasive tropes in debates about cultural representation, but Lords understanding of access jettisons this binary. Its not just that the discourse relies on ocularity and thus universalizes a single-sense organ in a way that could be perceived as ableist. The visibility metaphor also tends to imply that difference is categorical, and that recognition is an end in itself. Its a zero-sum game: a subject or group is represented and seen, their collective experience packaged and made legible to others, or not. A voice-over in Shared Resources posits, on the contrary, that the circuit between I and you cant be closed, and that difference cant be framed. It can only be missed. In missing it, it can only be felt. This language intimates an alternative sensibility, based on a mutual imbrication that nevertheless holds space for dissimilitude. For Lord, access and recognition are only ever partial.

Shared Resources covers the aftermath of the Lord familys bankruptcy following the loss of their Louisiana home in Hurricane Katrina and, later, Alberts job as a debt collector for a bank. The Lords financial collapse had an earlier root, too, one particularly formative for the filmmaker: When Jordan was eleven, their father pledged to fund their college education if they were accepted to an Ivy League school. (They attended Columbia. In a shot in Shared Resources, Jordans mother lingers lovingly on a photo from their graduation.) This part of the Lords storytheir accumulation of massive debt on educations promise of upward mobilityis typically and tragically American. In her 2011 book Cruel Optimism, theorist Lauren Berlant elaborates the attrition of our collective fantasy of achieving the good life. Tying that dreams foreclosure to the contraction of the welfare state since the 1970s and 80s, Berlant dwells on the self-destructive affective and ideological attachments that such historical shifts leave in their wake. Shared Resources mines the pathos and irony of Lords own family drama, drawing out such attachments as they relate to complex intergenerational dynamics around health, masculinity, morality, and consent.

Shared Resources opens on a discussion between Lord and their parents over footage previously shot for the filma scene that continues to play out in intermittent clips. Albert expresses a strong aversion to a scene in which he experiences an episode of compromised health related to his diabetes and ongoing complications from his Agent Orange exposure. He loathes sequences in which he appears weak, vulnerable, or idle, and worries about comparisons to his wife, who is often shown engaged in housework. Anxieties over productivity and status extend to physical signifiers of wealth as well. One of the films still, people-less shots features a sitting room in the Lords home. Flanking a faux-rococo painting and hanging above a lavender sofa are two ornate pedestals with gilded tassels, each supporting a porcelain tchotchke of an animal dressed as a bewigged eighteenth-century aristocrat.1 In a voice-over, Albert worries about false impressions: Look how nice these peoples house is. Look at the furnishings. Theyre bankrupt? Deborah interjects that the furnitureevery lamp, every figurinewas gifted to them by friends and family after they lost their home in Katrina.

Alberts discomfort around his portrayal in the film colors his character throughout, and we are continually brought back to the tense scene of negotiation between Lord and their parents. Occasionally, images are informally censored by a finger in front of the camera lens, presumably a result of this conversation. In the post-screening discussion, Lord drew an analogy between boilerplate waivers used in documentary filmmaking and those derived from the Nuremberg Code, which mandates voluntary, informed consent from the subjects of medical testing. Lord rejects these contracts for binding participants to a preemptive, one-time agreement that waives their right to withdraw consent in perpetuity, regardless of unforeseen changes in circumstance. In contradistinction to this juridical sense, Lord advocates a conception of consent that is processual and ongoing. As such, Lord and their father, who joined the virtual screening along with Deborah, took up this conversation again after the film, acknowledging the sticky contingencies between contracts, collaboration, and care.

In testing the ethics of representation within the familial sphere, Shared Resources recalls Aerospace Folktales, a 1973 photo-essay by Allan Sekula that also critically engages the documentary genre. Originally presenting it as a slideshow with a soundtrack and written commentary, the artist called this autoethnographic work a disassembled movie. Aerospace Folktales focuses on Sekulas family life after his father was laid off from his engineering job at the aircraft corporation Lockheed. Through interviews with his parents and his own commentary, Sekula draws out ideological commitments that defy the familys material reality. Just as in Shared Resources, his images are characterized by mostly banal, domestic scenes that juxtapose the discomfort of a father out of work with a mother occupied by cooking and cleaning. Just as in Shared Resources, a contradiction emerges between an individualist doctrine of personal responsibility and the systemic injustices on evidence. In the former work, Albert sets himself apart from predatory creditors, expounding on the moral obligation he felt as a professional debt collector to help insolvent customers. He takes pride in fulfilling the Lords commitment to their bank through each monthly bankruptcy payment, and even boasts about voluntarily disclosing the extra disability income he was issued after their filing was complete. Here he is living on unemployment and he sounds like the Lockheed chairman of the board, Sekula remarks about his own father. He thinks all this is a dysfunction of a perfectly equitable system.

