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Diagnostic metal rod, eyeball extramission, fungal foot fetish
Doctor, (fake) doctor, gimme the news
Florida Man strikes again, and this time he’s a faux MD.
Onelio Hipolit-Gonzalez was charged with a felony for impersonating a doctor who promised patients he could easily diagnose their diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and pretty much any other malady … with a metal rod. The “doctor” would have patients hold on to a metal rod connected to a beeping machine (these are the scientific terms, of course), and then he would gravely diagnose them with a variety of ailments that he could cure for the low, low price of $2,000.
If you’re curious how he treated patients, fear not. This intrepid medical professional took the ingenious measure of drawing a patient’s blood and simply injecting it back inside them. Bada-bing, instant cure! Honestly, medical school these days is really overrated. Just learn to properly use a syringe, and you should be good to go. Just make sure not to attempt to treat/con any undercover cops.
Step away from the stinky socks
In another edition of “Humans: What Won’t They Do?” a Chinese man has developed a severe lung infection from prolonged, voluntary inhalation of his sweaty socks.
Take a moment to gag if you need it.
The man reportedly would finish his daily walk home from work with a deep, relaxing session of smelling his socks. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he developed a fungal infection and had to be hospitalized.
His doctor, perhaps in an effort to spare his feelings, conceded that the infection could be attributed to his weakened immune system from looking after his child. Sock-smelling weirdo, or just a good dad? Let’s just hope he doesn’t pass on this … unorthodox hobby to his offspring.
Turn down your eye beams
Do you remember the recent LOTME about a company selling tissues that have already been used by a sick person? Good news! This next item has nothing to do with that.
More good news! Belief in extramission – the ability to emit an invisible energy from the eyes – is down to about 5% among Americans after being greater than 50% at the turn of the century. The bad news? Belief in extramission is about 5% among Americans, according to investigators at Princeton (N.J.) University.
It’s not really a superhero thing, though. The researchers shared an explanation common among the extramission believers: “Light enters the eye, and there is a reflector piece inside the eye. The reflector reflects the light back out and hits the object, allowing the eye to see it.”
Now, we’d like to discount this whole eye-beam business, we really would, but there may be an exception that proves the rule. Ever had a staring contest with a cat? There’s got to be some sort of freaky power going on there.
The world’s worst superpower
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in the beginning of a science fiction novel? Well, worry no more – a group of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University has you covered!
Okay, we’re pretty sure that the nanoparticles they’ve come up with won’t turn you into the Borg, but they will make your urine glow. Specifically, when injected into the bodies of people who’ve recently undergone transplants, they can help identify when an organ is failing.
The particles are tiny (duh), but they’re big enough that they won’t accumulate in normal, native tissue. However, they are small enough that, when a transplanted organ is being attacked by the body, the nanoparticles will end up getting through the kidneys and into urine. The particles are fluorescent and glow under near-infrared light.
The nanoparticles are aimed at replacing biopsies, as they are more predictive and less invasive. Also, who wouldn’t want to claim they’ve been enhanced by nanotechnology? Resistance is futile, after all.
Doctor, (fake) doctor, gimme the news
Florida Man strikes again, and this time he’s a faux MD.
Onelio Hipolit-Gonzalez was charged with a felony for impersonating a doctor who promised patients he could easily diagnose their diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and pretty much any other malady … with a metal rod. The “doctor” would have patients hold on to a metal rod connected to a beeping machine (these are the scientific terms, of course), and then he would gravely diagnose them with a variety of ailments that he could cure for the low, low price of $2,000.
If you’re curious how he treated patients, fear not. This intrepid medical professional took the ingenious measure of drawing a patient’s blood and simply injecting it back inside them. Bada-bing, instant cure! Honestly, medical school these days is really overrated. Just learn to properly use a syringe, and you should be good to go. Just make sure not to attempt to treat/con any undercover cops.
Step away from the stinky socks
In another edition of “Humans: What Won’t They Do?” a Chinese man has developed a severe lung infection from prolonged, voluntary inhalation of his sweaty socks.
Take a moment to gag if you need it.
The man reportedly would finish his daily walk home from work with a deep, relaxing session of smelling his socks. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he developed a fungal infection and had to be hospitalized.
His doctor, perhaps in an effort to spare his feelings, conceded that the infection could be attributed to his weakened immune system from looking after his child. Sock-smelling weirdo, or just a good dad? Let’s just hope he doesn’t pass on this … unorthodox hobby to his offspring.
Turn down your eye beams
Do you remember the recent LOTME about a company selling tissues that have already been used by a sick person? Good news! This next item has nothing to do with that.
More good news! Belief in extramission – the ability to emit an invisible energy from the eyes – is down to about 5% among Americans after being greater than 50% at the turn of the century. The bad news? Belief in extramission is about 5% among Americans, according to investigators at Princeton (N.J.) University.
It’s not really a superhero thing, though. The researchers shared an explanation common among the extramission believers: “Light enters the eye, and there is a reflector piece inside the eye. The reflector reflects the light back out and hits the object, allowing the eye to see it.”
Now, we’d like to discount this whole eye-beam business, we really would, but there may be an exception that proves the rule. Ever had a staring contest with a cat? There’s got to be some sort of freaky power going on there.
The world’s worst superpower
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in the beginning of a science fiction novel? Well, worry no more – a group of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University has you covered!
Okay, we’re pretty sure that the nanoparticles they’ve come up with won’t turn you into the Borg, but they will make your urine glow. Specifically, when injected into the bodies of people who’ve recently undergone transplants, they can help identify when an organ is failing.
The particles are tiny (duh), but they’re big enough that they won’t accumulate in normal, native tissue. However, they are small enough that, when a transplanted organ is being attacked by the body, the nanoparticles will end up getting through the kidneys and into urine. The particles are fluorescent and glow under near-infrared light.
The nanoparticles are aimed at replacing biopsies, as they are more predictive and less invasive. Also, who wouldn’t want to claim they’ve been enhanced by nanotechnology? Resistance is futile, after all.
Doctor, (fake) doctor, gimme the news
Florida Man strikes again, and this time he’s a faux MD.
Onelio Hipolit-Gonzalez was charged with a felony for impersonating a doctor who promised patients he could easily diagnose their diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and pretty much any other malady … with a metal rod. The “doctor” would have patients hold on to a metal rod connected to a beeping machine (these are the scientific terms, of course), and then he would gravely diagnose them with a variety of ailments that he could cure for the low, low price of $2,000.
If you’re curious how he treated patients, fear not. This intrepid medical professional took the ingenious measure of drawing a patient’s blood and simply injecting it back inside them. Bada-bing, instant cure! Honestly, medical school these days is really overrated. Just learn to properly use a syringe, and you should be good to go. Just make sure not to attempt to treat/con any undercover cops.
Step away from the stinky socks
In another edition of “Humans: What Won’t They Do?” a Chinese man has developed a severe lung infection from prolonged, voluntary inhalation of his sweaty socks.
Take a moment to gag if you need it.
The man reportedly would finish his daily walk home from work with a deep, relaxing session of smelling his socks. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he developed a fungal infection and had to be hospitalized.
His doctor, perhaps in an effort to spare his feelings, conceded that the infection could be attributed to his weakened immune system from looking after his child. Sock-smelling weirdo, or just a good dad? Let’s just hope he doesn’t pass on this … unorthodox hobby to his offspring.
Turn down your eye beams
Do you remember the recent LOTME about a company selling tissues that have already been used by a sick person? Good news! This next item has nothing to do with that.
More good news! Belief in extramission – the ability to emit an invisible energy from the eyes – is down to about 5% among Americans after being greater than 50% at the turn of the century. The bad news? Belief in extramission is about 5% among Americans, according to investigators at Princeton (N.J.) University.
It’s not really a superhero thing, though. The researchers shared an explanation common among the extramission believers: “Light enters the eye, and there is a reflector piece inside the eye. The reflector reflects the light back out and hits the object, allowing the eye to see it.”
Now, we’d like to discount this whole eye-beam business, we really would, but there may be an exception that proves the rule. Ever had a staring contest with a cat? There’s got to be some sort of freaky power going on there.
The world’s worst superpower
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in the beginning of a science fiction novel? Well, worry no more – a group of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University has you covered!
Okay, we’re pretty sure that the nanoparticles they’ve come up with won’t turn you into the Borg, but they will make your urine glow. Specifically, when injected into the bodies of people who’ve recently undergone transplants, they can help identify when an organ is failing.
The particles are tiny (duh), but they’re big enough that they won’t accumulate in normal, native tissue. However, they are small enough that, when a transplanted organ is being attacked by the body, the nanoparticles will end up getting through the kidneys and into urine. The particles are fluorescent and glow under near-infrared light.
The nanoparticles are aimed at replacing biopsies, as they are more predictive and less invasive. Also, who wouldn’t want to claim they’ve been enhanced by nanotechnology? Resistance is futile, after all.
Culture change needed to improve gender inequalities in medicine
LONDON –
“Gender equality is everyone’s business,” Sarah Hawkes, MBBS, PhD, a professor of global public health at University College London (England), said at the event.
“We’re not talking about women taking over the shop, but women being given an equal opportunity to run the shop. It doesn’t matter where we place ourselves on the gender spectrum as far as advancing equality in science is concerned. What matters is that we all, irrespective of gender, call ourselves feminists.”
For years, women have been “underrepresented in positions of power and leadership, undervalued, and experience discrimination and gender-based violence in scientific and health disciplines across the world,” according to an editorial in the British-based journal (Lancet. 2019;393:493). Such inequalities are compounded and hard to separate from other inequalities, including ethnicity, disability, class, geography, and sexuality.
Despite efforts to readdress the predominantly male culture of medicine, the problem of gender inequality remains “stubbornly persistent,” the editorial said.
“We have spent years being told that the problem lies with us as individuals and that we just need to be better, stronger, more vocal, as women,” Dr. Hawkes observed. “But what really needs to happen is for change to happen in places that hold power.” She further argued: “We don’t need any more individual change; we need organizational and institutional norm change.”
Gender inequality has a long history, and not just in medicine, said British journalist Caroline Criado-Perez OBE, who gave a keynote speech. Ms. Criado-Perez, who is a well-respected feminist campaigner, noted that the world was largely “modeled to fit men.” From architecture to transport, and even crash-test dummies, everything was largely modeled on, or to accommodate, the male rather than the female body.
“I don’t need to tell you that women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack” than men. There is no more urgent need to challenge gender inequality than in medicine, Women are dying because of the gender data gap in medicine,” she asserted. “In medical research, in medical education, in medical practice, it needs to be closed as a matter of urgency.”
Original data published in the Advancing Women in Science, Medicine and Global Health special edition of The Lancet found that only 31% of biomedical research papers published in 2016 reported outcomes for both men and women (Lancet. 2019;393:550-9). Reporting of sex differences was somewhat better in clinical or public health-related research papers, at 67% and 69%, respectively. Sex-differences were more likely to be reported if a woman was one of the key authors, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, PhD, associate professor of informatics at Indiana University in Bloomington, and associates, observed in their paper.
That said, women often have to fight to be included as an author on a paper, even when they have done the majority of the work, the event participants highlighted. Women were still less likely than men to be named as the first or last author on a paper, as well as be less likely to receive research funding to enable them to do the work in the first place (Lancet. 2018;393:531-40).
