Professional Development of Medical Students Transitioning from Preclinical to Clinical Training ​

Background: Personal and professional development (PPD) is a competency domain for graduated U.S. medical students. Current research shows that PPD is lowest at transitional periods, such as the transition from preclinical to clinical training. Methods: To assess professional development at a large, allopathic medical school, a survey with seven statements regarding professional development was formed. The statements encompassed domains of mentorship, communication skills, professionalism, team work, and innovation and asked students to rank each statement from 1-5 (1 - highly deficient, 5 - highly proficient). The online, anonymous survey was emailed to all second year medical students at Wayne State University School of Medicine (WSUSOM) (n=303) over a 2-month time period after completion of a Service Learning course that fostered professional development and taught about the social determinants of health. Results: 114 (37.6%) students responded to the survey. Overall, students reported feeling most proficient in working with people from different backgrounds (average = 3.91) and least proficient in seeking advice from advisors and mentors (3.27). On average, students felt proficient or highly proficient in all categories. Conclusion: Overall, students felt their professional skills improved after the Service Learning course, and in general felt most proficient in team-based competencies. These preliminary results indicate a need for empowering students to seek advice from mentors. Guidance is especially crucial when students are facing transition periods. There is also room for improvement in teaching students to navigate difficult conversations with empathy and courage. It is also important to continue monitoring professional development over the course of clinical rotations to prevent declines in competencies

Longitudinal Professional Identity Development Amongst Medical Students

Abstract Title: Longitudinal Professional Identity Development Amongst Medical Students Background: Professional development is a core competency for medical student education. A standardized model for assessment of student longitudinal professional identity development will allow medical schools to better implement interventions. Methods: To assess professional development at a large, Midwest, allopathic medical school, a survey with seven statements regarding professional development was created. The statements encompassed domains of mentorship, communication skills, professionalism, and innovation and asked students to rank each statement from 1-5 (1 - highly deficient, 5 - highly proficient). The online, anonymous survey was emailed to all students (n = 1154) over a 2 month time period. Results: 319 (27.6%) surveys were completed. Responses between year 1-2 and year 3-4 showed a unanimous increase in average proficiency across all 7 statements. Year 3-4 had a significant increase in overall proficiency (p Conclusion: Although professional identity development follows an overall upward trend, year 3 is a vulnerable period for professional identity development. While increased accessibility to advising is needed in all four years, it is even more necessary in year 3. The power of the study is limited by the number of responses

Best Practices in Patient Education: Medical Students’ Perceptions and Implementations

Effective patient education can help achieve better clinical outcomes, especially when a patient is managing a chronic illness. Despite patient education being an important skill in the professional formation of physicians, little is known about medical students’ perceptions and implementations of such strategies. After completing a chronic illness educational module, second-year medical students were asked to rate the importance of specific patient education strategies and to assess their use of said strategies in the module’s project assignment. Results indicated students utilized different patient education strategies from those they initially identified as most effective

Thermotolerant PGPR consortium B3P modulates physio-biochemical and molecular machinery for enhanced heat tolerance in maize during early vegetative growth

Abstract Background Global warming and irregular changes in temperature are a serious threat to plant growth with a significant negative impact on yield. Global maize productivity has decreased significantly due to sudden temperature fluctuations and heat waves especially in the regions severely hit by climate change. Results The current study demonstrates the potential of beneficial bacteria for inducing heat tolerance in maize during early growth. Three Bacillus spp. AH-08, AH-67, SH-16, and one Pseudomonas spp. SH-29 showed the ability to grow and exhibited multiple plant-beneficial traits up to 45 ± 2 °C. At temperatures of 45 and 50 °C, Bacillus sp. SH-16 exhibited upregulation of two small heat shock proteins (HSP) of 15 and 30 kDa, while SH-16 and AH-67 showed upregulation of two large HSP of 65 and 100 kDa. Plant-inoculation with the consortium B3P (3 Bacillus + 1 Pseudomonas spp.) was carried out on six hybrid maize varieties pre-grown at 25 ± 2 ºC. Heat shock was applied to 10-day-old seedlings as: 3 h at 38ºC, 48 h recovery period, and then 48 h at 42ºC. The B3P treatment showed significant improvement in the overall plant growth (plant height, root & shoot fresh & dry weight, root and leaf area) with a higher level of CAT, POD, total chlorophyll, and carotenoids, while low concentration of MDA. A non-significant difference was observed in case of total cell protein and amino acids after B3P-treatment under stress. The expression of HSP1 and HSP18 in Malka and YH-5427 while HSP70 and HSP101 were higher in FH-1046 and Gohar as compared to non-inoculated treatment. Conclusions These findings indicate that heat-tolerant plant-growth promoting rhizobacteria (Ht-PGPR) exert versatile, multiphasic and differential response to improve plant growth and heat-tolerance in different maize varieties during seedling/ early vegetative growth. Subsequent research will be focused on the field evaluation of these PGPR to see the field and yield response of this consortium under natural temperature fluctuations in field