David Graebers pop-anthropological account of debt, which garnered widespread attention in the wake of Occupy Wall Street, surveys the concepts historical longevity, unpacking the religiosity adhering to debt in a culture defined by bootstraps individualism. Instead of advocating for human relations based on reciprocity, which implies both equality and separation between parties, Graebers Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011) invokes models of sociality constituted by the perpetuation of small debtsthe Tiv people of Nigeria, for instance, purposefully under- or over-compensate their neighbors for gifts; that way, there is always a remainder binding them. Undermining the moral presumption that debts should or could be repaid, Graeber ultimately argues that a debt is just the perversion of a promise.2 Indeed, the Lords bankruptcy issued, in part, from Alberts promise to Jordan, a radical show of faith in his childs own promise. To secure Jordans future, Albert leveraged his own. Decades later, Shared Resources shows Albert feeding a months worth of spare change, which he and Deborah had dutifully collected over the month as a meager financial cushion, into a coin machine. He does this in the lobby of the very bank that fired him, where he still holds an account.

Kaegan Sparks

NOTES

1. Unpacking the incongruous class implications of kitsch here could be the subject of another essay. As Pierre Bourdieu, the paradigmatic sociologist of taste, observes, Every interior expresses, in its own language, the present and even the past state of its occupants, bespeaking the elegant self-assurance of inherited wealth, the flashy arrogance of the nouveaux riches, the discreet shabbiness of the poor and the gilded shabbiness of poor relations striving to live beyond their means. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: The Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), 77.

2. David Graeber,Debt: The First 5,000 Years(Brooklyn: Melville House, 2011): 391.

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Kaegan Sparks on the films of Jordan Lord - Artforum

More than Just a Name: The Story of Penn’s Own Michael Jordan – The Daily Pennsylvanian

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The Philadelphia native played for the Red and Blue from 1996 to 2000 By Jackson Joffe 06/07/20 12:08am Michael Jordan (left) was shooting guard on Penn's Men's Basketball team. (Photo from Penn Athletics)

Michael Jordan is probably not who you think he is.

He isn't a six-time NBA champion who played for the Chicago Bulls. He isn't the owner of the Charlotte Hornets. He isn't the star of ESPN's "The Last Dance."

But Michael Jordan was still a skilled shooting guard who wore No. 23. And his basketball prowess was impressive enough to draw comparisons to Michael Jeffrey Jordan from ESPN.

"[ESPN] had set up an event that was a Michael Jordan vs. Michael Jordan kind of deal, and ESPN was doing all the comparisons between me and MJ," Jordan said. "Stuart Scott would show me missing a shot and then show [Michael Jeffrey Jordan] making a shot."

It's never easy sharing a name with a player many regard as the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jeffrey Jordan, winner of six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls. But even with The Last Dance documentary filling up Twitter feeds, Jordan who played at Penn from 1996 to 2000 embraces the publicity and expectations that come with his name.

"When I was younger, it used to bother me, and I wore No. 13 for a while in high school," Jordan said. "Then one year, the guy who wore No. 23 graduated, and all my teammates were pushing me to wear No. 23, and I finally gave in and started to embrace it."

Jordan, who grew up in the Philadelphia area playing high school basketball at Abington Friends, committed to Penn in 1996. He was part of a recruiting class that had big shoes to fill with the graduation of Jerome Allen, Ira Bowman, and Matt Maloney, who all went on to play in the NBA.

"They won 45 straight Ivy League games, which is extremely impressive even though the League wasn't as competitive top-to-bottom back then," Jordan said. "I remember hearing a story about how Ira [Bowman] ripped off a sink after their streak snapped at Dartmouth. It was intimidating to try and fill those shoes, but we came in wanting to keep it going." Credit: Alana Kelly

The Quakers struggled at the beginning of Jordan's career, as Princeton went 28-0 in Ivy play from 1996 to 1998.

"Those guys at Princeton were freshmen getting beat up on by Ira [Bowman], Matt [Maloney], and Jerome [Allen], but when we played them, they were really good as juniors and seniors, and ranked No. 8 in the country," Jordan said.

They even managed to topple Penn, 50-49, after coming back from a 13-40 deficit in a game known as "Black Tuesday." Yet, even though the Red and Blue lost, it served as a turning point in Jordan's career.

"At the time, that game was a really hard game to lose," said coach Steve Donahue, who was an assistant at Penn from 1990 to 2000. "That team was resilient though, and it says a lot about a team if you can turn around and win 21 straight Ivy games. Black Tuesday was MJ's class' last conference loss."

Jordan graduated in 2000 with a degree in sociology, but he was intent on continuing his playing career. Jordan tried out unsuccessfully for the Philadelphia 76ers and the Boston Celtics, so he moved to Europe. In 12 years overseas, Jordan played for 16 teams across Spain, Latvia, France, and other European countries, as well as Venezuela.