“Was it really you?” was a question sometimes asked of a woman named as a lead or first author, noted Sonia Gandhi, MD, PhD, group leader of the Neurodegeneration Biology Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in Cambridge (England). Women network differently to men, Dr. Gandhi observed, and not necessarily in networks that forward careers. Women were also often questioned about their productivity, and regardless of any training on unconscious bias, women were still at a disadvantage if they took a career break to have children.
Women’s credentials and capabilities were often felt to be less respected by male colleagues, and there was talk of being met with microaggressions in the workplace, as in one example given by Nana Odom, MSc, a clinical engineer at the Royal United Hospital Bath (England). She was told “you’re not an engineer, because I have not got a set of screwdrivers and sit at a computer and program.” Such comments can deeply affect a person, Dr. Odom said. “Sometimes I feel that if I don’t go into the workshop and open up a bit of kit that I am not an engineer, but it’s so unconscious, it carries on with you.” These types of stories need to be told so then they can be properly addressed when they do happen, she said.
Female representation is so important, said F. Gigi Osler, MD, head of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg. Dr. Osler is the 2018-2019 president of the Canadian Medical Association, the eighth woman to hold this prestigious position in the organization’s 151 years of operation. She also happens to be the first female surgeon and the first woman of color in the role. “When I stepped into the presidency last August, I thought very long and very hard about how I was going to use my voice and this platform,” Dr. Osler said. “It became very clear to me after I started how important representation was. I can’t tell you how many women, young women, and women of color...have come up to me to say, ‘I’m so excited to have you in this position. I’ve never seen someone who looks like me in that type of leadership position,’ ” she observed.
“As leaders, I think we can advocate for structures and processes,” Dr. Osler added, “I think we set the culture.” Leaders have the responsibility for creating and nurturing and fostering a professional, respectful, and inclusive environment, she said.
“We need more strong leaders, we need more diversity in leadership.” Dr. Osler was keen to point out that greater diversity does not mean only women, but other groups as well. “Look around the room. Who is not here? How can I make it easier for them to get here?”
Another strong female role model at the event was Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, a hematologist by training. Not only is she the first female in that role, she will also become the first female Master of Trinity College Cambridge starting in October 2019, a role dominated by men for more than 500 years.
All people, women and men, need to be given fair opportunity, Dame Sally said. Addressing structural issues can help, she said. “We need role models, mentors, and champions,” she said, noting that there were differences between the three. “Mentors give you advice, they get to know you, and they help you think through your issue. Champions may not have time for that, but they know you are good,” and they are putting you forward for opportunities.
“If the system isn’t right, or we are treated badly, we need to call it out,” Dame Sally said. “I do think that we often let things pass that we shouldn’t.” A classic situation is where a woman may suggest something at a meeting and it is ignored, but when a man says the same thing it is taken on board. That kind of behavior needs to stop and be addressed when it happens, by everyone at the table, she said.
Dr. Hawkes observed in her summing up of the day: “Throughout the history of health, change comes about not just through action at the top, but also from action from the bottom up.” She added: “The question is how do we make that change happen?” That’s where the next phase of research needs to take place, she suggested, “we need to actually see, in a very evidence-informed way, what actually works to make and sustain change.”
No financial disclosures were reported by any of the speakers quoted.
SOURCE: Lancet. 2019;393:493–610, e6-e28
LONDON –
“Gender equality is everyone’s business,” Sarah Hawkes, MBBS, PhD, a professor of global public health at University College London (England), said at the event.
“We’re not talking about women taking over the shop, but women being given an equal opportunity to run the shop. It doesn’t matter where we place ourselves on the gender spectrum as far as advancing equality in science is concerned. What matters is that we all, irrespective of gender, call ourselves feminists.”
For years, women have been “underrepresented in positions of power and leadership, undervalued, and experience discrimination and gender-based violence in scientific and health disciplines across the world,” according to an editorial in the British-based journal (Lancet. 2019;393:493). Such inequalities are compounded and hard to separate from other inequalities, including ethnicity, disability, class, geography, and sexuality.
Despite efforts to readdress the predominantly male culture of medicine, the problem of gender inequality remains “stubbornly persistent,” the editorial said.
“We have spent years being told that the problem lies with us as individuals and that we just need to be better, stronger, more vocal, as women,” Dr. Hawkes observed. “But what really needs to happen is for change to happen in places that hold power.” She further argued: “We don’t need any more individual change; we need organizational and institutional norm change.”
Gender inequality has a long history, and not just in medicine, said British journalist Caroline Criado-Perez OBE, who gave a keynote speech. Ms. Criado-Perez, who is a well-respected feminist campaigner, noted that the world was largely “modeled to fit men.” From architecture to transport, and even crash-test dummies, everything was largely modeled on, or to accommodate, the male rather than the female body.
“I don’t need to tell you that women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack” than men. There is no more urgent need to challenge gender inequality than in medicine, Women are dying because of the gender data gap in medicine,” she asserted. “In medical research, in medical education, in medical practice, it needs to be closed as a matter of urgency.”
Original data published in the Advancing Women in Science, Medicine and Global Health special edition of The Lancet found that only 31% of biomedical research papers published in 2016 reported outcomes for both men and women (Lancet. 2019;393:550-9). Reporting of sex differences was somewhat better in clinical or public health-related research papers, at 67% and 69%, respectively. Sex-differences were more likely to be reported if a woman was one of the key authors, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, PhD, associate professor of informatics at Indiana University in Bloomington, and associates, observed in their paper.
That said, women often have to fight to be included as an author on a paper, even when they have done the majority of the work, the event participants highlighted. Women were still less likely than men to be named as the first or last author on a paper, as well as be less likely to receive research funding to enable them to do the work in the first place (Lancet. 2018;393:531-40).
“Was it really you?” was a question sometimes asked of a woman named as a lead or first author, noted Sonia Gandhi, MD, PhD, group leader of the Neurodegeneration Biology Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in Cambridge (England). Women network differently to men, Dr. Gandhi observed, and not necessarily in networks that forward careers. Women were also often questioned about their productivity, and regardless of any training on unconscious bias, women were still at a disadvantage if they took a career break to have children.
Women’s credentials and capabilities were often felt to be less respected by male colleagues, and there was talk of being met with microaggressions in the workplace, as in one example given by Nana Odom, MSc, a clinical engineer at the Royal United Hospital Bath (England). She was told “you’re not an engineer, because I have not got a set of screwdrivers and sit at a computer and program.” Such comments can deeply affect a person, Dr. Odom said. “Sometimes I feel that if I don’t go into the workshop and open up a bit of kit that I am not an engineer, but it’s so unconscious, it carries on with you.” These types of stories need to be told so then they can be properly addressed when they do happen, she said.
Female representation is so important, said F. Gigi Osler, MD, head of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg. Dr. Osler is the 2018-2019 president of the Canadian Medical Association, the eighth woman to hold this prestigious position in the organization’s 151 years of operation. She also happens to be the first female surgeon and the first woman of color in the role. “When I stepped into the presidency last August, I thought very long and very hard about how I was going to use my voice and this platform,” Dr. Osler said. “It became very clear to me after I started how important representation was. I can’t tell you how many women, young women, and women of color...have come up to me to say, ‘I’m so excited to have you in this position. I’ve never seen someone who looks like me in that type of leadership position,’ ” she observed.
“As leaders, I think we can advocate for structures and processes,” Dr. Osler added, “I think we set the culture.” Leaders have the responsibility for creating and nurturing and fostering a professional, respectful, and inclusive environment, she said.
“We need more strong leaders, we need more diversity in leadership.” Dr. Osler was keen to point out that greater diversity does not mean only women, but other groups as well. “Look around the room. Who is not here? How can I make it easier for them to get here?”
Another strong female role model at the event was Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, a hematologist by training. Not only is she the first female in that role, she will also become the first female Master of Trinity College Cambridge starting in October 2019, a role dominated by men for more than 500 years.
All people, women and men, need to be given fair opportunity, Dame Sally said. Addressing structural issues can help, she said. “We need role models, mentors, and champions,” she said, noting that there were differences between the three. “Mentors give you advice, they get to know you, and they help you think through your issue. Champions may not have time for that, but they know you are good,” and they are putting you forward for opportunities.
“If the system isn’t right, or we are treated badly, we need to call it out,” Dame Sally said. “I do think that we often let things pass that we shouldn’t.” A classic situation is where a woman may suggest something at a meeting and it is ignored, but when a man says the same thing it is taken on board. That kind of behavior needs to stop and be addressed when it happens, by everyone at the table, she said.
Dr. Hawkes observed in her summing up of the day: “Throughout the history of health, change comes about not just through action at the top, but also from action from the bottom up.” She added: “The question is how do we make that change happen?” That’s where the next phase of research needs to take place, she suggested, “we need to actually see, in a very evidence-informed way, what actually works to make and sustain change.”
No financial disclosures were reported by any of the speakers quoted.
SOURCE: Lancet. 2019;393:493–610, e6-e28
LONDON –
“Gender equality is everyone’s business,” Sarah Hawkes, MBBS, PhD, a professor of global public health at University College London (England), said at the event.
“We’re not talking about women taking over the shop, but women being given an equal opportunity to run the shop. It doesn’t matter where we place ourselves on the gender spectrum as far as advancing equality in science is concerned. What matters is that we all, irrespective of gender, call ourselves feminists.”
For years, women have been “underrepresented in positions of power and leadership, undervalued, and experience discrimination and gender-based violence in scientific and health disciplines across the world,” according to an editorial in the British-based journal (Lancet. 2019;393:493). Such inequalities are compounded and hard to separate from other inequalities, including ethnicity, disability, class, geography, and sexuality.
Despite efforts to readdress the predominantly male culture of medicine, the problem of gender inequality remains “stubbornly persistent,” the editorial said.
“We have spent years being told that the problem lies with us as individuals and that we just need to be better, stronger, more vocal, as women,” Dr. Hawkes observed. “But what really needs to happen is for change to happen in places that hold power.” She further argued: “We don’t need any more individual change; we need organizational and institutional norm change.”
Gender inequality has a long history, and not just in medicine, said British journalist Caroline Criado-Perez OBE, who gave a keynote speech. Ms. Criado-Perez, who is a well-respected feminist campaigner, noted that the world was largely “modeled to fit men.” From architecture to transport, and even crash-test dummies, everything was largely modeled on, or to accommodate, the male rather than the female body.
“I don’t need to tell you that women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack” than men. There is no more urgent need to challenge gender inequality than in medicine, Women are dying because of the gender data gap in medicine,” she asserted. “In medical research, in medical education, in medical practice, it needs to be closed as a matter of urgency.”
Original data published in the Advancing Women in Science, Medicine and Global Health special edition of The Lancet found that only 31% of biomedical research papers published in 2016 reported outcomes for both men and women (Lancet. 2019;393:550-9). Reporting of sex differences was somewhat better in clinical or public health-related research papers, at 67% and 69%, respectively. Sex-differences were more likely to be reported if a woman was one of the key authors, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, PhD, associate professor of informatics at Indiana University in Bloomington, and associates, observed in their paper.
