Rapid Mobilization of Medical Student Volunteers to Administer Vaccines During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In December 2020, the first COVID-19 vaccines were approved for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and vaccination efforts rapidly launched across the country. Concurrently, New York City experienced an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations. This created an immediate need to inoculate frontline workers in a strained health system that lacked sufficient personnel to meet the demand. In response, New York State permitted medical students with appropriate clinical experience to administer vaccinations. Albert Einstein College of Medicine students rapidly stepped in to administer vaccines and serve as clinic navigators. Student leaders at Einstein collaborated with Montefiore Medical Center to rapidly implement a student vaccination initiative. Medical students underwent virtual and on-site training regarding COVID-19 vaccines and their administration. In January 2021, students began to staff vaccine clinics across the Bronx. By July 2021, 291 out of 830 eligible medical and Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) students (35.1%) had volunteered >2400 h. Of the 291 volunteers, 77 (26.5%) worked as vaccinators and administered approximately 2929 COVID-19 vaccines from January to May 2021. We demonstrate success using the concept of Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) in the context of training medical students in a specific clinical skill. Our framework resulted in the administration of approximately 2929 COVID-19 vaccines from January to May 2021. The authors believe that this framework can be implemented at peer institutions to alleviate the burden on hospital systems and outpatient clinics vaccinating their communities against COVID-19, or to meet future clinical needs.

Why Do We Need Maths in Medicine?

Maths is a crucial part of medicine. All the graphs, equations, statistics, and general maths we learn at school help us to understand important aspects of human and veterinary medicine, biology, and science in general. People always think that biology and chemistry are important for doctors, nurses, midwives, scientists, and all the other people involved in medicine and healthcare-related jobs, but in fact maths is also vital. So, whether you are thinking of becoming a doctor, hoping to invent medical technologies, or just wishing to understand treatments you get as a patient, understanding the maths behind medicine is crucial. This article explores how we check whether someone has a disease such as coronavirus or heart disease, how we predict and measure how many people will be affected by various diseases, and how maths is used to treat patients and prevent the spread of contagious diseases. While people are generally aware that sciences like biology and chemistry are important for jobs in the medical field, many may not realize that maths is also vital for most of these jobs. This article looks at some of the ways we use maths in medicine. If you want to become a doctor, veterinary surgeon, nurse, midwife, medical scientist, or to have any job related to healing people and animals, or even if you just want to be an informed patient, knowledge of maths is quite important!

Influence of Research Continuity on Physician-Scientists’ Career Success

Objective:To determine if maintaining continuity in research topic and method from early to late career yields a greater likelihood of physician-scientists’ research-career success i.e. achieving research independence and producing impactful publications.Methods:To explore the impact of maintaining continuity in research, 108 2000-2010 neurology residency graduates from former Medical Scientist Training Programs at the highest NINDS and NIH funded institutions were identified. Through comparison of Ph.D. dissertations with post-graduate work, research continuity was deemed present if there was evidence of continuity in research topic and method. With publicly available SCOPUS, PubMed, and NIH RePORT data, the correlation that degree of continuity had with h-indices, number of grants awarded, and R01 acquisition was examined.Results:Nearly half of the graduates were classified as non-continuous (45%), less than a quarter classified as somewhat continuous (22%), and roughly a third classified as very continuous (32%). The data demonstrated that research continuity increased the ability to acquire a R01, with 83% percent of R01 and/or R21 recipients having very continuous research. Very continuous graduates also had higher median number of grants received (2 [IQR: 1-3]) and a higher median h-index (17 [IQR: 10.5-20]) compared to the somewhat continuous and non-continuous groups.Conclusions:This study highlights research continuity as an important and modifiable variable during the training period of physician-scientists and one that may improve their career success and promote greater retention within the workforce.

Divine Epidemiologists: Christianity, Faith, and Public Health in Africa, 1918–2021

How have African Christians responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, which broke out at the beginning of 2020 and has affected every aspect of human life? Globally, the responses to the pandemic have ranged from the scientific to the religious. Many believe that it is simply a conspiracy wreaked on the world by a satanic medical scientist or that it is an apocalyptic signal. In Africa, the religious responses to the pandemic have been fascinating. This article discusses six such responses, considering what they reveal about the intersections between Christianity, faith, and the ubiquitous presence of evil.