"When [Jordan] graduated [from] Penn, there was no doubt in his mind that he was going to keep playing," said Matt Langel, who played at Penn with Jordan and currently is the head coach at Colgate. "You can go do pretty much anything with a degree from Penn at any time in your life, but you've only got a small window to play professional basketball."

When asked about his experience overseas, Jordan stressed that the transition was easy coming from Penn.

"Everyone I'd meet would tell me that I was the 'most European' American they'd ever met," Jordan said. "We played a really unselfish style of basketball at Penn, and that translated really well over to German and Spanish teams."

Jordan retired from playing basketball in 2011 and returned to the United States, where he reunited with Langel at Colgate, and became the assistant basketball coach in 2012.

"Overseas, one of my teammates had a brother who was about to leave his coaching position at Colgate," Jordan said. "At that time, I was ready to start coaching, and me and Matt have been friends for a long time, so I was fortunate enough to get a position so fast."

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In the past two years, the Raiders have won back-to-back Patriot League championships, making an NCAA tournament appearance in 2019. Langel credits Jordan with playing a huge part in Colgate's recent success.

Jordan may not have had a storied NBA basketball career, but his legacy at Penn still shines today.

"He is one of the best competitors I've ever coached," Donahue said. "We're proud of our Michael Jordan."

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More than Just a Name: The Story of Penn's Own Michael Jordan - The Daily Pennsylvanian

Where To Buy The Air Jordan 5 Top 3 In Europe – Sneaker News

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While US release dates have been disrupted quite a bit since the start of the year, its surprisingly been business as usual over in Europe as theyve released a number of noteworthy Jordans without significant delay. And after the Jordan 6 Hare as well as the Air Jordan 11 Low Concord Bred, retailers overseas are now set to deliver the Air Jordan 5 Top 3 later this week.

From the famed Grape colorway to the Fire Red, the offering ushers in three total references in honor of its theme. The more colorful Fresh Prince associated pair leads with Purple at the tongue, accenting alongside with hits of the complementing aqua blue at both the Jumpman insignia as well as the lining along the inside. Elsewhere, black hues construct much of the rest of the upper in line with the neutral Metallic Silver scheme with only the 23 stamp at the heel making changes as it leans towards a bold red to match that of the tooling.

For another look, check below. If youre looking to get your hands on a pair, expect a number of Europe stockists to launch on June 13th; if youre US-based, youll have to wait until June 20th.

In other news, the Tie-Dye Air Jordan 1s are also releasing this month.

Updated (6/9/2020): Foot Locker informs us that their release has been postponed. It is not yet clear if this change reflects SNKRS and other retailers.

Air Jordan 5 Top 3EU Release Date: June 13th, 2020US Release Date: June 20th, 2020$200/$140/$80/$60Style Code: CZ1786-001 (Mens)Style Code: CZ2989-001 (Grade School)Style Code: CZ2990-001 (Pre-School)Style Code: CZ2991-001 (Toddler)

Make sure to follow @kicksfinder for live tweets during the release date.

Where to Buy (After-market)

Where to Buy (EU)

Where to Buy (US-6/20)

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Where To Buy The Air Jordan 5 Top 3 In Europe - Sneaker News

Adam Silver: Michael Jordan clearly the most respected voice in NBA meetings – Yahoo Sports

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The NBA's resumption bid in Orlando, Fla. kicking off July 31 will involve 22 teams. All 22 will finish out their respective regular season slates with eight games each, followed by potential play-in series for each conference's eighth seed, followed by a traditional (or as traditional as is possible) 16-team playoff.

That plan came after months of deliberation between commissioner Adam Silver and a litany of voices across the league. And in those deliberations a number of creative solutions were discussed - from a World Cup-style group stage first round to a 30-team play-in tournament.

The compulsion to face an unprecedented situation with unprecedented ideas is an understandable one. And the resolution of the NBA's 2019-20 season will be without historical comparison.

But Silver said in an appearance on Inside the NBA on TNT Thursday night that Michael Jordan, owner of the Charlotte Hornets, was one of the swing voices that pushed the league to pursue a traditional postseason format after the 16 playoff teams were established. Jordan's voice evidently carries a lot of weight in such discussions.

"This was a point made by Michael Jordan - whose team, the Charlotte Hornets are not one of the 22 teams, but he's clearly the most respected voice in the room when it comes to basketball- he felt it was very important that after we established the 16 teams we not be gimmicky," Silver said. "Because there were a lot of proposals on the table to do unique tournaments and pool play like you see in international competition. And we took many of those proposals very seriously.

"Ultimately, I agreed with Michael that there's so much chaos in the world right now, even before the racial unrest we're experiencing now, let's come as close to normal as we can. And as close to normal as we can is top eight in the West, top eight in the East playing four rounds of seven games. So that's what we intend to do and our goal is to crown a champion."