That said, women often have to fight to be included as an author on a paper, even when they have done the majority of the work, the event participants highlighted. Women were still less likely than men to be named as the first or last author on a paper, as well as be less likely to receive research funding to enable them to do the work in the first place (Lancet. 2018;393:531-40).
“Was it really you?” was a question sometimes asked of a woman named as a lead or first author, noted Sonia Gandhi, MD, PhD, group leader of the Neurodegeneration Biology Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in Cambridge (England). Women network differently to men, Dr. Gandhi observed, and not necessarily in networks that forward careers. Women were also often questioned about their productivity, and regardless of any training on unconscious bias, women were still at a disadvantage if they took a career break to have children.
Women’s credentials and capabilities were often felt to be less respected by male colleagues, and there was talk of being met with microaggressions in the workplace, as in one example given by Nana Odom, MSc, a clinical engineer at the Royal United Hospital Bath (England). She was told “you’re not an engineer, because I have not got a set of screwdrivers and sit at a computer and program.” Such comments can deeply affect a person, Dr. Odom said. “Sometimes I feel that if I don’t go into the workshop and open up a bit of kit that I am not an engineer, but it’s so unconscious, it carries on with you.” These types of stories need to be told so then they can be properly addressed when they do happen, she said.
Female representation is so important, said F. Gigi Osler, MD, head of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg. Dr. Osler is the 2018-2019 president of the Canadian Medical Association, the eighth woman to hold this prestigious position in the organization’s 151 years of operation. She also happens to be the first female surgeon and the first woman of color in the role. “When I stepped into the presidency last August, I thought very long and very hard about how I was going to use my voice and this platform,” Dr. Osler said. “It became very clear to me after I started how important representation was. I can’t tell you how many women, young women, and women of color...have come up to me to say, ‘I’m so excited to have you in this position. I’ve never seen someone who looks like me in that type of leadership position,’ ” she observed.
“As leaders, I think we can advocate for structures and processes,” Dr. Osler added, “I think we set the culture.” Leaders have the responsibility for creating and nurturing and fostering a professional, respectful, and inclusive environment, she said.
“We need more strong leaders, we need more diversity in leadership.” Dr. Osler was keen to point out that greater diversity does not mean only women, but other groups as well. “Look around the room. Who is not here? How can I make it easier for them to get here?”
Another strong female role model at the event was Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, a hematologist by training. Not only is she the first female in that role, she will also become the first female Master of Trinity College Cambridge starting in October 2019, a role dominated by men for more than 500 years.
All people, women and men, need to be given fair opportunity, Dame Sally said. Addressing structural issues can help, she said. “We need role models, mentors, and champions,” she said, noting that there were differences between the three. “Mentors give you advice, they get to know you, and they help you think through your issue. Champions may not have time for that, but they know you are good,” and they are putting you forward for opportunities.
“If the system isn’t right, or we are treated badly, we need to call it out,” Dame Sally said. “I do think that we often let things pass that we shouldn’t.” A classic situation is where a woman may suggest something at a meeting and it is ignored, but when a man says the same thing it is taken on board. That kind of behavior needs to stop and be addressed when it happens, by everyone at the table, she said.
Dr. Hawkes observed in her summing up of the day: “Throughout the history of health, change comes about not just through action at the top, but also from action from the bottom up.” She added: “The question is how do we make that change happen?” That’s where the next phase of research needs to take place, she suggested, “we need to actually see, in a very evidence-informed way, what actually works to make and sustain change.”
No financial disclosures were reported by any of the speakers quoted.
SOURCE: Lancet. 2019;393:493–610, e6-e28
FROM A LAUNCH EVENT HELD BY THE LANCET
What I learned from Navy SEALs about resilience
In 2017, the National Academy of Medicine recognized the urgent need to address burnout, wellness, and resilience in physicians. A consortium was subsequently put together comprising many cosponsoring organizations, including the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), and the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). One of many outputs of this consortium was a discussion paper, “A Journey to Construct an All-Encompassing Conceptual Model of Factors Affecting Clinician Well-Being and Resilience.”
The authors conceptually divided wellness and resilience drivers into external and individual factors. It turns out that a large portion of clinician well-being and resilience is related to individual factors that include personal factors, skills, and abilities. Taking personal responsibility and ownership of developing these individual factors is important, but many do not know where to begin.
My journey in this area began 5 years ago. This was a time when organizational resources were sparse and there was little local or national attention to addressing physician wellness. My life was horribly out of balance. While this should have been obvious, the “hit-on-the-head” moment was weighing myself one day and realizing that I was 30 pounds overweight. This was the ultimate sign to me that there was a problem because throughout my entire life, I was always very athletic, even during residency and fellowship training. I was using food as a reward system for several years which, in combination with a dramatic decrease in physical activity due to prioritizing everything related to work, led to this problem. A slowing metabolism that we all face as we age certainly accentuated it.
I was taking care of everybody else, but not myself. Many family members, friends, and even patients told me this over the years, which I conveniently ignored. For several years, my patients were asking me, “How are you doing?” at the end of their office visits. As a surgeon with a busy cancer practice, this should have been a signal for me – my cancer patients asking me how I am doing!
I started to think more about why this was happening. I realized that I was a victim of my own passions. In terms of my clinical practice, I cherished and absolutely loved every aspect of my practice and taking care of patients. I loved educating our next generation and thrived on conducting research, presenting at meetings, and publishing papers. And as I was accumulating more administrative roles and responsibilities at the department, hospital, and medical school levels, I realized I had a growing passion for administrative work. I found that the administrative work was uniquely challenging and allowed me to meaningfully serve others in a very special way.
In all of these areas for which I had a deep passion, I was committed to nothing short of excellence in everything I did. That is what I expected of myself. Self-compassion was almost absent. In addition, I have a people-pleasing personality and find it difficult to say no to people. As I have come to realize, this characteristic can be self-destructive.
I began to recognize that I fell into an acceptance (and almost expectation) that every 6-8 months I’d experience an episode of burnout that lasted 3-4 days. My burnout trigger was feeling a sense of helplessness. Everything seemed to come down all at once, and I felt helpless to dig out of it.
I realized I wanted to change, but I had no idea what resources were available or how to go about making a change. One day, I was talking to a colleague about these issues, and he asked, “Have you read the book, ‘Lone Survivor?’ ” I hadn’t heard of it, but I picked it up and started reading. Looking back, this was one of the most important decisions I made in my effort to help myself. “Lone Survivor” tells the the story of Marcus Luttrell, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL who received the Navy Cross for his actions facing Taliban fighters during Operation Red Wings.
When I finished reading this book, I realized that this was a remarkable story of resilience. The entirety of his story really connected with me. I then began to think there might be something I could learn from the Navy SEAL community that I could apply to my own civilian life.
Candidates who enter training for Navy SEALs are physically fit to succeed, but only approximately 20% make it through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S). Many drop out on request, largely because they don’t have the mental toughness and emotional resilience to tolerate intense stress continuously over a prolonged period of time. The ones who succeed have a deep meaning to their “Why” to become a SEAL.
I then learned about a retired Navy SEAL Commander, Mark Devine, who had a program intended to train civilians in physical fitness, mental toughness, emotional resilience, intuitional awareness, and spiritual consciousness in a manner similar to that of preparing prospective candidates for BUD/S training. The website stated that the defining attribute for enrollees was “a burning desire to better oneself.” I connected with that. After resolving my self-doubts and uncomfortable feelings about doing this, I signed up for the 3-day Fundamentals immersion program.
My 3 days with Coach Divine and his team were truly transformative. This was definitely not a “Navy SEAL Fantasy Camp,” and perhaps were the 3 most difficult days of my life in many regards.
When I got back from this program, I had a framework and toolbox for developing resilience to avoid burnout and improve my personal wellness. I immediately changed several things in my life, in an enduring way for the past 5 years. I started to train regularly. While I could not find a predictable time to do this during the week, I prioritized training during weekends. I improved my nutrition, stopped using food as a reward system, and started getting more sleep. Within 6 months after completing the program, I dropped the 30 pounds by being disciplined, not motivated, to make these changes. I also developed a morning ritual upon awakening. This consists of drinking a glass of water, doing box-breathing exercises, positive self-talk, thinking through my day, prioritizing what needs to be done, doing an ethos check-in to make sure that the priorities of the day correlate with my “Why,” engaging in further positive self-talk, and then engaging in positive visualization. I think this mindfulness activity has been critically important.
With the enduring changes I made, my regular schedule of burnout episodes every 6-8 months stopped, despite some very stressful events in my life. Go figure. My productivity was not affected, and my happiness was certainly improved. I had a definite sense that the changes I made were real and effective. One day a few years later while rounding with an intern, one of my patients said to the resident, “I remember Dr. Nussenbaum when he was fat.” The intern looked at me with a puzzled expression.
Based on my own journey, what advice can I give you to improve your own personal wellness and resilience? Most importantly, know your “Why” and your “3 Ps” (passion, purpose, and principles in life). What’s your personal ethos? Make sure that the job you do and the activities you perform tie into your ethos as much and as often as possible. Engage in mindfulness activities. There are many possibilities. For me, the mindfulness activity is my morning ritual. Talking about failures with trusted friends and colleagues rather than hiding them can also increase your resilience.
Developing and maintaining resilience is still an evolving and ongoing process for me. I consider this a lifelong learning process, rather than a one-time deal. Most difficult has been becoming disciplined and patient to learn new things and incorporate them into my life, and along the way becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable. And taking the necessary time to define a personal ethos, which took much longer than I thought it would.
I’ve continued to learn from several resources available from the Harvard Business Review, and from reading several widely available books. I have taken an academic approach to supplement what I learned from Coach Divine and his team, which is not surprising to those that know me well. Societies also now have many resources, such as The American Medical Association’s Burnout Tip-of-the Week, as one example.
One of the four guiding principles from the recent article, “Charter on Physician Well-Being,” states that physician well-being is a shared responsibility. It’s shared among the organizations we work in, society and its regulatory agencies, and individuals. It’s important to remind ourselves that taking individual responsibility for your wellness and developing resilience will still be a key component even as resources from our organizations and society continue to expand and become more available. Improving physician well-being needs to be a team sport.
Dr. Brian Nussenbaum is executive director of the American Board of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. He lives in Houston. These remarks were adapted from a presentation that Dr. Nussenbaum gave at the Triological Society’s Combined Sections Meeting in Coronado, Calif., which was jointly sponsored by the Triological Society and the American College of Surgeons.
In 2017, the National Academy of Medicine recognized the urgent need to address burnout, wellness, and resilience in physicians. A consortium was subsequently put together comprising many cosponsoring organizations, including the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), and the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). One of many outputs of this consortium was a discussion paper, “A Journey to Construct an All-Encompassing Conceptual Model of Factors Affecting Clinician Well-Being and Resilience.”
The authors conceptually divided wellness and resilience drivers into external and individual factors. It turns out that a large portion of clinician well-being and resilience is related to individual factors that include personal factors, skills, and abilities. Taking personal responsibility and ownership of developing these individual factors is important, but many do not know where to begin.
