The impact of neighborhoods and friendships on interracial anxiety among medical students and residents: A report from the medical student CHANGES study

Objective

To examine the experience of interracial anxiety among health professionals and how it may affect the quality of their interactions with patients from racially marginalized populations. We explored the influence of prior interracial exposure—specifically through childhood neighborhoods, college student bodies, and friend groups—on interracial anxiety among medical students and residents. We also examined whether levels of interracial anxiety change from medical school through residency.

Data Source

Web-based longitudinal survey data from the Medical Student Cognitive Habits and Growth Evaluation Study.

Study Design

We used a retrospective longitudinal design with four observations for each trainee. The study population consisted of non-Black US medical trainees surveyed in their 1st and 4th years of medical school and 2nd and 3rd years of residency. Mixed effects longitudinal models were used to assess predictors of interracial anxiety and assess changes in interracial anxiety scores over time.

Principal Findings

In total, 3155 non-Black medical trainees were followed for 7 years. Seventy-eight percent grew up in predominantly White neighborhoods. Living in predominantly White neighborhoods and having less racially diverse friends were associated with higher levels of interracial anxiety among medical trainees. Trainees' interracial anxiety scores did not substantially change over time; interracial anxiety was highest in the 1st year of medical school, lowest in the 4th year, and increased slightly during residency.

Conclusions

Neighborhood and friend group composition had independent effects on interracial anxiety, indicating that premedical racial socialization may affect medical trainees' preparedness to interact effectively with diverse patient populations. Additionally, the lack of substantial change in interracial anxiety throughout medical training suggests the importance of providing curricular tools and structure (e.g., instituting interracial cooperative learning activities) to foster the development of healthy interracial relationships.     

Constructing queer mother‐knowledge and negotiating medical authority in online lesbian pregnancy journals

Medical interactions around reproduction are increasingly extending beyond the physician's office and onto the Internet, where negotiation with medical authority occurs in complex and dynamic ways. Recently, scholars have noted the Internet's potential for creating spaces where women can dialogue with and reconstruct medical authority, yet this growing body of work is overwhelming heteronormative. This paper thus interrogates how lesbian women use the Internet to challenge, deploy, and rework medical authority around reproduction while navigating the transition to parenthood. I draw from 17 online journals authored by lesbian couples during the conception, pregnancy, and birth of their first child, each spanning between 18 months and 2 years, in order to understand how the transition process unfolds over time. I argue that lesbian couples engage with medical authority when seeking affirmation and normalisation yet discard and publicly reject the heteronormative assumptions that accompany reproductive medicine. Further, they chart a new process that I term ‘constructing queer mother‐knowledge’, in which they critique and balance knowledges from institutionalised medicine, their own bodies, and their queer communities. With this new concept, I complicate understandings of lesbian mothers‐to‐be and their interactions with medical authority as they build subversive families.     

Measuring catastrophic medical expenditures: Reflections on three issues

In the “basic” approach, medical expenses are catastrophic if they exceed a prespecified percentage of consumption or income; the approach tells us if expenses cause a large percentage reduction in living standards. The ability‐to‐pay (ATP) approach defines expenses as catastrophic if they exceed a prespecified percentage of consumption less expenses on nonmedical necessities or an allowance for them. The paper argues that the ATP approach does not tell us whether expenses are large enough to undermine a household's ability to purchase nonmedical necessities. The paper compares the income‐based and consumption‐based variants of the basic approach, and shows that if the individual is a borrower after a health shock, the income‐based ratio will exceed the consumption‐based ratio, and both will exceed the more theoretically correct Flores et al. ratio; whereas if the individual continues to be a saver after a health shock, the ordering is reversed and the income‐based ratio may not overestimate Flores et al.'s ratio. Last, the paper proposes a lifetime money metric utility (LMMU) approach defining medical expenses as catastrophic in terms of their lifetime consequences. Under certain assumptions, the LMMU and Flores et al. approaches are identical, and neither requires data on how households finance their medical expenses.     

