An Assessment of the Effects of Medical Marijuana on the Quality of Patient Life

America is known as the land of opportunity. People attempting to better their lives tend to see America as an opportunity to do so. This statement remains true for the American medical field. Americans are known as advanced in treatment options for various diseases. With this being said, there are few diseases that still bring forth complete fear in the minds of the people of America. In spite of this, You have been diagnosed with cancer is a statement that generates this fear. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Current treatments for cancer are invasive, expensive, and disheartening for patients. There is a true need for help in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of this horrific disease. The medical world has begun turning its attention to marijuana to help fill this gap between cancer and cure. My interest is not on the politics of marijuana, but rather on the potential to improve patients\u27 quality of life. Through the construction and future application of a medical marijuana questionnaire, a qualitative assessment will be made on the effectiveness of medical marijuana. If quality of life for patients is seen to improve with use of medical marijuana, I would like to advocate for the patients and provide them a voice in the medical marijuana discussion. The null hypothesis to this study is that medical marijuana has no effect on a patients\u27 quality of life. My research with Ewing\u27s sarcoma and current literature review on patients\u27 experiences with marijuana and its related cannabinoids lead me to conclude that the null hypothesis is invalid. I believe medical marijuana has the ability to improve the quality of life of patients to which it\u27s prescribed

The Effect of a Positive and Negative Mindset on Affect, Happiness, and Heart Rate Variability

The present study investigates the influence of a positive or negative mindset on affect, happiness, and heart rate variability (HRV) among undergraduate students at a small, liberal arts college in Minnesota. Forty participants were randomly assigned into the positive or negative mindset conditions by completing two short writing exercises. Participants reported their affect and happiness before and after the mindset manipulation. Additionally, participants’ HRV was recorded before, during, and after the mindset manipulation. The results of the present study showed that adopting a positive mindset increases positive affect whereas adopting a negative mindset increases negative affect and decreases happiness. The results found no relationship between mindset and HRV. Lastly, the current study examined the interaction of emotional regulation and mindset on affect, happiness, and HRV, but found no interaction between these variables. Overall, the findings of the present study indicate that adopting a positive mindset in the present moment increases positive affect, while adopting a negative mindset in the present moment significantly detracts from happiness and increases negative affect

Multi-tasking: The Relationship between Watching a Video and Memory

This study investigates the relationship between media multitasking and memory among undergraduate students at a small, liberal arts college in Minnesota. The participants (N=20) were randomly assigned using block randomization to either the experimental group which was asked to study a list of 20 words while watching a video clip or the control group which only studied the set of 20 words. All of the participants were given 2 minutes to study the list of 20 words and then 2 minutes to write as many words as they could recall from their memory. The participants who watched the video clip were asked to answer questions about the video to ensure the independent variable was manipulated correctly. I found that participants who media multitasked by watching a video had a more difficult time recalling words from the list compared to those in the control group (t (18) = -2.427, p-value = .026, mean difference = -4.20, and standard error difference = 2.79). These results suggest that people who media multitask while they study may have a more difficult time recalling information from their memory compared to those who do not multitask while they study information

Can Peak Expiratory Flow Measurements Differentiate Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease from Congestive Heart Failure?

Dyspneic patients are commonly encountered by Emergency Medical Service (EMS). Frequent causes include Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). Measurement of peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) has been proposed to help differentiate COPD from CHF. This prospective, cohort, pilot study was conducted to determine if PEFR in patients with an exacerbation of COPD were significantly different than CHF. Included were patients presenting with dyspnea plus a history of COPD and/or CHF. A PEFR was measured, values were compared to predicted average, and a percentage was calculated. Twenty-one patients were enrolled. Six had a diagnosis of COPD, 12 CHF; 3 had other diagnoses. Mean percentage of predicted PEFR with COPD was 26.36%, CHF 48.9% (P = 0.04). Patients presenting with acute COPD had significantly lower percentage of predicted PEFR than those with CHF. These results suggest that PEFR may be useful in differentiating COPD from CHF. This study should be expanded to the prehospital setting with a larger number of subjects

Estimation of Laceration Length by Emergency Department Personnel

Introduction Documentation and billing for laceration repair involves a description of wound length. We designed this study to test the hypothesis that emergency department (ED) personnel can accurately estimate wound lengths without the aid of a measuring device. Methods This was a single-center prospective observational study performed in an academic ED. Seven wounds of varying lengths were simulated by creating lacerations on purchased pigs’ ears and feet. We asked healthcare providers, defined as nurses and physicians working in the ED, to estimate the length of each wound by visual inspection. Length estimates were given in centimeters (cm) and inches. Estimated lengths were considered correct if the estimate was within 0.5 cm or 0.2 inches of the actual length. We calculated the differences between estimated and actual laceration lengths for each laceration and compared the accuracy of physicians to nurses using an unpaired t-test. Results Thirty-two physicians (nine faculty and 23 residents) and 16 nurses participated. All subjects tended to overestimate in cm and inches. Physicians were able to estimate laceration length within 0.5 cm 36% of the time and within 0.2 inches 29% of the time. Physicians were more accurate at estimating wound lengths than nurses in both cm and inches. Both physicians and nurses were more accurate at estimating shorter lengths (5.0 cm). Conclusion ED personnel are often unable to accurately estimate wound length in either cm or inches and tend to overestimate laceration lengths when based solely on visual inspection