My journey in this area began 5 years ago. This was a time when organizational resources were sparse and there was little local or national attention to addressing physician wellness. My life was horribly out of balance. While this should have been obvious, the “hit-on-the-head” moment was weighing myself one day and realizing that I was 30 pounds overweight. This was the ultimate sign to me that there was a problem because throughout my entire life, I was always very athletic, even during residency and fellowship training. I was using food as a reward system for several years which, in combination with a dramatic decrease in physical activity due to prioritizing everything related to work, led to this problem. A slowing metabolism that we all face as we age certainly accentuated it.
I was taking care of everybody else, but not myself. Many family members, friends, and even patients told me this over the years, which I conveniently ignored. For several years, my patients were asking me, “How are you doing?” at the end of their office visits. As a surgeon with a busy cancer practice, this should have been a signal for me – my cancer patients asking me how I am doing!
I started to think more about why this was happening. I realized that I was a victim of my own passions. In terms of my clinical practice, I cherished and absolutely loved every aspect of my practice and taking care of patients. I loved educating our next generation and thrived on conducting research, presenting at meetings, and publishing papers. And as I was accumulating more administrative roles and responsibilities at the department, hospital, and medical school levels, I realized I had a growing passion for administrative work. I found that the administrative work was uniquely challenging and allowed me to meaningfully serve others in a very special way.
In all of these areas for which I had a deep passion, I was committed to nothing short of excellence in everything I did. That is what I expected of myself. Self-compassion was almost absent. In addition, I have a people-pleasing personality and find it difficult to say no to people. As I have come to realize, this characteristic can be self-destructive.
I began to recognize that I fell into an acceptance (and almost expectation) that every 6-8 months I’d experience an episode of burnout that lasted 3-4 days. My burnout trigger was feeling a sense of helplessness. Everything seemed to come down all at once, and I felt helpless to dig out of it.
I realized I wanted to change, but I had no idea what resources were available or how to go about making a change. One day, I was talking to a colleague about these issues, and he asked, “Have you read the book, ‘Lone Survivor?’ ” I hadn’t heard of it, but I picked it up and started reading. Looking back, this was one of the most important decisions I made in my effort to help myself. “Lone Survivor” tells the the story of Marcus Luttrell, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL who received the Navy Cross for his actions facing Taliban fighters during Operation Red Wings.
When I finished reading this book, I realized that this was a remarkable story of resilience. The entirety of his story really connected with me. I then began to think there might be something I could learn from the Navy SEAL community that I could apply to my own civilian life.
Candidates who enter training for Navy SEALs are physically fit to succeed, but only approximately 20% make it through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S). Many drop out on request, largely because they don’t have the mental toughness and emotional resilience to tolerate intense stress continuously over a prolonged period of time. The ones who succeed have a deep meaning to their “Why” to become a SEAL.
I then learned about a retired Navy SEAL Commander, Mark Devine, who had a program intended to train civilians in physical fitness, mental toughness, emotional resilience, intuitional awareness, and spiritual consciousness in a manner similar to that of preparing prospective candidates for BUD/S training. The website stated that the defining attribute for enrollees was “a burning desire to better oneself.” I connected with that. After resolving my self-doubts and uncomfortable feelings about doing this, I signed up for the 3-day Fundamentals immersion program.
My 3 days with Coach Divine and his team were truly transformative. This was definitely not a “Navy SEAL Fantasy Camp,” and perhaps were the 3 most difficult days of my life in many regards.
When I got back from this program, I had a framework and toolbox for developing resilience to avoid burnout and improve my personal wellness. I immediately changed several things in my life, in an enduring way for the past 5 years. I started to train regularly. While I could not find a predictable time to do this during the week, I prioritized training during weekends. I improved my nutrition, stopped using food as a reward system, and started getting more sleep. Within 6 months after completing the program, I dropped the 30 pounds by being disciplined, not motivated, to make these changes. I also developed a morning ritual upon awakening. This consists of drinking a glass of water, doing box-breathing exercises, positive self-talk, thinking through my day, prioritizing what needs to be done, doing an ethos check-in to make sure that the priorities of the day correlate with my “Why,” engaging in further positive self-talk, and then engaging in positive visualization. I think this mindfulness activity has been critically important.
With the enduring changes I made, my regular schedule of burnout episodes every 6-8 months stopped, despite some very stressful events in my life. Go figure. My productivity was not affected, and my happiness was certainly improved. I had a definite sense that the changes I made were real and effective. One day a few years later while rounding with an intern, one of my patients said to the resident, “I remember Dr. Nussenbaum when he was fat.” The intern looked at me with a puzzled expression.
Based on my own journey, what advice can I give you to improve your own personal wellness and resilience? Most importantly, know your “Why” and your “3 Ps” (passion, purpose, and principles in life). What’s your personal ethos? Make sure that the job you do and the activities you perform tie into your ethos as much and as often as possible. Engage in mindfulness activities. There are many possibilities. For me, the mindfulness activity is my morning ritual. Talking about failures with trusted friends and colleagues rather than hiding them can also increase your resilience.
Developing and maintaining resilience is still an evolving and ongoing process for me. I consider this a lifelong learning process, rather than a one-time deal. Most difficult has been becoming disciplined and patient to learn new things and incorporate them into my life, and along the way becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable. And taking the necessary time to define a personal ethos, which took much longer than I thought it would.
I’ve continued to learn from several resources available from the Harvard Business Review, and from reading several widely available books. I have taken an academic approach to supplement what I learned from Coach Divine and his team, which is not surprising to those that know me well. Societies also now have many resources, such as The American Medical Association’s Burnout Tip-of-the Week, as one example.
One of the four guiding principles from the recent article, “Charter on Physician Well-Being,” states that physician well-being is a shared responsibility. It’s shared among the organizations we work in, society and its regulatory agencies, and individuals. It’s important to remind ourselves that taking individual responsibility for your wellness and developing resilience will still be a key component even as resources from our organizations and society continue to expand and become more available. Improving physician well-being needs to be a team sport.
Dr. Brian Nussenbaum is executive director of the American Board of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. He lives in Houston. These remarks were adapted from a presentation that Dr. Nussenbaum gave at the Triological Society’s Combined Sections Meeting in Coronado, Calif., which was jointly sponsored by the Triological Society and the American College of Surgeons.
In 2017, the National Academy of Medicine recognized the urgent need to address burnout, wellness, and resilience in physicians. A consortium was subsequently put together comprising many cosponsoring organizations, including the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), and the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). One of many outputs of this consortium was a discussion paper, “A Journey to Construct an All-Encompassing Conceptual Model of Factors Affecting Clinician Well-Being and Resilience.”
The authors conceptually divided wellness and resilience drivers into external and individual factors. It turns out that a large portion of clinician well-being and resilience is related to individual factors that include personal factors, skills, and abilities. Taking personal responsibility and ownership of developing these individual factors is important, but many do not know where to begin.
My journey in this area began 5 years ago. This was a time when organizational resources were sparse and there was little local or national attention to addressing physician wellness. My life was horribly out of balance. While this should have been obvious, the “hit-on-the-head” moment was weighing myself one day and realizing that I was 30 pounds overweight. This was the ultimate sign to me that there was a problem because throughout my entire life, I was always very athletic, even during residency and fellowship training. I was using food as a reward system for several years which, in combination with a dramatic decrease in physical activity due to prioritizing everything related to work, led to this problem. A slowing metabolism that we all face as we age certainly accentuated it.
I was taking care of everybody else, but not myself. Many family members, friends, and even patients told me this over the years, which I conveniently ignored. For several years, my patients were asking me, “How are you doing?” at the end of their office visits. As a surgeon with a busy cancer practice, this should have been a signal for me – my cancer patients asking me how I am doing!
I started to think more about why this was happening. I realized that I was a victim of my own passions. In terms of my clinical practice, I cherished and absolutely loved every aspect of my practice and taking care of patients. I loved educating our next generation and thrived on conducting research, presenting at meetings, and publishing papers. And as I was accumulating more administrative roles and responsibilities at the department, hospital, and medical school levels, I realized I had a growing passion for administrative work. I found that the administrative work was uniquely challenging and allowed me to meaningfully serve others in a very special way.
In all of these areas for which I had a deep passion, I was committed to nothing short of excellence in everything I did. That is what I expected of myself. Self-compassion was almost absent. In addition, I have a people-pleasing personality and find it difficult to say no to people. As I have come to realize, this characteristic can be self-destructive.
I began to recognize that I fell into an acceptance (and almost expectation) that every 6-8 months I’d experience an episode of burnout that lasted 3-4 days. My burnout trigger was feeling a sense of helplessness. Everything seemed to come down all at once, and I felt helpless to dig out of it.
I realized I wanted to change, but I had no idea what resources were available or how to go about making a change. One day, I was talking to a colleague about these issues, and he asked, “Have you read the book, ‘Lone Survivor?’ ” I hadn’t heard of it, but I picked it up and started reading. Looking back, this was one of the most important decisions I made in my effort to help myself. “Lone Survivor” tells the the story of Marcus Luttrell, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL who received the Navy Cross for his actions facing Taliban fighters during Operation Red Wings.
When I finished reading this book, I realized that this was a remarkable story of resilience. The entirety of his story really connected with me. I then began to think there might be something I could learn from the Navy SEAL community that I could apply to my own civilian life.
Candidates who enter training for Navy SEALs are physically fit to succeed, but only approximately 20% make it through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S). Many drop out on request, largely because they don’t have the mental toughness and emotional resilience to tolerate intense stress continuously over a prolonged period of time. The ones who succeed have a deep meaning to their “Why” to become a SEAL.
I then learned about a retired Navy SEAL Commander, Mark Devine, who had a program intended to train civilians in physical fitness, mental toughness, emotional resilience, intuitional awareness, and spiritual consciousness in a manner similar to that of preparing prospective candidates for BUD/S training. The website stated that the defining attribute for enrollees was “a burning desire to better oneself.” I connected with that. After resolving my self-doubts and uncomfortable feelings about doing this, I signed up for the 3-day Fundamentals immersion program.
My 3 days with Coach Divine and his team were truly transformative. This was definitely not a “Navy SEAL Fantasy Camp,” and perhaps were the 3 most difficult days of my life in many regards.
When I got back from this program, I had a framework and toolbox for developing resilience to avoid burnout and improve my personal wellness. I immediately changed several things in my life, in an enduring way for the past 5 years. I started to train regularly. While I could not find a predictable time to do this during the week, I prioritized training during weekends. I improved my nutrition, stopped using food as a reward system, and started getting more sleep. Within 6 months after completing the program, I dropped the 30 pounds by being disciplined, not motivated, to make these changes. I also developed a morning ritual upon awakening. This consists of drinking a glass of water, doing box-breathing exercises, positive self-talk, thinking through my day, prioritizing what needs to be done, doing an ethos check-in to make sure that the priorities of the day correlate with my “Why,” engaging in further positive self-talk, and then engaging in positive visualization. I think this mindfulness activity has been critically important.
With the enduring changes I made, my regular schedule of burnout episodes every 6-8 months stopped, despite some very stressful events in my life. Go figure. My productivity was not affected, and my happiness was certainly improved. I had a definite sense that the changes I made were real and effective. One day a few years later while rounding with an intern, one of my patients said to the resident, “I remember Dr. Nussenbaum when he was fat.” The intern looked at me with a puzzled expression.
