Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

What's Happening: August 5, 2019, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

The Characteristics Of Appendicoliths Associated With Acute Appendicitis, Mohammad Shoaib Khan, Mustafa Belal Hafeez Chaudhry, Noman Shahzad, Muhammad S. Khan, Maryam Wajid, Wasim Memon, Abdul Rehman Alvi

Section of General Surgery

Introduction: Differences between appendicoliths associated with appendicitis and those found incidentally have not been studied. The objective of this study was to determine the characteristics of appendicoliths that are associated with acute appendicitis.
Methods: A cross-sectional study of patients with appendicoliths identified on computed tomographic (CT) scan from January 2008 till December 2014 was conducted. Patients were divided into two group: appendicitis and appendicoliths (AA) and incidentally discovered appendicoliths (IA).
Results: Overall, 321 patients were included in the study. Of these, 103 (32%) patients were in the AA group while 218 (68%) patients were in the IA group. Both groups …

Week Of August 5, 2019, New York Medical College

InTouch

• David S. Markenson, M.D., M.B.A., Is Named Director of the Center for Disaster Medicine
• Second-Year Medical Student Participates in Inaugural AAMC Leadership Conference
• Hales Lobby Gets a Makeover
• NYMC Welcomes SOM Class of 2023
• Center for Disaster Medicine Provides Mass Casualty Triage Training to NYU Langone

Innovative Solutions For State Medicaid Programs To Leverage Their Data, Build Their Analytic Capacity, And Create Evidence-Based Policy, Lauren Adams, Susan Kennedy, Lindsay Allen, Andrew Barnes, Tom Bias, Dushka Crane, Paul Lanier, Rachel Mauk, Shamis Mohamoud, Nathan Pauly, Jeffery C. Talbert, Cynthia Woodcock, Kara Zivin, Julie Donohue

Pharmacy Practice and Science Faculty Publications

As states have embraced additional flexibility to change coverage of and payment for Medicaid services, they have also faced heightened expectations for delivering high-value care. Efforts to meet these new expectations have increased the need for rigorous, evidence-based policy, but states may face challenges finding the resources, capacity, and expertise to meet this need. By describing state-university partnerships in more than 20 states, this commentary describes innovative solutions for states that want to leverage their own data, build their analytic capacity, and create evidence-based policy. From an integrated web-based system to improve long-term care to evaluating the impact of permanent …

Pcr Monitoring Of Parasitemia During Drug Treatment For Canine Chagas Disease, Chih-Ling Zao, Ya-Chin Yang, Lisa Tomanek, Anthony Cooke, Ron Berger, Lung-Chang Chien, Roy Madigan

Environmental & Global Health Faculty Research

To date, there is no clear standard to monitor drug treatment for canine Chagas disease. We used 2 real-time PCR (rtPCR) assays targeting Trypanosoma cruzi kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) and nuclear satellite DNA (nDNA) to detect T. cruzi in canine whole blood. Samples were collected randomly from 131 untreated dogs with unknown T. cruzi infection status in Texas. ... See full text for complete abstract.

Effective Statistical Energy Function Based Protein Un/Structure Prediction, Avdesh Mishra

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Proteins are an important component of living organisms, composed of one or more polypeptide chains, each containing hundreds or even thousands of amino acids of 20 standard types. The structure of a protein from the sequence determines crucial functions of proteins such as initiating metabolic reactions, DNA replication, cell signaling, and transporting molecules. In the past, proteins were considered to always have a well-defined stable shape (structured proteins), however, it has recently been shown that there exist intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), which lack a fixed or ordered 3D structure, have dynamic characteristics and therefore, exist in multiple states. Based on …

Epistasis In Alzheimer’S Disease: Interactions Between Clu-Ms4a4e And Wwc1-Tln2, Omoremi Hamblin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia among people age 65 and older. Because of the complexity of this disease, many studies have taken the epistatic approach to discover underlying genetic disorders. Epistasis is the study of gene-gene interaction in which the effects of one gene mask the effects of the other gene. In this study, we attempted to replicate two earlier studies that identified three gene-gene interactions. We used the 2019 Alzheimer’s Diseases Genetics Consortium (ADGC) dataset and we conducted a logistic regression with and without the interaction terms. The interactions we considered were between CLU rs11136000 …

