A Voice in Your Ear: Podcasts as a Strategy to Support Successful Student Transition into Medical Education

A Voice in Your Ear: Podcasts as a Strategy to Support Successful Student Transition into Medical Education Michael LaPelusa, Valerie Terry, Ph.D., Arden Dingle, M.D. Background The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) School of Medicine (SOM) welcomed their first student cohort in July 2016 (Class of 2020). In July 2017, the SOM will matriculate their second cohort (Class of 2021). To organize information and advice from the Class of 2020 to the Class of 2021 in an innovative and practical manner, a series of student-created podcasts is being developed to deliver their words of wisdom. A key aim of this project is to share what the SOM\u27s inaugural first class wished they had known, to help future students adapt to medical school and navigate the intricate roadmap of undergraduate medical education. It is anticipated that this initiative will establish a connection between SOM student cohorts, empower student leaders in peer mentoring, and positively impact the 2017 incoming cohort\u27s first-year SOM experience. The project is sustainable; it has the support of administration and will likely become a legacy effort, extended to future incoming first-year cohorts, including the SOM\u27s residents. Program/Challenge Description Transitioning to medical school is intrinsically challenging; being at a new medical school adds additional complications. These podcasts will contribute to the pre-matriculation and orientation programming to facilitate the preparation for and assimilation of students into medical school. The podcasts will capture student interviews and conversations with SOM faculty, administration, and fellow students. Topics will range from adapting to the border culture of the Lower Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, preparing for USMLE Step examinations, utilizing available resources, and applying to residency. Listening to these podcasts will be voluntary although highly encouraged. Program Evaluation Evaluation of the podcast initiative will involve original research, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative measures, in a combination of online surveys, focus groups and one-on-one interviews, for data collection as benchmark measures and periodic follow-up evaluation of outcomes. The planned study will investigate and document how messages that are communicated via podcast technology affect student attitudes, opinions and, potentially, academic performance as students transition into a newly-established undergraduate medical degree program. Other aspects of the study will also explore medical student experiences transitioning into residency. Additionally, program assessment can examine user information (e.g., ease of use) and inform future pre-matriculation and orientation approaches (e.g., content modification, scheduled activities). Baseline data regarding students’ attitudes, goals, and expectations will be collected during the Class of 2021’s orientation (July 2017) so the podcasts effectiveness can be measured at several time points throughout the academic year. Discussion Emphasis is placed on podcast content being student-created to ensure the podcasts do not have an obligatory or compulsory overtone; otherwise, the usefulness of the podcasts might be compromised. Encouraging as many students and faculty as possible to contribute to the podcast project is also considered to be imperative to provide a wide range of perspectives and input, reduce redundancy and establish a pipeline of future content creators and student consumers

“A Voice In Your Ear” Podcast – The Second Year

In July of 2016, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) School of Medicine matriculated their first cohort (Class of 2020). In an attempt to organize the advice that the Class of 2020 planned to provide future classes, a podcast was developed by several medical students from the Class of 2020 in cooperation with faculty and administration

Seasonal Salinization Decreases Spatial Heterogeneity of Sulfate Reducing Activity

Evidence of sulfate input and reduction in coastal freshwater wetlands is often visible in the black iron monosulfide (FeS) complexes that form in iron rich reducing sediments. Using a modified Indicator of Reduction in Soils (IRIS) method, digital imaging, and geostatistics, we examine controls on the spatial properties of FeS in a coastal wetland fresh-to-brackish transition zone over a multi-month, drought-induced saltwater incursion event. PVC sheets (10 - 15 cm) were painted with an iron oxide paint and incubated vertically belowground and flush with the surface for 24 h along a salt-influenced to freshwater wetland transect in coastal North Carolina, USA. Along with collection of complementary water and soil chemistry data, the size and location of the FeS compounds on the plate were photographed and geostatistical techniques were employed to characterize FeS formation on the square cm scale. Herein, we describe how the saltwater incursion front is associated with increased sulfate loading and decreased aqueous Fe(II) content. This accompanies an increased number of individual FeS complexes that were more uniformly distributed as reflected in a lower Magnitude of Spatial Heterogeneity at all sites except furthest downstream. Future work should focus on streamlining the plate analysis procedure as well as developing a more robust statistical based approach to determine sulfide concentration

Health risks of solid waste management practices in rural Ghana: A semi-quantitative approach toward a solid waste safety plan

Inadequate solid waste management (SWM) can lead to environmental contamination and human health risks. The health risks from poor SWM can vary based on specific practices and exposure pathways. Thus, it is necessary to adequately understand the local context. This information, however, is rarely available in low-resource settings, particularly in rural areas. A solid waste safety plan could be helpful in these settings for gathering necessary data to assess and minimize health risks. As a step in developing such a tool, a semi-quantitative health risk analysis of SWM practices in nine Ghanaian rural villages was undertaken. Data on SWM in each village were collected through qualitative field observations and semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders. SWM-related health risks were assessed using the collected data, similar case studies in the scientific literature and dialogue among an assembled team of experts. The analysis identified context-specific practices and exposure pathways that may present the most substantial health risks as well as targeted solutions for mitigation risks. A risk assessment matrix was developed to quantify SWM risks as low, medium, high, or very high based on the likelihood and severity of identified hazards. The highest SWM risks were identified from dumpsites and uncontrolled burying of solid waste. More specifically, a very high or high risk of infectious and vector-borne diseases from SWM in the villages was identified, both in the disposal of solid waste in dumpsites and uncontrolled burying of solid waste. Additionally, a very high or high risk of inhalation, ingestion or dermal contact with contaminants was found in the disposal of solid waste in dumpsites, open burning of waste and reuse of waste from dumpsites as compost. The results demonstrate the potential value of a solid waste safety plan and a parsimonious approach to collect key local data to inform its contents