Based on my own journey, what advice can I give you to improve your own personal wellness and resilience? Most importantly, know your “Why” and your “3 Ps” (passion, purpose, and principles in life). What’s your personal ethos? Make sure that the job you do and the activities you perform tie into your ethos as much and as often as possible. Engage in mindfulness activities. There are many possibilities. For me, the mindfulness activity is my morning ritual. Talking about failures with trusted friends and colleagues rather than hiding them can also increase your resilience.
Developing and maintaining resilience is still an evolving and ongoing process for me. I consider this a lifelong learning process, rather than a one-time deal. Most difficult has been becoming disciplined and patient to learn new things and incorporate them into my life, and along the way becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable. And taking the necessary time to define a personal ethos, which took much longer than I thought it would.
I’ve continued to learn from several resources available from the Harvard Business Review, and from reading several widely available books. I have taken an academic approach to supplement what I learned from Coach Divine and his team, which is not surprising to those that know me well. Societies also now have many resources, such as The American Medical Association’s Burnout Tip-of-the Week, as one example.
One of the four guiding principles from the recent article, “Charter on Physician Well-Being,” states that physician well-being is a shared responsibility. It’s shared among the organizations we work in, society and its regulatory agencies, and individuals. It’s important to remind ourselves that taking individual responsibility for your wellness and developing resilience will still be a key component even as resources from our organizations and society continue to expand and become more available. Improving physician well-being needs to be a team sport.
Dr. Brian Nussenbaum is executive director of the American Board of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. He lives in Houston. These remarks were adapted from a presentation that Dr. Nussenbaum gave at the Triological Society’s Combined Sections Meeting in Coronado, Calif., which was jointly sponsored by the Triological Society and the American College of Surgeons.
500 Women in Medicine: Part II
Ms. Gerull and Ms. Loe are third-year medical students at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. According to Gerull and Loe, the aim is to create a network of support and advancement for women in medicine. 500 Women in Medicine is a pod of the organization 500 Women Scientists.
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Ms. Gerull and Ms. Loe are third-year medical students at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. According to Gerull and Loe, the aim is to create a network of support and advancement for women in medicine. 500 Women in Medicine is a pod of the organization 500 Women Scientists.
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Ms. Gerull and Ms. Loe are third-year medical students at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. According to Gerull and Loe, the aim is to create a network of support and advancement for women in medicine. 500 Women in Medicine is a pod of the organization 500 Women Scientists.
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Congress’ first pediatrician settles into new job
WASHINGTON – Kim Schrier, MD, the first pediatrician elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, describes her decision to seek a seat in Congress as a natural extension of her work caring for children.
Following the 2016 election, she said she became concerned about what she saw as rising threats to the health of families. The Republican congressional majority made several attempts to undo the Affordable Care Act. In an interview with Pediatric News, Dr. Schrier, a Democrat who represents Washington’s 8th district, said she worried about a rollback of the insurance protections the 2010 law created for people with preexisting conditions. She understood the need for these guarantees of access to care both as a physician and as a patient – Dr. Schrier was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a teenager.
Her concerns extended beyond the health care and insurance. Efforts to weaken environmental protections could create new risks for children’s health, she said. Dr. Schrier also worried about attempts to erode Roe v. Wade and to reduce funding for programs such as SNAP supplemental food assistance.
“I felt like every one of those elements was under assault and so who better to speak to that than the pediatrician with her own preexisting condition?” she said.
Dr. Schrier currently is the only female physician serving in Congress. “It’s exciting to be here and it’s exciting to bring that lens that no one else really has,” she said.
Still, the decision to run was not easy.
“I’ve left a practice that I love. I had no intention to run for office ever in my life.”
Dr. Schrier earned an undergraduate degree in astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley. She worked for about a year at the Environmental Protection Agency before earning her medical degree at the University of California, Davis, and completing her residency at Stanford (Calif.) University. She was working as a pediatrician in the Seattle-based Virginia Mason Health System when she decided to run for Congress.
Her husband, David, and son, Sam, are staying on in the family’s home of Sammamish as she settles into her new work as a legislator. She said she returns home often.
“I go back and forth every week. I just didn’t see it working all that well with having them here,” she said. “I work from 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night and would never see them anyway.”
Dr. Schrier has long used an insulin pump and glucose monitors to keep her diabetes in check.
“It is a bit more difficult because my days are less predictable” when working in the Capitol, she said. “So I carry granola bars around in my purse.”
Bipartisan bill
Dr. Schrier said she is taking her time in deciding on the first health care legislation that she will introduce in the House. She’s considering measures that would focus on children’s health, possibly in connection with nutrition or with protection of those in immigrant communities.
“I’m looking at something that is uniquely me and know that a lot of my colleagues are going to be working on things like affordability of medications and I will partner with them,” she said.
Dr. Schrier said that she supports creating a way for people to buy into Medicare coverage, paying for this government insurance on a sliding scale. The American public is getting more comfortable with the idea of expanding access to Medicare, which “is incredibly popular but now exclusively available for seniors and other selected groups,” she said.
In her view, an expanded Medicare would stand among private insurance options, allowing for a gradual change.
“It’s a way that we could start tomorrow to let people buy in, as opposed to having a 5- or 10-year rollout that something as big and daunting as a Medicare-for-all plan would require,” she said.
But Dr. Schrier said she won’t start her legislative career with such a sweeping goal as a Medicare buy-in bill.
“I think it would be jumping the gun to come in right away with my own health plan because I really want to collaborate” with fellow lawmakers, she said.
Winning Republican support for her future legislation also is important to Dr. Schrier. “I want to make sure that I have the support of a lot of my colleagues,” she said. “I would like to see a successful first bill.
“The advantage of coming at this as a pediatrician and taking on a first bill or bills that relate to children is that both sides of the aisle can get behind what is good for families and children,” Dr. Schrier said. “I think that’s hard to really argue with.”
Dr. Schrier cosponsored her first piece of legislation in February, reaching across the aisle to work with Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) to introduce H.R. 1048, a bill to authorize the next phase of a water resource management plan for Washington’s Yakima River basin.
Beyond that effort, Dr. Schrier said she’s seeking areas of common ground with Republican members of her state delegation. She had dinner in January with two Republican members of the Washington delegation – Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler. Rep. McMorris Rodgers’ website describes her as a leader in the disabilities community and the only member of Congress to give birth three times while in office, while Rep. Herrera Beutler has spoken openly about her daughter’s battle with Potter’s syndrome, in which the kidneys fail to develop.
Within her party, Dr. Schrier is allied with the moderate New Democrat Coalition. Also in the coalition are two fellow physicians, Ami Bera, MD, and Raul Ruiz, MD, both from California. The New Democrat Coalition also has several lawmakers who flipped House seats from Republican control to Democratic in the 2018 election, a group that includes Dr. Schrier and Reps. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) and Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ). It was the victories of these moderates that gave the Democrats control of the House. Yet, they get far less media attention than do House Democratic freshmen who are politically further to the left. These members, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), tend to hail from districts where Republicans stand little chance of winning.
Dr. Schrier said the Democratic party, and Congress as a whole, should focus on issues such as affordable health care, on which the country can unite.
“If you’re looking for collaboration, that just doesn’t make the headlines and yet it is the absolute best thing for the country,” she said, adding that most Americans have more centrist views. “So we should really be governing to the middle and that’s how we can move our country forward.”
WASHINGTON – Kim Schrier, MD, the first pediatrician elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, describes her decision to seek a seat in Congress as a natural extension of her work caring for children.
Following the 2016 election, she said she became concerned about what she saw as rising threats to the health of families. The Republican congressional majority made several attempts to undo the Affordable Care Act. In an interview with Pediatric News, Dr. Schrier, a Democrat who represents Washington’s 8th district, said she worried about a rollback of the insurance protections the 2010 law created for people with preexisting conditions. She understood the need for these guarantees of access to care both as a physician and as a patient – Dr. Schrier was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a teenager.
Her concerns extended beyond the health care and insurance. Efforts to weaken environmental protections could create new risks for children’s health, she said. Dr. Schrier also worried about attempts to erode Roe v. Wade and to reduce funding for programs such as SNAP supplemental food assistance.
“I felt like every one of those elements was under assault and so who better to speak to that than the pediatrician with her own preexisting condition?” she said.
Dr. Schrier currently is the only female physician serving in Congress. “It’s exciting to be here and it’s exciting to bring that lens that no one else really has,” she said.
Still, the decision to run was not easy.
“I’ve left a practice that I love. I had no intention to run for office ever in my life.”
Dr. Schrier earned an undergraduate degree in astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley. She worked for about a year at the Environmental Protection Agency before earning her medical degree at the University of California, Davis, and completing her residency at Stanford (Calif.) University. She was working as a pediatrician in the Seattle-based Virginia Mason Health System when she decided to run for Congress.
Her husband, David, and son, Sam, are staying on in the family’s home of Sammamish as she settles into her new work as a legislator. She said she returns home often.
“I go back and forth every week. I just didn’t see it working all that well with having them here,” she said. “I work from 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night and would never see them anyway.”
Dr. Schrier has long used an insulin pump and glucose monitors to keep her diabetes in check.
“It is a bit more difficult because my days are less predictable” when working in the Capitol, she said. “So I carry granola bars around in my purse.”
Bipartisan bill
Dr. Schrier said she is taking her time in deciding on the first health care legislation that she will introduce in the House. She’s considering measures that would focus on children’s health, possibly in connection with nutrition or with protection of those in immigrant communities.
“I’m looking at something that is uniquely me and know that a lot of my colleagues are going to be working on things like affordability of medications and I will partner with them,” she said.
Dr. Schrier said that she supports creating a way for people to buy into Medicare coverage, paying for this government insurance on a sliding scale. The American public is getting more comfortable with the idea of expanding access to Medicare, which “is incredibly popular but now exclusively available for seniors and other selected groups,” she said.
In her view, an expanded Medicare would stand among private insurance options, allowing for a gradual change.
“It’s a way that we could start tomorrow to let people buy in, as opposed to having a 5- or 10-year rollout that something as big and daunting as a Medicare-for-all plan would require,” she said.
But Dr. Schrier said she won’t start her legislative career with such a sweeping goal as a Medicare buy-in bill.
“I think it would be jumping the gun to come in right away with my own health plan because I really want to collaborate” with fellow lawmakers, she said.
Winning Republican support for her future legislation also is important to Dr. Schrier. “I want to make sure that I have the support of a lot of my colleagues,” she said. “I would like to see a successful first bill.
“The advantage of coming at this as a pediatrician and taking on a first bill or bills that relate to children is that both sides of the aisle can get behind what is good for families and children,” Dr. Schrier said. “I think that’s hard to really argue with.”
Dr. Schrier cosponsored her first piece of legislation in February, reaching across the aisle to work with Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) to introduce H.R. 1048, a bill to authorize the next phase of a water resource management plan for Washington’s Yakima River basin.
Beyond that effort, Dr. Schrier said she’s seeking areas of common ground with Republican members of her state delegation. She had dinner in January with two Republican members of the Washington delegation – Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler. Rep. McMorris Rodgers’ website describes her as a leader in the disabilities community and the only member of Congress to give birth three times while in office, while Rep. Herrera Beutler has spoken openly about her daughter’s battle with Potter’s syndrome, in which the kidneys fail to develop.