Higher Pro-Inflammatory Dietary Score Is Associated With Higher Hyperuricemia Risk: Results From The Case-Controlled Korean Genome And Epidemiology Study_Cardiovascular Disease Association Study, Hye Sun Kim, Minji Kwon, Yi Hyun Lee, Nitin Shivappa, James R. Hebert, Cheongmin Sohn, Woori Na, Mi Kyung Kim

Faculty Publications

In previous studies, the elevated dietary inflammatory index (DII^®) scores have been consistently associated with several chronic diseases. However, the relationship with hyperuricemia remains unknown. The aim of this study was to determine if the DII is associated with hyperuricemia risk. The study included 13,701 participants (men 5102; women 8599) in a large-scale cross-sectional study in South Korea. A validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (SQFFQ) was used to measure dietary intake, and blood samples were obtained to determine hyperuricemia. As the DII score increased, the hyperuricemia risk increased among women (OR 1.35, 95% CI 1.03–1.77, p trend = …

Incidence And Prevalence Of Francisella Noatunensis Subsp. Orientalis (Fno) Pathogenic Infections In Feral Hawaiian Tilapia, Daquille Peppers

Biology Theses

Aquaculture has become a major food source for many countries and continues to grow each year. However, many of the fishes that are farmed are susceptible to pathogenic infections such as Francisellosis, a bacterial infection that contributes to disease and high mortality rate in many populations of farmed and wild fish around the world. In 1994, feral and farmed populations of tilapia (e.g. Oreochromis mossambicus) on Oahu, Hawaii were found to be infected with a novel Francisellosis strain, Francisella noatunensis subsp. orientalis (Fno). To prevent the spread of this pathogen, the Hawaii Department of Aquaculture (HDOA) initiated …

Outcome-Driven Thresholds For Ambulatory Blood Pressure Based On The New Acc/Aha Classification Of Hypertension, Yi-Bang Cheng, Lutgarde Thijs, Zhen-Yu Zhang, Masahiro Kikuya, Wen-Yi Yang, Jesus D. Melgarejo, Gladys E. Maestre

School of Medicine Publications

The new ACC/AHA guideline reclassified office blood pressure (OBP) and proposed thresholds for ambulatory blood pressure (ABP). We derived outcome-driven ABP thresholds corresponding with the new OBP categories. We performed 24-h ABP monitoring in 11,152 participants (48.9% women; mean age 53.0 years) representative of 13 populations. We determined ABP thresholds resulting in multivariable-adjusted 10-year risks similar to those associated with elevated OBP (120/80 mm Hg) and stages 1 and 2 of office hypertension (130/80 and 140/90 mm Hg). Over 13.9 years (median), 2728 (rate per 1000 person-years, 17.9) people died, 1033 (6.8) from cardiovascular disease; furthermore, 1988 (13.8), 893 (6.0) …

Medical School Watercooler Newsletter - August 4, 2019, Lindsey Lyle

Watercooler Newsletter

This is the August 4, 2019 edition of the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine's Newsletter - Watercooler.

Contents Include:

USA researchers receive Bander Award in support of pulmonary-related research

Save the Date: Pediatric Grand Rounds Aug. 16

Munn named chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at USA College of Medicine

Sarcoma treatment provides multidisciplinary learning opportunities for residents and medical students

Diabetes, Bonsitu Hubena

Nursing Student Class Projects (Formerly MSN)

Diabetes is a serious chronic disease that can affect different body systems. There are two categories of diabetes. In Type 1 diabetes, insulin production is diminished or absent due to autoimmune attack on the beta cells in the pancreas. Type 2 diabetes occurs as a result of insulin resistance due to beta cell failure. Although the cause is unknown, some of the contributing factors of diabetes include environmental, genetics, race, and family history. In addition, research has shown a significant linkage between obesity and diabetes. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that predispose individuals to diabetes as well …

Identifying Cancers For Cdk8/19 Inhibitor Therapy, Igor Roninson, Balázs Győrffy, Zachary T. Mack, Alexander A. Shtil, Michael S. Shtutman, Mengqian Chen, Eugenia Broude