中药复方配伍的研究方法及其进展

中药复方是由2味或2味以上中药遵循中医理论组合而成的方剂。多味中药在合适的剂量配比之下,协同发挥作用,实现中医的整体调节治疗。研究中药复方的配伍对推动中药现代化发展、新药开发以及临床应用有着重要意义。近年来,研究者们在传统的"七情和合"与"君臣佐使"的基础上,运用新技术和新方法对中药复方的成分、药效活性和药代动力学性质等进行了研究,从不同角度探讨了中药复方配伍的科学内涵。同时,多种数理方法和模型的建立、网络药理学和数据挖掘方法的发展与应用,也对中药复方配伍研究提供了很大帮助。研究方法的发展虽促进了中药复方配伍的科学研究,但还需进一步建立适合中药复方配伍复杂关系的研究方法,以阐明中药复方及其成分/组分配伍的内在规律,进而构建新的现代中药复方,这也是目前中药复方配伍研究的重点任务。     

Safety profile of the adjuvanted recombinant zoster vaccine: Pooled analysis of two large randomised phase 3 trials

Background

The ZOE-50 (NCT01165177) and ZOE-70 (NCT01165229) phase 3 clinical trials showed that the adjuvanted recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) was ≥90% efficacious in preventing herpes zoster in adults. Here we present a comprehensive overview of the safety data from these studies.

慕课在医学生假期课前预习中的应用探讨

高校医学生会利用假期时间对将要学习的科目进行预习,力求提前了解或掌握,以利于日后对知识的充分理解。预习对于医学科目学习有一定必要性,然而传统的假期预习模式常存在缺乏引导、效率难以提升等问题。目前,慕课在医学教育领域的应用有所发展。对于医学生,其自主学习的模式、课程设计等契合医学课程的预习需求和假期学习的特点,有助于提升医学生的学习能力和假期预习效果。医学生将慕课作为假期预习资源可有多种学习模式选择。慕课平台的功能拓展和学校教师的辅助可以有效深入慕课在医学生假期预习中的应用,为医学生带来更合理的假期学习安排。     

Humanitarianism from Below: Sowa Rigpa,the Traditional Pharmaceutical Industry,and Global Health

ABSTRACT

In this article I explore, for the first time, the relationship between Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) and global health, tracing “the global” in ethical discourses and pharmaceutical innovation practices of Tibetan medical practitioners. I argue that Sowa Rigpa’s engagement with the world and its global health activities outside China can be understood as a form of “humanitarianism from below,” while its industrialization in China aligns with global health in different ways. In providing new insights into recent developments of Sowa Rigpa, I aim to decenter the notion of humanitarianism and contribute to a broader understanding of global health.     

Emergency Medicine/Critical Care Medicine (EM/CCM) Trainees’ Performance on Standardized Critical Care Medicine Examinations: A Ten-Year Review

BackgroundEmergency Medicine/Critical Care Medicine (EM/CCM) trainees may obtain board certification through Internal Medicine (American Board of Internal Medicine [ABIM]), Surgery (American Board of Surgery [ABS]), and Anesthesiology (American Board of Anesthesiology [ABA]). However, EM/CCM trainees experience challenges, including: 1) additional training requirements and 2) an unwillingness to accept EM graduates by many programs.ObjectivesWe sought to: 1) compare EM/CCM knowledge acquisition to medicine (Internal Medicine [IM]/CCM), surgery (surgical critical care [SCC]), and anesthesiology (anesthesiology critical care medicine [ACCM]) Fellows at the local and national level using the Multidisciplinary Critical Care Knowledge Assessment Program (MCCKAP) in-service examination as an objective measure; and 2) compare American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) pass rates for EM/CCM.MethodsSingle-center retrospective analysis comparing scores obtained by EM/CCM on the MCCKAP examination with SCC and ACCM over a 10-year period. Scores are presented as means with standard deviations. We performed similar analysis on ABMS examination pass rates.ResultsThere were 117 MCCKAP scores (37 EM/CCM; 80 SCC and ACCM) evaluated. EM/CCM mean score 562.4 (SD 67.4); SCC and ACCM mean score 505.3, (SD 87.5) at the institutional level (p < 0.001). Similarly, EM/CCM scored higher than the national mean (562.4, SD 67.4 vs. 500 SD 100, p < 0.001). Nationally, ABIM-CCM board certification rate was 91.2% for 137 EM/CCM, compared with 93.2% for IM/CCM (p = 0.22); 28 EM/CCM have obtained ABA-CCM board certification with rates similar to ACCM (90.4 vs. 89.3%; p = 0.85).ConclusionsEM/CCM Fellows demonstrate successful knowledge acquisition both locally and at a national level. EM/CCM achieve ABMS pass rates similar to other CCM trainees. The current arbitrary additional training requirements placed on EM/CCM should be removed.