Application of Eye Tracking Technology in Aviation, Maritime, and Construction Industries: A Systematic Review

Most accidents in the aviation, maritime, and construction industries are caused by human error, which can be traced back to impaired mental performance and attention failure. In 1596, Du Laurens, a French anatomist and medical scientist, said that the eyes are the windows of the mind. Eye tracking research dates back almost 150 years and it has been widely used in different fields for several purposes. Overall, eye tracking technologies provide the means to capture in real time a variety of eye movements that reflect different human cognitive, emotional, and physiological states, which can be used to gain a wider understanding of the human mind in different scenarios. This systematic literature review explored the different applications of eye tracking research in three high-risk industries, namely aviation, maritime, and construction. The results of this research uncovered the demographic distribution and applications of eye tracking research, as well as the different technologies that have been integrated to study the visual, cognitive, and attentional aspects of human mental performance. Moreover, different research gaps and potential future research directions were highlighted in relation to the usage of additional technologies to support, validate, and enhance eye tracking research to better understand human mental performance.

The contribution of Franz Josef Gall to the development of criminal anthropology. Part II. In Search of the physiological origins of compulsive behavior

This article is dedicated to the teachings of the Austrian medical scientist and naturalist Franz Josef Gall (1758-1828) on anthropology and human psychology. One of the key theses of Gall’s doctrine consists in the conclusion that the peculiarities of human anthropology and psychology manifest in various forms of social activity. According to Gall, the specificity of physiological processes in human body, peculiarities of personality development, and the intensity of external manifestation of personality traits are substantiated by the peculiarities of formation and subsequent development of separate parts and elements of the human brain. Developmental imbalances or existence of pathologies in the segment of the brain located above the ear canal of the human skull imparts a negative overtone on personality traits. In a worst-case scenario, this may lead to manifestation of such destructive qualities as a pathological lust for violence against animals and people, propensity for arson, and ultimately, homicide. Similar cerebral dysfunctions many have a significant impact upon sexual behavior of a person, and activate destructive qualities. The ideas of F. J. Gall on the influence of developmental imbalances or pathology of separate segments of the human brain upon the occurrence and manifestation of negative personality traits, are still used in modern research in the field of neurocriminology. Namely, the recent findings of American scientists, which are based on the methods of magnetic resonance and positron emission tomography, reveal substantial differences in the structure and functionality of separate segments of the brain of persons who committed murder or convicted of less grave offences.

OSIP DYMOV AND CHARLES BOVARY (THE INTERTEXTUAL STRUCTURE OF CHEKHOV’S SHORT STORY THE FIDGET)

A. P. Chekhov's short story The Fidget (1892) is an abridged hypertext of G. Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary (1856). The article undertakes a detailed comparison of the characters who occupy a similar place in the narrative and figurative system of these two works: Osip Dymov and Charles Bovary. Both of them are doctors, but Chekhov's character seems to realize the untapped potential that was laid down in the character penned by Flaubert. He is no longer a failed doctor, but a talented one, with all the qualities required to become an excellent medical scientist. Thus, Chekhov does not merely stand up for the medical community, which he is no stranger to. Thanks to this, the story of the Russian writer transforms into a polemical interpretation of the classic French novel. In Flaubert's Emma's imaginary search for the meaning of life, which explains her two adulteries in Madame Bovary, Chekhov seems rather inclined to see the selfishness and lack of responsibility that destroy her family and lead to her own death. It is not by chance that Dymov, rather than Olga Ivanovna dies as a result of her own similar behavior in Chekhov’s short story. At the same time, Chekhov's text is also a polemical interpretation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1873–1877), which was created as an explicit hypertext of Flaubert's novel. In the short story, Chekhov's critical reinterpretation of these two works is clearly based on a kind of “folk” morality of the Ant from the canonical Krylov fable The Dragonfly and the Ant (1808), which is clearly referenced in the title and text of the story. The intertextual structure of Chekhov's story is examined in the article primarily as a system of its pretexts, some of which relate to it in unison, and others-dissonantly. At the same time, the former are the object of polemical interpretation, while the latter are the subject of stylization and value orientation.