Faculty Publications

CDK8 and CDK19 Mediator kinases are transcriptional co-regulators implicated in several types of cancer. Small-molecule CDK8/19 inhibitors have recently entered or are entering clinical trials, starting with breast cancer and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). To identify other cancers where these novel drugs may provide benefit, we queried genomic and transcriptomic databases for potential impact of CDK8, CDK19, or their binding partner CCNC. sgRNA analysis of a panel of tumor cell lines showed that most tumor types represented in the panel, except for some central nervous system tumors, were not dependent on these genes. In contrast, analysis of clinical samples for …

Dietary Inflammatory Index And Its Relationship With Cervical Carcinogenesis Risk In Korean Women: A Case-Control Study, Sundara Raj Sreeja, Hyun Yi Lee, Minji Kwon, Nitin Shivappa, James R. Hébert, Mi Kyung Kim

Faculty Publications

Several studies have reported that diet’s inflammatory potential is related to chronic diseases such as cancer, but its relationship with cervical cancer risk has not been studied yet. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII^®) and cervical cancer risk among Korean women. This study consisted of 764 cases with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN)1, 2, 3, or cervical cancer, and 729 controls from six gynecologic oncology clinics in South Korea. The DII was computed using a validated semiquantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ). Odds ratios and 95% CI were calculated using multinomial …

Evaluation Of The Influence Of Additional Beam Filtration On Image Quality And Patient Dose In X-Ray Fluoroscopy Procedures, Justin Ngaile, Peter Msaki, Ramadhani Kazema, Jerome Mwimanzi, Mechris Mango

Tanzania Journal of Science

The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of additional filtration on radiation dose and image quality for patients during hysterosalpingography (HSG) and retrograde urethrography (RUG) procedures. The influence of filtering on image quality for each phantom thickness was made using a combination of different filter thicknesses. Entrance surface air kerma (ESAK) rates to Perspex phantom were measured using a solid state detector for various added combination of filter materials. Fluoroscopic image contrast was assessed using a Leeds TOR-18FG test object with a range of filter materials and phantom thicknesses. Phantom studies demonstrated that the use of additional …

Humble Doctors, Healthy Patients? Exploring The Relationships Between Clinician Humility And Patient Satisfaction, Trust, And Health Status, Ho Phi Huynh, Amy Dicke-Bohmann

Psychology Faculty Publications (Archived)

Objective: In medicine, numerous commentaries implore clinicians (e.g., physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners) to display more humility. However, given the complex power dynamics between patients and clinicians, one should not presume that patients desire and appreciate humble clinicians. This paper examines the relationship between clinician humility and patient outcomes, and aims to provide empirical evidence for the significance of clinician humility.

Methods: In two studies, patients (N = 497) recalled their most recent visit to a clinician through an online survey platform (Qualtrics). Patients rated their clinician’s humility, their satisfaction and trust with their clinician, and their …

Bacteria-Mediated Modification Of Insecticide Toxicity In The Yellow Fever Mosquito, Aedes Aegypti, Sara S. Scates, Scott T. O'Neal, Troy D. Anderson

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

The incidence of mosquito-borne disease poses a significant threat to human and animal health throughout the world, with effective chemical control interventions limited by widespread insecticide resistance. Recent evidence suggests that gut bacteria of mosquitoes, known to be essential in nutritional homeostasis and pathogen defense, may also play a significant role in facilitating insecticide resistance. This study investigated the extent to which bacteria contribute to the general esterase and cytochrome P450 monooxygenase (P450)-mediated detoxification of the insecticides propoxur and naled, as well as the insecticidal activity of these chemistries to the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. Experiments conducted using …

Cryolipolysis: A Guide For Primary Care Practitioners, Miryam Harper, Jane H. Lassetter

Faculty Publications

A desire for the ideal body image has influenced the development of a nonsurgical body-shaping procedure known as cryolipolysis. The purpose of this clinical feature is to inform nurse practitioners about the risks and benefits of cryolipolysis so they can educate their patients. Cryolipolysis is a safe, effective method of reducing small areas of unwanted fat. Adverse effects are minimal and include pain, redness, bruising, and swelling. Results are seen within 12 weeks, but long-term effects are unknown. There are contraindications, and it is relatively expensive; however, it may be a safer option than invasive surgery.

