The specter of cancer: Exploring secondary trauma for health professionals providing cancer support and counseling

Health professionals are vulnerable to occupational stress and tend to report high levels of secondary trauma and burnout; this is especially so for those working in “high-death” contexts such as cancer support and palliative care. In this study, 38 health professionals (psychologists, social workers, pastoral carers/chaplains, nurses, group facilitators, and a medical practitioner) who provide grief support and counseling in cancer and palliative care each participated in a semistructured interview. Qualitatively, a grounded theory analysis revealed four themes: (a) the role of health professionals in supporting people who are experiencing grief and loss issues in the context of cancer, (b) ways of working with patients with cancer and their families, (c) the unique qualities of cancer-related loss and grief experiences, and (d) the emotional demands of the work and associated self-care. The provision of psychological services in the context of cancer is colored by the specter of cancer, an unseen yet real phenomenon that contributes to secondary trauma and burnout. The participants’ reported secondary trauma has serious repercussions for their well-being and may compromise the care they provide. The findings have implications for the retention and well-being of personnel who provide psychosocial care in cancer and the quality and delivery of services for people with cancer and their families

And Still It Moves

This manuscript represents thirty-two poems written over three years. Major themes include: split selves, family, death, astronomy and fear of flying. I hope to showcase a diverse range of poetic forms while maintaining a consistent but fluid voice. The collection takes its name from unconfirmed anecdote about Galileo Galilei: when asked by the Italian Inquisition to recant his claim that the earth moved around the sun he did--and in doing so saved his own life. However, legend has it as he left he said under his breath eppur si muove or still it moves. Regardless of what we say about the planet, its direction and inclination, it travels on and on. This is my rendering of three trips around the sun

The Power of Recreational Reading: Youth Developing Through "The Giver"

As youth development researchers and practitioners, it is important to understand various developmental elements that youth experience as well as the recreational activities that fuel their growth and development. A growing problem among youth in the United States is aliteracy, those who are literate but choose not to participate in recreational reading. The growing popularity of dystopian novels being featured in the media, may affect the rate of recreational reading. Since the debut of The Hunger Games movie, dystopian movie production has flourished including the production of the Divergent series, The Maze Runner, and The Giver. The film adaptation and the book series, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins has become one of the largest grossing feature films and series. With this amount of media attention, youth are bound to have interest in what the dystopian genre entails. There is a lack of research on the developmental benefits of youth reading dystopian type novels. The purpose of this study was to investigate how recreational reading of dystopian novels, like The Giver, benefits the development of young adult readers. Using qualitative methods, the researcher conducted several focus groups with undergraduate aged participants. An interview guide was used to conduct the focus group discussion asking questions in affiliation with The Giver, the Six C’s of Positive Youth Development framework, and the Reader Response Theory. The results were obtained by coding the transcripts and discovering themes. The findings suggest that as youth develop, their experience with literature develops, resulting in increased levels of competence, confidence, character, connection, caring, and contribution. These results are valuable to share with youth and youth development practitioners in order to decrease aliteracy rates and share the power of recreational reading

Sex Differences in the Effect of Inflammation on Subjective Social Status: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Endotoxin in Healthy Young Adults.

It has been established that inflammation leads to a variety of changes in social experience, but one area of social experience that has been overlooked is subjective social status. Furthermore, given sex differences in the relationship between inflammation and social status, males may be more sensitive to inflammation-induced changes in social status. However, no previous studies in humans have examined this possibility. In the present study, healthy young participants (n = 115) were randomly assigned to receive either endotoxin, an experimental inflammatory challenge, or placebo. Participants reported their subjective social status at baseline (prior to injection), and approximately 2 h later (time of peak inflammatory response for the endotoxin group). Results, using ANCOVA analyses, indicated that males exposed to endotoxin, but not females, reported lower levels of subjective social status at the peak of inflammatory response (vs. placebo). These results suggest that males may be more sensitive to the effects of inflammation in certain social domains, such as perceived social status. Clinical Trial Registration: www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT01671150

Goal-Focused Emotion-Regulation Therapy (GET) for young adult survivors of testicular cancer: a pilot randomized controlled trial of a biobehavioral intervention protocol.