Within her party, Dr. Schrier is allied with the moderate New Democrat Coalition. Also in the coalition are two fellow physicians, Ami Bera, MD, and Raul Ruiz, MD, both from California. The New Democrat Coalition also has several lawmakers who flipped House seats from Republican control to Democratic in the 2018 election, a group that includes Dr. Schrier and Reps. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) and Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ). It was the victories of these moderates that gave the Democrats control of the House. Yet, they get far less media attention than do House Democratic freshmen who are politically further to the left. These members, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), tend to hail from districts where Republicans stand little chance of winning.
Dr. Schrier said the Democratic party, and Congress as a whole, should focus on issues such as affordable health care, on which the country can unite.
“If you’re looking for collaboration, that just doesn’t make the headlines and yet it is the absolute best thing for the country,” she said, adding that most Americans have more centrist views. “So we should really be governing to the middle and that’s how we can move our country forward.”
WASHINGTON – Kim Schrier, MD, the first pediatrician elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, describes her decision to seek a seat in Congress as a natural extension of her work caring for children.
Following the 2016 election, she said she became concerned about what she saw as rising threats to the health of families. The Republican congressional majority made several attempts to undo the Affordable Care Act. In an interview with Pediatric News, Dr. Schrier, a Democrat who represents Washington’s 8th district, said she worried about a rollback of the insurance protections the 2010 law created for people with preexisting conditions. She understood the need for these guarantees of access to care both as a physician and as a patient – Dr. Schrier was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a teenager.
Her concerns extended beyond the health care and insurance. Efforts to weaken environmental protections could create new risks for children’s health, she said. Dr. Schrier also worried about attempts to erode Roe v. Wade and to reduce funding for programs such as SNAP supplemental food assistance.
“I felt like every one of those elements was under assault and so who better to speak to that than the pediatrician with her own preexisting condition?” she said.
Dr. Schrier currently is the only female physician serving in Congress. “It’s exciting to be here and it’s exciting to bring that lens that no one else really has,” she said.
Still, the decision to run was not easy.
“I’ve left a practice that I love. I had no intention to run for office ever in my life.”
Dr. Schrier earned an undergraduate degree in astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley. She worked for about a year at the Environmental Protection Agency before earning her medical degree at the University of California, Davis, and completing her residency at Stanford (Calif.) University. She was working as a pediatrician in the Seattle-based Virginia Mason Health System when she decided to run for Congress.
Her husband, David, and son, Sam, are staying on in the family’s home of Sammamish as she settles into her new work as a legislator. She said she returns home often.
“I go back and forth every week. I just didn’t see it working all that well with having them here,” she said. “I work from 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night and would never see them anyway.”
Dr. Schrier has long used an insulin pump and glucose monitors to keep her diabetes in check.
“It is a bit more difficult because my days are less predictable” when working in the Capitol, she said. “So I carry granola bars around in my purse.”
Bipartisan bill
Dr. Schrier said she is taking her time in deciding on the first health care legislation that she will introduce in the House. She’s considering measures that would focus on children’s health, possibly in connection with nutrition or with protection of those in immigrant communities.
“I’m looking at something that is uniquely me and know that a lot of my colleagues are going to be working on things like affordability of medications and I will partner with them,” she said.
Dr. Schrier said that she supports creating a way for people to buy into Medicare coverage, paying for this government insurance on a sliding scale. The American public is getting more comfortable with the idea of expanding access to Medicare, which “is incredibly popular but now exclusively available for seniors and other selected groups,” she said.
In her view, an expanded Medicare would stand among private insurance options, allowing for a gradual change.
“It’s a way that we could start tomorrow to let people buy in, as opposed to having a 5- or 10-year rollout that something as big and daunting as a Medicare-for-all plan would require,” she said.
But Dr. Schrier said she won’t start her legislative career with such a sweeping goal as a Medicare buy-in bill.
“I think it would be jumping the gun to come in right away with my own health plan because I really want to collaborate” with fellow lawmakers, she said.
Winning Republican support for her future legislation also is important to Dr. Schrier. “I want to make sure that I have the support of a lot of my colleagues,” she said. “I would like to see a successful first bill.
“The advantage of coming at this as a pediatrician and taking on a first bill or bills that relate to children is that both sides of the aisle can get behind what is good for families and children,” Dr. Schrier said. “I think that’s hard to really argue with.”
Dr. Schrier cosponsored her first piece of legislation in February, reaching across the aisle to work with Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) to introduce H.R. 1048, a bill to authorize the next phase of a water resource management plan for Washington’s Yakima River basin.
Beyond that effort, Dr. Schrier said she’s seeking areas of common ground with Republican members of her state delegation. She had dinner in January with two Republican members of the Washington delegation – Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler. Rep. McMorris Rodgers’ website describes her as a leader in the disabilities community and the only member of Congress to give birth three times while in office, while Rep. Herrera Beutler has spoken openly about her daughter’s battle with Potter’s syndrome, in which the kidneys fail to develop.
Within her party, Dr. Schrier is allied with the moderate New Democrat Coalition. Also in the coalition are two fellow physicians, Ami Bera, MD, and Raul Ruiz, MD, both from California. The New Democrat Coalition also has several lawmakers who flipped House seats from Republican control to Democratic in the 2018 election, a group that includes Dr. Schrier and Reps. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) and Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ). It was the victories of these moderates that gave the Democrats control of the House. Yet, they get far less media attention than do House Democratic freshmen who are politically further to the left. These members, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), tend to hail from districts where Republicans stand little chance of winning.
Dr. Schrier said the Democratic party, and Congress as a whole, should focus on issues such as affordable health care, on which the country can unite.
“If you’re looking for collaboration, that just doesn’t make the headlines and yet it is the absolute best thing for the country,” she said, adding that most Americans have more centrist views. “So we should really be governing to the middle and that’s how we can move our country forward.”
Love hormone plein air, posh preused Kleenex, and dieting plague vectors
Paint me like one of your French girls
If you’re trying to think of a fun Valentine’s activity, look no further than paint night! Normally associated with a ladies night out (and heavy on the wine), a recent study found that painting releases high levels of the “love hormone”, a.k.a. oxytocin, in men.
Researchers compared the levels of oxytocin with partners painting and partners playing board games, and were surprised by the results: While all the couples released oxytocin during these activities, men in paint class had the highest levels – twice as much as any other group.
Feel free to cite this study next time your man complains about being dragged to a paint-and-sip. Painting partners also experienced more touching than the gaming group (unless you count throwing Monopoly pieces at your significant other as touching).
You won’t get me sick, I’ll get me sick!
There are certain items that, after being used once, you really wouldn’t want to reuse. A snotty, mucus-filled tissue is pretty high up on that list ... or so you would hope. But that’s not thinking with real American entrepreneurial spirit! Welcome to Vaev Tissue, a startup based in Los Angeles that sells used tissues containing germs from a sick person for the bargain price of $79.99.
Yes, you read that correctly. They sell an $80 used tissue. The purpose, according to Vaev’s mission statement, is “to get sick on your own terms,” as “using a tissue that carries a human sneeze is safer than needles or pills.”
As you might expect, the tissues are popular with young parents and adults who are “critical” of vaccines. Who else could hear advice from actual doctors who told Time magazine that “there is nothing positive that can come from this, only things that are adverse,” or that the tissues are an “incredible liability,” and continue on, regardless?
And if you’re thinking, “If these people want to get sick, why not just have someone sneeze on them?” Don’t be ridiculous. Focus testers responded highly negatively to simply being handed a dirty tissue. The premium packaging and high price tag are a necessity.
Our advice? Well, as tempting as all this sounds, we think we’ll stick with washing our hands and not sticking used tissues in our faces. You know, like reasonable people.
Why Bullwinkle thinks pink
Flying squirrels are secretly doing their best flamingo impression – who knew? A forestry professor discovered, by happy accident, that flying squirrels are fluorescent – they glow hot pink under ultraviolet light.
Turns out, almost all species of gliders – even blue-helmeted Rocket “Rocky” J. Squirrel – are members of the Pink Ladies. They are one of the very few glowing mammals; the only other known mammalian species to have fluorescent fur are certain opossums.
But why do these airborne rodents glow pink? Is it because of an overintake of bubblegum? Are flying squirrels just really flamboyant but also shy? Are they huge fans of the singer Pink?
A biologist involved in studying these colorful critters hypothesized that the reason is slightly more related to environment than musical preference. Flying squirrels are nocturnal, making them most active when UV light is most prominent. The garish glow might have something to do with nighttime perception.
However, we don’t know the answer for sure. And in the meantime, we can choose to believe flying squirrels eat way too much cotton candy.
Buzz, feed, diet. Repeat
Guns don’t hurt this mass murderer. Police can’t arrest it. Background checks are pointless. A border wall won’t keep it out. So, how do you stop a mosquito?
Diet drugs.
Because female mosquitoes transmit malaria, Zika, and other diseases when they move from person to person feeding on human blood, investigators sought to curb that appetite by chemically re-creating the feeling of fullness they get after a big meal.
The lady killers in their study – Aedes aegypti, to be exact – when given an antiobesity drug that suppresses human appetite by activating neuropeptide receptors that regulate food intake, turned away from a tempting piece of nylon stocking that had been worn by one of the researchers. Further work showed that treated mosquitoes were as disinterested in feeding on a live mouse as mosquitoes that had already enjoyed a full blood meal.
The LOTME research staff (What? Of course, we have a research staff. You don’t?) is working on the mosquito problem too, although we’ve taken a somewhat different approach: The “volunteers” who walk into the mosquito-filled room wear a sign that says, “My blood will make your butt look bigger.”
Paint me like one of your French girls
If you’re trying to think of a fun Valentine’s activity, look no further than paint night! Normally associated with a ladies night out (and heavy on the wine), a recent study found that painting releases high levels of the “love hormone”, a.k.a. oxytocin, in men.
Researchers compared the levels of oxytocin with partners painting and partners playing board games, and were surprised by the results: While all the couples released oxytocin during these activities, men in paint class had the highest levels – twice as much as any other group.
Feel free to cite this study next time your man complains about being dragged to a paint-and-sip. Painting partners also experienced more touching than the gaming group (unless you count throwing Monopoly pieces at your significant other as touching).
You won’t get me sick, I’ll get me sick!
There are certain items that, after being used once, you really wouldn’t want to reuse. A snotty, mucus-filled tissue is pretty high up on that list ... or so you would hope. But that’s not thinking with real American entrepreneurial spirit! Welcome to Vaev Tissue, a startup based in Los Angeles that sells used tissues containing germs from a sick person for the bargain price of $79.99.
Yes, you read that correctly. They sell an $80 used tissue. The purpose, according to Vaev’s mission statement, is “to get sick on your own terms,” as “using a tissue that carries a human sneeze is safer than needles or pills.”
As you might expect, the tissues are popular with young parents and adults who are “critical” of vaccines. Who else could hear advice from actual doctors who told Time magazine that “there is nothing positive that can come from this, only things that are adverse,” or that the tissues are an “incredible liability,” and continue on, regardless?
And if you’re thinking, “If these people want to get sick, why not just have someone sneeze on them?” Don’t be ridiculous. Focus testers responded highly negatively to simply being handed a dirty tissue. The premium packaging and high price tag are a necessity.