Development Of A Screening Method For Drugs Of Abuse By Direct Analysis Of Dried Urine Spots Coupled To Mass Spectrometry, Melanie Goldstein

Student Theses

Fast and easy screening procedures are essential in any forensic toxicology laboratory to differentiate negative samples from presumptive positive cases. Immunoassay techniques, such as enzyme multiplied immunoassay technique (EMIT), are routinely employed as screening procedures. However, these techniques lack specificity (only differentiate group of drugs and not individual compounds) and it is difficult to add new compounds to the panel. Direct analysis of dried urine spots (DUS) by mass spectrometry (MS) offers a novel strategy to overcome these issues. DUS offer an improved storage alternative for biological samples, reducing costs and space requirements. In this work, an original method to …

The Gender-Based Violence And Recovery Centre At Coast Provincial General Hospital, Mombasa, Kenya: An Integrated Care Model For Survivors Of Sexual Violence, Marleen Temmerman, Emilomo Ogbe, Griffins Manguro, Iqbal Khandwalla, Mary Thiongo, Kishor N. Mandaliya, Lou Dierick, Markus Macgill, Peter Gichangi

Obstetrics and Gynaecology, East Africa

• Sexual violence (SV) is highly prevalent and a major public health problem globally. In Kenya, an estimated 32% of females and 18% of males were reported to have experienced SV before the age of 18 years.
• This paper presents a data set collected between 2007 and 2018 and describes the gender-based violence and recovery centre (GBVRC) model under which survivors of SV were cared for at a 24-hour public hospital in Mombasa, Kenya—including its development, implementation, achievements, and challenges.
• The GBVRC model is a partnership that provides (in addition to emergency healthcare) mental health support, paralegal services, and integrated cooperation …

Planning And Implementation Of Physical Therapy Services In An Athletic Training Pro-Bono Clinic: An Administrative Case Report, Tessa Wells, Scott Unruh

Posters and Presentations: Physical Therapy

Background & Purpose

Athletic Training and Physical Therapy students have overlapping, yet unique aspects of clinical competencies and scopes of practice, offering rich potential for interprofessional partnership. University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) Doctor or Physical Therapy Education expanded its program to the University of Nebraska-Kearney (UNK) campus, which boasts a Division II athletic training (AT) program. To create meaningful IPE experiences for both programs (1,2), campus leaders from the UNMC College of Allied Health Professions and UNK sought to create an interprofessional clinic by adding PT care to an existing AT-led pro-bono clinic serving the University intramural recreation community. …

Multiple Sclerosis, Holly Hunt

Nursing Student Class Projects (Formerly MSN)

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an advanced pathophysiological disease that is relevant to advanced practice nursing. It is the “most common immune-mediated inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system” (Olek, & Howard, 2019). The exact cause of MS is still unknown; however, it is characterized by exacerbations of neurological dysfunction due to inflammatory demyelination (Huang, Chen, & Zhang, 2017). Consequently, the treatment of MS requires a multi-disciplinary approach, with nurses at the heart of the team. Hence, an advanced practice nurse will need to be able to recognize the signs and symptoms of MS for a proper diagnosis and must …

A Background Of The Opioid Epidemic And Its Relationship To The Medicaid Expansion, Er Yearn Jang

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

This paper provides a background to the opioid epidemic in the United States. The opioid epidemic, a public health crisis, is perceived by the public to be caused by issues in the medical field. By providing a historical background to the epidemic, this study demonstrates that the beginnings of the opioid crisis were not only rooted in past issues within the healthcare field but in previous social misconceptions about opioids. This historical backdrop is proceeded by an examination of opioid pharmacology, which discusses what opioids are, what is currently known about opioid addiction and reviews the presently used treatments for …

Toward The Development Of A Quick, Reliable Assessment Tool For Reflective Journals, April Garrity, Casey Keck, Janet L. Bradshaw, Keiko Ishikawa

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Reflective practice, including reflective writing, can facilitate enriched learning, especially when implemented as part of a service-learning (SL) experience. Reflection is a central component of service-learning (SL) experiences. Students’ reflective abilities are often measured through reflective journaling; however, assessment of students’ reflective journals is not always efficient and straightforward. The goal of the present study was to establish a simple, reliable, and relatively quick tool for use by busy college instructors seeking to encourage students’ deep learning through reflective writing. A total of 258 reflective journals from 43 graduate students in speech-language pathology were evaluated by three raters using a …