BackgroundTesticular cancer diagnosis and treatment, especially given its threat to sexuality and reproductive health, can be distressing in the formative period of young adulthood and the majority of young survivors experience impairing, distressing, and modifiable adverse outcomes that can persist long after medical treatment. These include psychological distress, impairment in pursuit of life goals, persistent physical side effects, elevated risk of secondary malignancies and chronic illness, and biobehavioral burden (e.g., enhanced inflammation, dysregulated diurnal stress hormones). However, few targeted interventions exist to assist young survivors in renegotiating life goals and regulating cancer-related emotions, and none focus on reducing the burden of morbidity via biobehavioral mechanisms. This paper describes the methodology of a randomized controlled biobehavioral trial designed to investigate the feasibility and preliminary impact of a novel intervention, Goal-focused Emotion-Regulation Therapy (GET), aimed at improving distress symptoms, emotion regulation, goal navigation skills, and stress-sensitive biomarkers in young adult testicular cancer patients.MethodsParticipants will be randomized to receive six sessions of GET or Individual Supportive Therapy (ISP) delivered over 8 weeks. In addition to indicators of intervention feasibility, we will measure primary (depressive and anxiety symptoms) and secondary (emotion regulation and goal navigation skills, career confusion) psychological outcomes prior to (T0), immediately after (T1), and 12 weeks after (T2) intervention. Additionally, identified biomarkers will be measured at baseline and at T2.DiscussionGET may have the potential to improve self-regulation across biobehavioral domains, improve overall cancer adjustment, and address the need for targeted supportive care interventions for young adult cancer survivors.Trial registrationClinicaltrials.gov, NCT04150848. Registered on 28 October 2019

Emittance in Nonlinear Thomson Scattering

Inverse Compton scattering sources are finding increasing use as intense sources of high-energy photons. When operated at high field strength, ponderomotive detuning of the scattered emission can lead to decreased source performance. Up to now, the calculations of spectra for such nonlinear Thomson scattering have been done assuming a perfectly aligned electron interacts with the incident laser beam and several authors have investigated whether pondermotive detuning may be mitigated or cured by suitable incident laser chirping prescriptions. In order to determine if these chirping prescriptions are suitable in real beams with nonzero emittance, it is necessary to include misaligned boundary conditions in the electron motion and calculate the resulting spectra from the exact motion. In this paper we provide the exact solution for the electron equations of motion in the case of a misaligned electron passing through a laser pulse of high field strength. This solution is then used to calculate the scattered radiation distribution and we determine the emittance limits for the simplest chirping prescription

Substrate-Competitive Inhibitors of c-Src Kinase.

Protein kinases are key mediators of cellular signal transduction and are heavily studied drug targets. Greater than 99% of reported kinase inhibitors act through the same mechanism of competing for binding to the highly conserved ATP pocket. Although ATP-competitive inhibitors have experienced clinical success, the disadvantages associated with them has resulted in significant interest in the discovery of inhibitors that target regions outside of the ATP binding pocket, such as the protein substrate binding site. However, the identification of compounds that can inhibit the kinase-substrate protein-protein interaction has proven challenging, especially for small molecules. To address this problem, we developed screening methodology that can identify small molecule substrate-competitive inhibitors using the tyrosine kinase c-Src as a model system. Studies began with the preparation of a library of peptidic inhibitors to evaluate tyrosine pharmacophores and generate probes for a competitive binding assay. No peptides with potency suitable for probe development were identified, however important structure activity relationships were gleaned for tyrosine pharmacophores. In a second study, a substrate activity screening (SAS) method for tyrosine kinases was developed. Using an assay that monitors ADP production, the first small molecule substrates for any protein kinase were identified. By applying knowledge gained from the previous pharmacophore study, a small molecule substrate (Km = 122 micromolar) was then successfully converted into a substrate-competitive, ATP-noncompetitive inhibitor (Ki = 16 micromolar). The lead inhibitor has improved selectivity compared to an ATP-competitive inhibitor commonly used as a c-Src probe, and has cellular efficacy similar to FDA approved ATP-competitive kinase inhibitors (SK-BR-3 GI50 = 14 micromolar). This SAS method is the only general screening technique for the selective identification of substrate-competitive kinase inhibitors and should be applicable to any tyrosine kinase of interest. In a final study, substrates identified through SAS were applied to the design of nonpeptidic bisubstrate inhibitors. As a whole, the work presented has demonstrated the importance of retaining hydrogen bonding interactions made by the substrate hydroxyl group in order to generate potent inhibitors. Results from this work should advance the discovery of new small molecule substrate-competitive inhibitors through both screening and rational design.PHDMedicinal ChemistryUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110493/1/breenme_1.pd