Correlation of the National Emergency Medicine M4 Clerkship Examination with USMLE Examination Performance

NTRODUCTION: Assessment of medical students' knowledge in clinical settings is complex yet essential to the learning process. Clinical clerkships use various types of written examinations to objectively test medical knowledge within a given discipline. Within emergency medicine (EM), a new national standardized exam was developed to test medical knowledge in this specialty. Evaluation of the psychometric properties of a new examination is an important issue to address during test development and use. Studies have shown that student performance on selected standardized exams will reveal students' strengths and/or weaknesses, so that effective remedial efforts can be implemented. Our study sought to address these issues by examining the association of scores on the new EM national exam with other standardized exam scores. METHODS: From August 2011 to April 2013, average National EM M4 examination scores of fourth-year medical students taken at the end of a required EM clerkship were compiled. We examined the correlation of the National EM M4 examination with the scores of initial attempts of the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step 1 and Step 2 Clinical Knowledge (CK) examinations. Correlation coefficients and 95% confidence intervals of correlation coefficients are reported. We also examined the association between the national EM M4 examination score, final grades for the EM rotation, and USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 CK scores. RESULTS: 133 students were included in the study and achieved a mean score of 79.5 SD 8.0 on the National EM M4 exam compared to a national mean of 79.7 SD 3.89. The mean USMLE Step 1 score was 226.8 SD 19.3. The mean USMLE Step 2 CK score was 238.5 SD 18.9. National EM M4 examination scores showed moderate correlation with both USMLE Step 1 (mean score=226.8; correlation coefficient=0.50; 95% CI [0.28-0.67]) and USMLE Step 2 CK (mean score=238.5; correlation coefficient=0.47; 95% CI [0.25-0.65]). Students scoring below the median on the national EM M4 exam also scored well below their colleagues on USMLE exams. CONCLUSION: The moderate correlation of the national EM M4 examination and USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 CK scores provides support for the utilization of the CDEM National EM M4 examination as an effective means of assessing medical knowledge for fourth-year medical students. Identification of students scoring lower on standardized exams allows for effective remedial efforts to be undertaken throughout the medical education process

Alloparenting Adolescents: Evaluating the Social and Biological Impacts of Leprosy on Young People in Saxo-Norman England (9th to 12th Centuries AD) through Cross-Disciplinary Models of Care

The majority of historical sources describe past attitudes towards people with leprosy as negative, focussing on ostracism and damnation, and this is thought to have impacted on the care that sufferers received. More recent historical and archaeological evidence challenges this longstanding perspective, portraying a very different view of care for those with this potentially debilitating and disfiguring disease (Roberts 2002; Rawcliffe 2006; Roberts 2013; Roberts 2018). This paper aims to explore the social and biological impacts of adolescents with leprosy in SaxoNorman England (9th – 12th centuries AD). The intersection of youth, chronic infection, aspects of care (inclusive of medical, surgical, and daily support), and cultural identity has only been tangentially explored in the past (e.g see Redfern and Gowland 2011; Roberts and Bernard 2015; Lewis 2017). Studies that integrate these entwined themes can, however, provide a more holistic view of societal responses to wider encultured disease identities. This study utilises multiple lines of evidence for medical care and social treatment to evaluate the validity of dominant historical narratives about leprosy, i.e. that people in the past with leprosy were not cared for or treated well. In order to achieve this, the notion of past requirements of care and treatment through an alloparental model will be introduced. This is followed by a review of the existing historiographical evidence for medical care for young people in the medieval period to better understand systems of care provision and parental reactions to their sick children at this time. Discussions of leprosy in young people in the present and past will help contribute to longitudinal views of the biological impacts of leprosy and help the necessity for care in relation to certain pathological responses (i.e. the manifestation of lepromatous leprosy). To apply this framework to the past, palaeopathological and archaeological evidence from adolescent individuals excavated from the North Cemetery of St. Mary Magdalen leprosy hospital will be analysed. The presence of both leprosy and alloparental care for adolescents in the Saxo-Norman transition at this hospital is demonstrated. Finally, the construction of a theoretical model of required clinical care and provisions, such as the Index of Care framework, helps interpret the evidence for care in alloparental institutions such as leprosaria. The treatment of people with leprosy in the medieval period is often cited as a justification for the continuing stigma and community expulsion of family members with leprosy in some parts of the world (World Health Organization 2015). Therefore, it is worth examining the social milieu of this disease in which young people with leprosy in the past lived, and the models of care and treatment that may be interpreted from these data in order to dispel this longstanding stigma

Firearms and Toolmark Error Rates

We have outlined several problems with the state of error rate studies on firearm and toolmark examination. Fundamentally, we do not know what the error rate is for these types of comparisons. This is a failure of the scientific study of toolmarks, rather than the examiners themselves, but until this is corrected with multiple studies that meet the criteria described in Section 3, we cannot support the use of this evidence in criminal proceedings