KT Force - Knowledge as a Value: Regional Implementation Plan

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The KTForce INTERREG IVC project involves, at its core. the benchmarking and investigation of best practices in knowledge transfer policies and practices at regional level. Its ultimate goal is to Improve Europe's innovation environment. The project focuses on three components within Knowledge Transfer (KT) and seeks to assess and benchmark these within an innovation and regional development context. KTForce looks at how university-industry relations can be enhanced, how technology licensing can be improved and the Identification of the optimum conditions for creating spin-outs and increasing entrepreneurial activity. Along with a brief contextualisation of the South East Region of Ireland this booklet gives a concise overview of the overall methodology set up and applied over the course of the KT project. Specifically. this booklet provides a characterisation of the South East Region, the focus (however. most data available is only for the Southern and Eastern region). through a regional SWOT analysis supported by detailed illustration of both scenario 0 and future scenarios. based on the analysis of key innovation performance indicators. In considering both practices and policies relevant to knowledge transfer, at national and regional levels. the process for practice selection and implementation and the analysis used for policy benchmarking are also illustrated. This booklet ends with the main conclusions and some policy recommendations resulting from the analysis and work performed over the course of the KT Force project

“Yes, and …” Exploring the Future of Learning Analytics in Medical Education

This Conversations Starter article presents a selected research abstract from the 2017 Association of American Medical Colleges Northeastern Region Group on Educational Affairs annual spring meeting. The abstract is paired with the integrative commentary of three experts who shared their thoughts stimulated by the study. Commentators brainstormed “what\u27s next” with learning analytics in medical education, including advancements in interaction metrics and the use of interactivity analysis to deepen understanding of perceptual, cognitive, and social learning and transfer processes

Dissecting a complex chemical stress: chemogenomic profiling of plant hydrolysates.

The efficient production of biofuels from cellulosic feedstocks will require the efficient fermentation of the sugars in hydrolyzed plant material. Unfortunately, plant hydrolysates also contain many compounds that inhibit microbial growth and fermentation. We used DNA-barcoded mutant libraries to identify genes that are important for hydrolysate tolerance in both Zymomonas mobilis (44 genes) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (99 genes). Overexpression of a Z. mobilis tolerance gene of unknown function (ZMO1875) improved its specific ethanol productivity 2.4-fold in the presence of miscanthus hydrolysate. However, a mixture of 37 hydrolysate-derived inhibitors was not sufficient to explain the fitness profile of plant hydrolysate. To deconstruct the fitness profile of hydrolysate, we profiled the 37 inhibitors against a library of Z. mobilis mutants and we modeled fitness in hydrolysate as a mixture of fitness in its components. By examining outliers in this model, we identified methylglyoxal as a previously unknown component of hydrolysate. Our work provides a general strategy to dissect how microbes respond to a complex chemical stress and should enable further engineering of hydrolysate tolerance

Embryonic stem cell-derived hemangioblasts remain epigenetically plastic and require PRC1 to prevent neural gene expression.

Many lineage-specific developmental regulator genes are transcriptionally primed in embryonic stem (ES) cells; RNA Pol(II) is bound at their promoters but is prevented from productive elongation by the activity of polycomb repressive complexes (PRC) 1 and 2. This epigenetically poised state is thought to enable ES cells to rapidly execute multiple differentiation programs and is recognized by a simultaneous enrichment for trimethylation of lysine 4 and trimethylation of lysine 27 of histone H3 (bivalent chromatin) across promoter regions. Here we show that the chromatin profile of this important cohort of genes is progressively modified as ES cells differentiate toward blood-forming precursors. Surprisingly however, neural specifying genes, such as Nkx2-2, Nkx2-9, and Sox1, remain bivalent and primed even in committed hemangioblasts, as conditional deletion of PRC1 results in overt and inappropriate expression of neural genes in hemangioblasts. These data reinforce the importance of PRC1 for normal hematopoietic differentiation and reveal an unexpected epigenetic plasticity of mesoderm-committed hemangioblasts

Effectiveness of an Inpatient Movement Disorders Program for Patients with Atypical Parkinsonism

This paper investigated the effectiveness of an inpatient movement disorders program for patients with atypical parkinsonism, who typically respond poorly to pharmacologic intervention and are challenging to rehabilitate as outpatients. Ninety-one patients with atypical parkinsonism participated in an inpatient movement disorders program. Patients received physical, occupational, and speech therapy for 3 hours/day, 5 to 7 days/week, and pharmacologic adjustments based on daily observation and data. Differences between admission and discharge scores were analyzed for the functional independence measure (FIM), timed up and go test (TUG), two-minute walk test (TMW), Berg balance scale (BBS) and finger tapping test (FT), and all showed significant improvement on discharge (P > .001). Clinically significant improvements in total FIM score were evident in 74% of the patients. Results were similar for ten patients whose medications were not adjusted. Patients with atypical parkinsonism benefit from an inpatient interdisciplinary movement disorders program to improve functional status