Creating Head Space: Using Spaced Retrieval Practice To Teach Cranial Nerves To Graduate Slp Students, Rachel K. Johnson, Anne Michalek, Corrin Richels

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of spaced retrieval practice on graduate speech-language pathology (SLP) student’s long-term retention of cranial nerves. This is a quasi-experimental design study using a repeated measures and between group design where the control group was not randomly assigned. The accuracy and quality of cranial nerve knowledge was measured in graduate SLP students who did not practice spaced retrieval (control), and those who practiced spaced retrieval for three (EG1) or four (EG2) semesters. The quality and accuracy of cranial nerve knowledge improved significantly for both experimental groups compared to the control group. …

Cognitive Dissonance Of Graduate Students During Clinical Sessions Of A Literacy Program: Types Of Episodes And Their Resolution, Pam Britton Reese, Ludwika Aniela Goodson

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

This study provided an authentic context for examining cognitive dissonance of graduate students who were learning clinical skills in a six-week language and literacy project designed for young children. These student-clinicians received instruction four days a week in classroom sessions and began clinical sessions with children after each class. Signature pedagogies in communication sciences and disorders (CSD) provided the foundation for the instruction and clinical supervision. In their sessions with the children, the student-clinicians were expected to apply knowledge gained from the classroom and supervisor guidance. Journal entries, supervisor notes, clinical observation records, and transcripts from interviews were coded for …

“That’S So Much More Important Than The Grades”: Learning Client Centered Care Through Experiential Learning At Aphasia Camp, Esther S. Kim, J. Renzo Garcia

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Interventions aimed at increasing life participation for people with aphasia (PWA), such as camp-based programs, are being increasingly implemented throughout North America. Such camps present a unique experiential learning opportunity for students in speech-language pathology (SLP) programs. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of participation in aphasia camp on SLP students’ acquisition of the skills and attitudes required for client-centered care for PWA. Ten SLP students who volunteered at a weekend-long aphasia camp participated in focus groups examining their learning outcomes following their camp experience. Conventional content analysis was used to analyze the focus group transcripts. …

The Gendered Experiences Of Male Students In A Speech-Language Pathology Graduate Program: A Multi-Case Study, Jairus-Joaquin R. Matthews, Derek E. Daniels

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Speech-language pathology is a profession with a gender disparity wherein the majority of speech-language pathologists are female. This disparity is also reflected in speech-language pathology graduate programs. The American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association has developed many initiatives over the years to address this issue, yet the gender disparity still remains. The purpose of this study was to develop some initial insights into reasons that men enter into the profession of speech-language pathology, and their experiences in graduate programs. In this qualitative case-study approach, interviews were conducted with four male graduate students. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed for major …

The Influence Of Change In Cardiorespiratory Fitness With Short-Term Exercise Training On Mortality Risk From The Ball State Adult Fitness Longitudinal Lifestyle Study, Mary T. Imboden, Matthew P. Harber, Mitchell H. Whaley, W. Holmes Finch, Derron A. Bishop, Bradley S. Fleenor, Leonard A. Kaminsky

Faculty Publications - Department of Kinesiology

Objective To assess the influence of changes in cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) after exercise training on mortality risk in a cohort of self-referred, apparently healthy adults.

Patients and Methods A total of 683 participants (404 men, 279 women; mean age: 42.7±11.0 y) underwent two maximal cardiopulmonary exercise tests (CPX) between March 20, 1970, and December 11, 2012, to assess CRF at baseline (CPX1) and post-exercise training (CPX2). Participants were followed for an average of 29.8±10.7 years after their CPX2. Cox proportional hazards models were performed to determine the relationship of CRF change with mortality, with change in CRF as a continuous …

Use Of An Evidence Based Verbal Health Literacy Screening Tool In An Inpatient Setting., Dakota Lawler

Doctor of Nursing Practice Papers

Patients who are categorized as having low health literacy have been shown to utilize emergency services more frequently, have increased hospitalizations, and have poorer health outcomes, yet very few medical facilities screen for these at risk patients. The purpose of the process change was to evaluate the feasibility of implementing an evidence based verbal health literacy screening tool into the admission process on a progressive care unit at an urban hospital. After an education session on the screening process, nurses were set to administer the Expanded Brief Health Literacy Screening (EBHLS) to patients admitted to the floor. At the end …