Superman does laundry too

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Reading Patients: Our Story of Narrative Medicine

As Dr. Rita Charon, pioneer of the field of narrative medicine, said “Literary accounts of illness can teach physicians concrete and powerful lessons about the lives of sick people” but also “enable physicians to recognize the power and implications of what they do” (Charon et al, 1995).Through various narrative medicine exercises, we have explored the benefits of narrative medicine for health care professionals. More specifically, we have created a reading club for medical students and developed a reading module as part of the Physician Apprenticeship Course for medical students at McGill University. Moreover, we led short writing workshops based on prompts from short stories and poems for health care professionals at Anna-Laberge Hospital.During our workshop, we will briefly review our narrative medicine initiatives and then dive into a narrative medicine exercise with the group to demonstrate its potential benefits among health care professionals. We hope that by providing concrete examples of narrative medicine projects we have developed and implemented, we will facilitate the integration of narrative medicine into participants’ own practices.

Using literature to promote reflection in medical school

Background:In the last half century, literature has been increasingly recognized as beneficial to medical trainees in terms of teaching empathy, cultural competence, listening and interpretation skills, and reflecting on moral issues (Jones, A. H., 2013). Following the success of a McGill medical students reading club, a reading module was tentatively added to the McGill Physician Apprenticeship (PA) Course curriculum in 2016. This was based on the idea that literature could be used a springboard towards discussion and reflection upon issues related to health, illness and medical care. Methodology:PA groups are composed of six medical students, two senior students and a physician mentor, whose regular meetings throughout medical school are structured around suggested modules. As part of the reading module, all PA groups were encouraged to choose a novel, essay, short story or poem by the end of their academic first year. A discussion on the reading was to be held in early second year, with specific questions to be addressed in order to reflect on course objectives (e.g., patient-centered clinical approach, reflective practice, healer role). The students anonymously completed pre and post-module questionnaires to assess the module's learning and reflective value. Students’ opinions on the pertinence of renewing this pilot project in the future were also accumulated. Results:The first student cohort has completed the pre-questionnaires in spring 2017 and will be completing the post-module questionnaires in fall 2017.Therefore, at the moment of the abstract submission, we do not have preliminary results. 

Seaweeds as Source of New Bioactive Prototypes

Living organisms endowed with natural benefits have been used for millions of years in the medical practice. Seaweeds have been widely used around the world for the production of agar and food; however, the pharmaceutical industry has drawn attention to the activities of these natural products. In this chapter, we present some bioactive metabolites of the three phyla of seaweed (green, brown, and red algae) along with their potential for drug development

Chemical defenses of the tropical marine seaweed Canistrocarpus cervicornis against herbivory by sea urchin

This paper reports on the defensive chemical properties of the marine tropical brown seaweed Canistrocarpus cervicornis against herbivory. A natural concentration of dichloromethane crude extract (DCE) obtained from this seaweed significantly inhibited feeding by the sea urchin Lytechinus variegatus. The major metabolite isolated from this active DCE extract was identified as the (4R,7R,14S)-4α,7α-diacetoxy-14-hydroxydolast-1(15),8-diene that strongly inhibited feeding by the same sea urchin. This result suggests that the dolastane diterpenes class may constitute the defensive system of C. cervicornis against herbivory, and probably also of that of other brown seaweeds endowed with a biosynthetic pathway capable of producing compounds of the dolastane-type, a typical skeleton found in Dyctioteae species worldwide. This is the first report showing this compound-type (dolastane diterpenes) as a chemical defense against herbivory in marine seaweeds. This study constitutes an additional report broadening the known spectrum of action and roles of secondary metabolites of the C. cervicornis and Dyctioteae species.Este artigo demonstra a química defensiva anti-herbivoria da macroalga parda marinha Canistrocarpus cervicornis. Em sua concentração natural, o extrato bruto em diclorometano (DCE) inibiu significativamente o consumo alimentar do ouriço-do-mar Lytechinus variegatus. Deste extrato em DCE foi isolado o metabólito majoritário identificado como o diterpeno (4R,7R,14S)-4α,7α-diacetoxi-14-hidroxidolasta-1(15),8-dieno. Esses resultados comprovam que diterpenos da classe dolastano podem compor o sistema defensivo anti-herbivoria de C. cervircornis e, supostamente, o de outras algas pardas capazes de produzi-los, uma vez que são composto típicos encontrados em esqueletos de Dyctiotas em todo o mundo. Este é o primeiro estudo demonstrando a ação anti-herbivoria desta classe de metabolitos (diterpenos dolastanos) em macroalgas marinhas. Tais informações ampliam o conhecimento sobre o papel desses metabolitos especiais em C. cervicornis e de espécies de Dyctiotae