Our advice? Well, as tempting as all this sounds, we think we’ll stick with washing our hands and not sticking used tissues in our faces. You know, like reasonable people.
Why Bullwinkle thinks pink
Flying squirrels are secretly doing their best flamingo impression – who knew? A forestry professor discovered, by happy accident, that flying squirrels are fluorescent – they glow hot pink under ultraviolet light.
Turns out, almost all species of gliders – even blue-helmeted Rocket “Rocky” J. Squirrel – are members of the Pink Ladies. They are one of the very few glowing mammals; the only other known mammalian species to have fluorescent fur are certain opossums.
But why do these airborne rodents glow pink? Is it because of an overintake of bubblegum? Are flying squirrels just really flamboyant but also shy? Are they huge fans of the singer Pink?
A biologist involved in studying these colorful critters hypothesized that the reason is slightly more related to environment than musical preference. Flying squirrels are nocturnal, making them most active when UV light is most prominent. The garish glow might have something to do with nighttime perception.
However, we don’t know the answer for sure. And in the meantime, we can choose to believe flying squirrels eat way too much cotton candy.
Buzz, feed, diet. Repeat
Guns don’t hurt this mass murderer. Police can’t arrest it. Background checks are pointless. A border wall won’t keep it out. So, how do you stop a mosquito?
Diet drugs.
Because female mosquitoes transmit malaria, Zika, and other diseases when they move from person to person feeding on human blood, investigators sought to curb that appetite by chemically re-creating the feeling of fullness they get after a big meal.
The lady killers in their study – Aedes aegypti, to be exact – when given an antiobesity drug that suppresses human appetite by activating neuropeptide receptors that regulate food intake, turned away from a tempting piece of nylon stocking that had been worn by one of the researchers. Further work showed that treated mosquitoes were as disinterested in feeding on a live mouse as mosquitoes that had already enjoyed a full blood meal.
The LOTME research staff (What? Of course, we have a research staff. You don’t?) is working on the mosquito problem too, although we’ve taken a somewhat different approach: The “volunteers” who walk into the mosquito-filled room wear a sign that says, “My blood will make your butt look bigger.”
Paint me like one of your French girls
If you’re trying to think of a fun Valentine’s activity, look no further than paint night! Normally associated with a ladies night out (and heavy on the wine), a recent study found that painting releases high levels of the “love hormone”, a.k.a. oxytocin, in men.
Researchers compared the levels of oxytocin with partners painting and partners playing board games, and were surprised by the results: While all the couples released oxytocin during these activities, men in paint class had the highest levels – twice as much as any other group.
Feel free to cite this study next time your man complains about being dragged to a paint-and-sip. Painting partners also experienced more touching than the gaming group (unless you count throwing Monopoly pieces at your significant other as touching).
You won’t get me sick, I’ll get me sick!
There are certain items that, after being used once, you really wouldn’t want to reuse. A snotty, mucus-filled tissue is pretty high up on that list ... or so you would hope. But that’s not thinking with real American entrepreneurial spirit! Welcome to Vaev Tissue, a startup based in Los Angeles that sells used tissues containing germs from a sick person for the bargain price of $79.99.
Yes, you read that correctly. They sell an $80 used tissue. The purpose, according to Vaev’s mission statement, is “to get sick on your own terms,” as “using a tissue that carries a human sneeze is safer than needles or pills.”
As you might expect, the tissues are popular with young parents and adults who are “critical” of vaccines. Who else could hear advice from actual doctors who told Time magazine that “there is nothing positive that can come from this, only things that are adverse,” or that the tissues are an “incredible liability,” and continue on, regardless?
And if you’re thinking, “If these people want to get sick, why not just have someone sneeze on them?” Don’t be ridiculous. Focus testers responded highly negatively to simply being handed a dirty tissue. The premium packaging and high price tag are a necessity.
Our advice? Well, as tempting as all this sounds, we think we’ll stick with washing our hands and not sticking used tissues in our faces. You know, like reasonable people.
Why Bullwinkle thinks pink
Flying squirrels are secretly doing their best flamingo impression – who knew? A forestry professor discovered, by happy accident, that flying squirrels are fluorescent – they glow hot pink under ultraviolet light.
Turns out, almost all species of gliders – even blue-helmeted Rocket “Rocky” J. Squirrel – are members of the Pink Ladies. They are one of the very few glowing mammals; the only other known mammalian species to have fluorescent fur are certain opossums.
But why do these airborne rodents glow pink? Is it because of an overintake of bubblegum? Are flying squirrels just really flamboyant but also shy? Are they huge fans of the singer Pink?
A biologist involved in studying these colorful critters hypothesized that the reason is slightly more related to environment than musical preference. Flying squirrels are nocturnal, making them most active when UV light is most prominent. The garish glow might have something to do with nighttime perception.
However, we don’t know the answer for sure. And in the meantime, we can choose to believe flying squirrels eat way too much cotton candy.
Buzz, feed, diet. Repeat
Guns don’t hurt this mass murderer. Police can’t arrest it. Background checks are pointless. A border wall won’t keep it out. So, how do you stop a mosquito?
Diet drugs.
Because female mosquitoes transmit malaria, Zika, and other diseases when they move from person to person feeding on human blood, investigators sought to curb that appetite by chemically re-creating the feeling of fullness they get after a big meal.
The lady killers in their study – Aedes aegypti, to be exact – when given an antiobesity drug that suppresses human appetite by activating neuropeptide receptors that regulate food intake, turned away from a tempting piece of nylon stocking that had been worn by one of the researchers. Further work showed that treated mosquitoes were as disinterested in feeding on a live mouse as mosquitoes that had already enjoyed a full blood meal.
The LOTME research staff (What? Of course, we have a research staff. You don’t?) is working on the mosquito problem too, although we’ve taken a somewhat different approach: The “volunteers” who walk into the mosquito-filled room wear a sign that says, “My blood will make your butt look bigger.”
What makes women leave surgical training?
LONDON – Being unable to take leave and experiencing poor mental health are just two of the reasons uncovered that may help explain why despite having wanted to be a surgeon for many years, a study of women in surgical training has found. The results were presented at a press briefing and published in a special edition of the Lancet.
These factors are in addition to some previously identified, such as the long working hours, fatigue and sleep deprivation, unpredictable lifestyle and its effects on maintaining personal relationships, and the ability to both start and maintain a family life. Then there are the more serious issues of sexism and discrimination, bullying, and sexual harassment and assault that women face in a still male-dominated field that have been noted in prior studies.
“Women are underrepresented in surgery and leave training in higher proportions than men,” study lead Rhea Liang, MBChB, and coauthors wrote (Lancet. 2019;393:541-9). Previous attempts to understand why this is the case “have been confounded by not fully understanding the problem,” they suggested in the briefing. Their research took a more qualitative and feminist approach than other studies, consulting women who had chosen to leave rather than those who continued their surgical training.
Dr. Liang is a consultant general and breast surgeon based at the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service in Robina, Australia, who personally interviewed women who had decided to leave their surgical training, some as early as 6 months and others up to 4 years after initiation, for reasons other than underperformance.
A “snowball approach” was used to recruit women whereby women who had agreed to participate were asked to refer others. Although only 12 women were interviewed, it’s quality over quantity, Dr. Liang said in a response to a Twitter comment on the study size. “The study is carried out in Australia where about 300 training places are offered across all the specialties annually. About 30% are women; 20% of those women choose to leave. So, if you do the maths, you’ll see that we actually recruited quite well,” she said at the briefing.
According to The Royal College of Practitioners, women made up a very small percentage of consultant surgeons in England in 2016 (11.1%), which didn’t change much by 2018 (12.2%). This is despite a high percentage (58%) of women being accepted onto university courses in medicine and dentistry (58% in 2016). So why so do so few women end up as surgeons?
“Training is a ‘pinch point’ at which women leave surgery,” Tim Dornan, PhD, noted at the launch of the special edition of the Lancet in which the findings appear. Dr. Dornan is professor of medical and interprofessional education at Queen’s University Belfast (Ireland) and one of the coauthors of the research.
This choice to leave surgery deprives society of able surgeons-to-be,” Dr. Dornan said, noting that there was evidence to suggest that women make as good, if not better, surgeons than men. The decision to leave also deprives women of career opportunities and potentially deprives patients of receiving the best surgical care.
“Something very striking about this research is that women who left within an average of 6-18 months after starting surgical training might have wanted to be surgeons from their teenage years, so it seems something happens at that pinch point which makes women to choose to leave.”
Qualitative research is a good way to understand causality in complex social systems, Dr. Dornan explained. Furthermore, “it’s equitable. If you use an open exploratory method, it’s entirely up to the participants to frame the research, it’s not done a priori, and it has the potential for great policy impact.”
Dr. Liang and team found that multiple factors played a role in the decision to leave surgical training, which on their own might be seemingly small, but when stacked on top of each other formed a tower, which was in danger of toppling after a threshold of three or four factors was reached. To exhaustion and lack of opportunity to learn, for example, could be added bullying, and then being denied leave while it is granted for a male colleague for a similar requested reason. The cumulative impact of these factors may all add up to create the impetus to leave.
“Just as a tower of blocks can rebalanced with small adjustments, out study indicates that relatively small interventions (e.g., a cup of tea or a supportive chat) could have been effective in preventing them choosing to leave,” she said.
However, they advocate targeting interventions at all trainees and not just women, to reduce gender differences as focusing on women would be more likely to exaggerate the “otherness” of women further and alienate male trainees. They suggest: “Women might be best helped by interventions that are alert to the possibility of unplanned negative effects, do not unduly focus on gender, and address multiple factors.”
“If you really want to benefit women you should benefit everybody and address the root problem, which is the harsh conditions of training,” Dr. Dornan said. “The prediction would be that, if you do that, then you will actually retain men as well as women.”
The research appears in a special edition of the Lancet that promotes advancing women in science, medicine, and global health.
SOURCE: Liang R et al. Lancet. 2019;393:541-9.
LONDON – Being unable to take leave and experiencing poor mental health are just two of the reasons uncovered that may help explain why despite having wanted to be a surgeon for many years, a study of women in surgical training has found. The results were presented at a press briefing and published in a special edition of the Lancet.
These factors are in addition to some previously identified, such as the long working hours, fatigue and sleep deprivation, unpredictable lifestyle and its effects on maintaining personal relationships, and the ability to both start and maintain a family life. Then there are the more serious issues of sexism and discrimination, bullying, and sexual harassment and assault that women face in a still male-dominated field that have been noted in prior studies.
“Women are underrepresented in surgery and leave training in higher proportions than men,” study lead Rhea Liang, MBChB, and coauthors wrote (Lancet. 2019;393:541-9). Previous attempts to understand why this is the case “have been confounded by not fully understanding the problem,” they suggested in the briefing. Their research took a more qualitative and feminist approach than other studies, consulting women who had chosen to leave rather than those who continued their surgical training.
Dr. Liang is a consultant general and breast surgeon based at the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service in Robina, Australia, who personally interviewed women who had decided to leave their surgical training, some as early as 6 months and others up to 4 years after initiation, for reasons other than underperformance.
