There has recently been a lot of discussion revolving around bias and medical education. Many people are asking the question, “What level of bias is appropriate?” Is it possible to educate students and clinicians without and be completely free of bias? After all, we’re only human. Or, do we do our best to identify and address bias in a way that is fair, objective, and evidence-based? As we try to rid ourselves of bias, we can’t help but to discover that our brains are naturally biased. We all know this, but we can’t help ourselves since we’re all human. Others are asking, “Is all bias bad?” Is there an appropriate level of bias that is good, acceptable, and appropriate? The sad reality is that we’ve all seen examples of bad or inappropriate bias in the medical field. The bad apples are rotting the bunch, but I don’t think that the entire basket has been lost yet. Read more →

On December 2nd, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report suggesting that resident physicians have further limits on work hours than those enacted in 2003 by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). While the number of hours per week would remain at the ACGME maximum of 80, the IOM recommends on 30-hour shifts that a “protected sleep period” of 5 hours occurs between 10pm-8am. These measures are aimed at reducing physician fatigue and the number of resultant medical mistakes. Read more →

It used to be accepted as fact that boys are naturally better than girls in math. With time, what was taken as a fact has become an assumption that boys are more inclined to do math than girls. With even more passage of time, studies are shedding light that the differences in achievement between boys and girls may have more to do with nurture than nature.

What is changing the perception? Several factors are involved. Although still under-represented in science and engineering graduate schools across the US, the number of female scientists and engineers are increasing. Read more →

Alcohol use by underage college students has increasingly grown as a large issue across the United States. Excessive, or binge drinking among college students is associated with a variety of negative consequences, such as a decrease in academic productivity, unwanted sexual encounters and an increase in violent behavior.

Many colleges have made an attempt to examine the root cause of such extreme drinking by students, and have developed programs to deter students from consuming alcohol. Read more →

Teaching students with ADHD was always challenging for me. My usual methods of managing behavior, explaining assignments, and reviewing routines weren’t very effective for many of these kids. I’ve been lucky enough to know a handful of teachers who were knowledgeable about techniques that helped their ADHD students achieve. And although I often picked their brains in an attempt to beef up my arsenal of teaching wonders, the techniques weren’t always easy to execute amid a classroom of children needing various modifications. Read more →

Nobody questions the fact that healthcare is a confusing profession. Doctors and nurses seem to speak in foreign tongues; medicines have names and ingredients that are not even pronounceable; more and more news comes out every day about diseases and conditions that seem to contradict each other. If doctors must devote 12 years of higher education just to get a basic understanding of how the body works, how does a patient hope to know what’s wrong with them? Read more →