And so, here we are. Even with many questions still to be answered, the NBA is on a fast track to returning.

RELATED: Explaining the NBA's plan to resume the 2019-20 season

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Adam Silver: Michael Jordan clearly the most respected voice in NBA meetings originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

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Michael Jordan Pledges to Donate $100 Million Over 10 Years to Social Justice Organizations – Yahoo News

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Update: On June 5, Michael Jordan and Jordan Brand announced a joint pledge to donate $100 million over the next 10 years to organizations that promote racial equality, social justice, and greater access to education. An official statement shared on the Nike website read, "Black lives matter. This isn't a controversial statement. Until the ingrained racism that allows our country's institutions to fail is completely eradicated, we will remain committed to protecting and improving the lives of Black people."

Original post: Michael Jordan has spoken out on the death of George Floyd. On May 25, Floyd was killed in Minneapolis when police officer Derek Chauvin pinned his knee to Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes as he repeatedly said he couldn't breathe. On May 31, amid protests across the country, Jordan released a statement on his official Instagram and Twitter accounts, expressing both his anger and support. "I am deeply saddened, truly pained and plain angry," he wrote. "I see and feel everyone's pain, outrage and frustration. I stand with those who are calling out the ingrained racism and violence toward people of color in our country. We have had enough."

"We have had enough."

The former basketball player went on to encourage his followers to show empathy toward one another while also actively denouncing uncalled-for police violence. "I don't have the answers, but our collective voices show strength and the inability to be divided by others. We must listen to each other, show compassion and empathy and never turn our backs on senseless brutality," Jordan said. He urged fans to "continue peaceful expressions against injustice," "demand accountability," and "put pressure on our leaders to change our laws." He concluded his statement by offering his condolences to Floyd's family and the "countless others whose lives have been brutally and senselessly taken through acts of racism and injustice."

In the past, Jordan received backlash from fans for rarely taking a stand on politics and Black advocacy during his basketball career. He touched on his tendency to remain neutral on racial issues in his recent docuseries The Last Dance. Back in 1990, Jordan chose not to publicly endorse Harvey Gantt, a Black Democrat who was running for senator in North Carolina against Jesse Helms, a white Republican with a racist reputation. Gantt wound up losing the race in Jordan's home state. Reflecting on the matter 30 years later in The Last Dance, Jordan said, "I never thought of myself as an activist. I thought of myself as a basketball player. I wasn't a politician. I was playing my sport. I was focused on my craft. Was that selfish? Probably. But that was my energy."

Related: Obama Urges the Nation to Thoroughly Confront George Floyd's Killing in a Sobering Statement

Fast forward to the 2000s, and Jordan began using his platform more to advocate for Black Americans. In 2012, he hosted a $20,000-per-person fundraiser in support of Barack Obama's reeelction campaign. And in 2016, he wrote a column about the Black Lives Matter movement for The Undefeated and announced $1 million donations to both the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Institute for Community-Police Relations. "As a proud American, a father who lost his own dad in a senseless act of violence, and a black man, I have been deeply troubled by the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement," the former Chicago Bulls superstar wrote. "I know this country is better than that, and I can no longer stay silent."

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Michael Jordan Pledges to Donate $100 Million Over 10 Years to Social Justice Organizations - Yahoo News

Where To Buy The Air Jordan 1 Tie-Dye – Sneaker News

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For some time now, Jordan Brand has diverted a great deal of attention to the womens market, enlisting talents the likes of Melody Ehsani and Aleali May to invoke some well-needed energy into the line-up. And as teased by their Summer preview, the general releases are taking on a more aggressive approach as well, releasing not only Air Jordan 11 Lows but also a tie-dye covered Air Jordan 1 High. Replete with the DIY treatment, the upper is relatively replete of bold colors; but instead of a varied wash of multiple hues, the design prefers something much simpler as it mixes both light and dark cool tones. Adjacent, the swoosh, toe box, and tongue are given a dark black, accenting apart from the white shades of the profile, midsole, and branded patch. Grab a detailed look at these here, and be sure to keep an eye on the store list below to secure your pair on either the EUs June 11th release date or the US June 26th launch.

In other news, the Off-White Air Jordan 4 drops in July.

WMNS Air Jordan 1 Tie-DyeRelease Date: June 26th, 2020$170/$80/$60Color: White/Black-Aurora GreenStyle Code: CD0461-100 (W)Style Code: CU0449-100 (PS)Style Code: CU0450-100 (TD)

Make sure to follow @kicksfinder for live tweets during the release date.

Where to Buy (EU)

Where to Buy (EU PS)

Where to Buy (EU TD)

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Where To Buy The Air Jordan 1 Tie-Dye - Sneaker News