A “snowball approach” was used to recruit women whereby women who had agreed to participate were asked to refer others. Although only 12 women were interviewed, it’s quality over quantity, Dr. Liang said in a response to a Twitter comment on the study size. “The study is carried out in Australia where about 300 training places are offered across all the specialties annually. About 30% are women; 20% of those women choose to leave. So, if you do the maths, you’ll see that we actually recruited quite well,” she said at the briefing.
According to The Royal College of Practitioners, women made up a very small percentage of consultant surgeons in England in 2016 (11.1%), which didn’t change much by 2018 (12.2%). This is despite a high percentage (58%) of women being accepted onto university courses in medicine and dentistry (58% in 2016). So why so do so few women end up as surgeons?
“Training is a ‘pinch point’ at which women leave surgery,” Tim Dornan, PhD, noted at the launch of the special edition of the Lancet in which the findings appear. Dr. Dornan is professor of medical and interprofessional education at Queen’s University Belfast (Ireland) and one of the coauthors of the research.
This choice to leave surgery deprives society of able surgeons-to-be,” Dr. Dornan said, noting that there was evidence to suggest that women make as good, if not better, surgeons than men. The decision to leave also deprives women of career opportunities and potentially deprives patients of receiving the best surgical care.
“Something very striking about this research is that women who left within an average of 6-18 months after starting surgical training might have wanted to be surgeons from their teenage years, so it seems something happens at that pinch point which makes women to choose to leave.”
Qualitative research is a good way to understand causality in complex social systems, Dr. Dornan explained. Furthermore, “it’s equitable. If you use an open exploratory method, it’s entirely up to the participants to frame the research, it’s not done a priori, and it has the potential for great policy impact.”
Dr. Liang and team found that multiple factors played a role in the decision to leave surgical training, which on their own might be seemingly small, but when stacked on top of each other formed a tower, which was in danger of toppling after a threshold of three or four factors was reached. To exhaustion and lack of opportunity to learn, for example, could be added bullying, and then being denied leave while it is granted for a male colleague for a similar requested reason. The cumulative impact of these factors may all add up to create the impetus to leave.
“Just as a tower of blocks can rebalanced with small adjustments, out study indicates that relatively small interventions (e.g., a cup of tea or a supportive chat) could have been effective in preventing them choosing to leave,” she said.
However, they advocate targeting interventions at all trainees and not just women, to reduce gender differences as focusing on women would be more likely to exaggerate the “otherness” of women further and alienate male trainees. They suggest: “Women might be best helped by interventions that are alert to the possibility of unplanned negative effects, do not unduly focus on gender, and address multiple factors.”
“If you really want to benefit women you should benefit everybody and address the root problem, which is the harsh conditions of training,” Dr. Dornan said. “The prediction would be that, if you do that, then you will actually retain men as well as women.”
The research appears in a special edition of the Lancet that promotes advancing women in science, medicine, and global health.
SOURCE: Liang R et al. Lancet. 2019;393:541-9.
LONDON – Being unable to take leave and experiencing poor mental health are just two of the reasons uncovered that may help explain why despite having wanted to be a surgeon for many years, a study of women in surgical training has found. The results were presented at a press briefing and published in a special edition of the Lancet.
These factors are in addition to some previously identified, such as the long working hours, fatigue and sleep deprivation, unpredictable lifestyle and its effects on maintaining personal relationships, and the ability to both start and maintain a family life. Then there are the more serious issues of sexism and discrimination, bullying, and sexual harassment and assault that women face in a still male-dominated field that have been noted in prior studies.
“Women are underrepresented in surgery and leave training in higher proportions than men,” study lead Rhea Liang, MBChB, and coauthors wrote (Lancet. 2019;393:541-9). Previous attempts to understand why this is the case “have been confounded by not fully understanding the problem,” they suggested in the briefing. Their research took a more qualitative and feminist approach than other studies, consulting women who had chosen to leave rather than those who continued their surgical training.
Dr. Liang is a consultant general and breast surgeon based at the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service in Robina, Australia, who personally interviewed women who had decided to leave their surgical training, some as early as 6 months and others up to 4 years after initiation, for reasons other than underperformance.
A “snowball approach” was used to recruit women whereby women who had agreed to participate were asked to refer others. Although only 12 women were interviewed, it’s quality over quantity, Dr. Liang said in a response to a Twitter comment on the study size. “The study is carried out in Australia where about 300 training places are offered across all the specialties annually. About 30% are women; 20% of those women choose to leave. So, if you do the maths, you’ll see that we actually recruited quite well,” she said at the briefing.
According to The Royal College of Practitioners, women made up a very small percentage of consultant surgeons in England in 2016 (11.1%), which didn’t change much by 2018 (12.2%). This is despite a high percentage (58%) of women being accepted onto university courses in medicine and dentistry (58% in 2016). So why so do so few women end up as surgeons?
“Training is a ‘pinch point’ at which women leave surgery,” Tim Dornan, PhD, noted at the launch of the special edition of the Lancet in which the findings appear. Dr. Dornan is professor of medical and interprofessional education at Queen’s University Belfast (Ireland) and one of the coauthors of the research.
This choice to leave surgery deprives society of able surgeons-to-be,” Dr. Dornan said, noting that there was evidence to suggest that women make as good, if not better, surgeons than men. The decision to leave also deprives women of career opportunities and potentially deprives patients of receiving the best surgical care.
“Something very striking about this research is that women who left within an average of 6-18 months after starting surgical training might have wanted to be surgeons from their teenage years, so it seems something happens at that pinch point which makes women to choose to leave.”
Qualitative research is a good way to understand causality in complex social systems, Dr. Dornan explained. Furthermore, “it’s equitable. If you use an open exploratory method, it’s entirely up to the participants to frame the research, it’s not done a priori, and it has the potential for great policy impact.”
Dr. Liang and team found that multiple factors played a role in the decision to leave surgical training, which on their own might be seemingly small, but when stacked on top of each other formed a tower, which was in danger of toppling after a threshold of three or four factors was reached. To exhaustion and lack of opportunity to learn, for example, could be added bullying, and then being denied leave while it is granted for a male colleague for a similar requested reason. The cumulative impact of these factors may all add up to create the impetus to leave.
“Just as a tower of blocks can rebalanced with small adjustments, out study indicates that relatively small interventions (e.g., a cup of tea or a supportive chat) could have been effective in preventing them choosing to leave,” she said.
However, they advocate targeting interventions at all trainees and not just women, to reduce gender differences as focusing on women would be more likely to exaggerate the “otherness” of women further and alienate male trainees. They suggest: “Women might be best helped by interventions that are alert to the possibility of unplanned negative effects, do not unduly focus on gender, and address multiple factors.”
“If you really want to benefit women you should benefit everybody and address the root problem, which is the harsh conditions of training,” Dr. Dornan said. “The prediction would be that, if you do that, then you will actually retain men as well as women.”
The research appears in a special edition of the Lancet that promotes advancing women in science, medicine, and global health.
SOURCE: Liang R et al. Lancet. 2019;393:541-9.
FROM A LAUNCH EVENT HELD BY THE LANCET
Key clinical point: Women leave surgical training for multiple reasons; interventions should focus on surgical training conditions not gender.
Major finding: Six new reasons identified: unavailability of leave; a distinction between valid and invalid reasons for leave; poor mental health; absence of interactions with women in surgery section and other supports; fear of repercussion; lack of pathways for independent and specific support.
Study details: Qualitative study of 12 women who chose to leave their surgical training after 6 months to 4 years.
Disclosures: No financial conflicts of interest were reported.
Source: Liang R et al. Lancet. 2019;393:541-9.
Fund projects, not people to address gender bias in research funding
LONDON – Female investigators are less likely to secure research funding than male investigators, not because their proposed project is of lesser scientific merit, but simply because they are women, according to research published in The Lancet.
Women had a 30% lower chance of success in getting funding for a project than did their male counterparts when the caliber of the principal investigator was considered as an explicit part of the grant application process, with an 8.8% probability of getting funded versus 12.7%, respectively. If the application was considered solely on a project basis, however, the gender bias was less (12.1% vs. 12.9%).
The overall success of grant applications was 15.8% in the analysis, which considered almost 24,000 grant applications from more than 7,000 principal investigators submitted to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) between 2011 and 2016.
“I see our study as basically one good thwack in a long game of whack-a-mole,” lead study author Holly O. Witteman, PhD, said during an event to launch a special edition of The Lancet focusing on advancing women in science, medicine, and global health.
Dr. Witteman’s research is one of three original articles included in the thematic issue that brings together female authors and commentators to look at gender equity and what needs to be done to address imbalances. The issue is the result of a call for papers that led to more than 300 submissions from more than 40 countries and, according to an editorial from The Lancet, highlights that gender equity in medicine “is not only a matter of justice and rights, it is crucial for producing the best research and providing the best care to patients.”
That there are discrepancies in research funding awarded to female and male investigators has been known for years, Dr. Witteman, associate professor of family and emergency medicine at Laval University, Quebec City, said at the London press conference. To learn how and why, a “quasiexperimental” approach was used to find out what factors might be influencing the gender gap.
“Women are scored lower for competence compared to men with the same publication record,” she said. It’s not that they publish less or do easier research, or that the quality is lower, they are just viewed less favorably overall throughout their careers. Even when you control for confounding factors, “they still don’t advance as quickly,” she said.
“It had been documented for a while that, overall, women tend to get less grant funding and there hasn’t been any evidence to show either way if maybe women’s grant applications weren’t as good,” Dr. Witteman explained.
In 2014, the CIHR changed the way it funded research projects, creating a “natural experiment.” Two new grant application programs were put in place which largely differed by whether or not an explicit review of the principal investigator and their ability to conduct the research was included.
Adjusting for age and type of research, Dr. Witteman and her coauthors found that there was little difference in the success of women in securing research funding when their grant applications were judged solely on a scientific basis; however, when the focus was placed on the principal investigator, women were disadvantaged.
Dr. Witteman said that “this provides robust evidence in support of the idea that women write equally good grant applications but aren’t evaluated as being equally good scientists.”
So how to redress the balance? Dr. Witteman suggested that one way was for funders to collect robust evidence on the success of grant applications and be transparent who is getting funded and how much funding is being awarded. Institutions should invest in and support young investigators, distributing power and flattening traditionally male-led hierarchies. Salaries should be aligned and research support evened out, she said.
Investigators themselves also have a role to play to do the best possible work and try to change the system. “Advocate for others,” she said. That included advocating for others in groups that you may not be part of – which can be easier in some respects than advocating for a group that you are in.
“Funders should evaluate projects, not people,” Jennifer L. Raymond, PhD, and Miriam B. Goodman, PhD, both professors at Stanford (Calif.) University wrote in a comment in The Lancet special issue. They suggested that people-based funding had been gaining popularity but that funders would be better off funding by project to achieve scientific and clinical goals. “Assess the investigator only after double-blind review of the proposed research is complete,” they suggested. “Reduce the assessment of the investigator to a binary judgment of whether or not the investigator has the expertise and resources needed do the proposed research.”
During a panel discussion at The Lancet event, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, PhD, associate professor of informatics at Indiana University in Bloomington and a program director for the Science and Innovation Policy Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) observed that data on gender equality in research funding were already being collected and will be used to determine how best to adjust funding policies.
“Looking from the 1980s to the present, women make up shy of 20% of the funds given by the National Science Foundation,” Dr. Sugimoto said. “That’s improved over time, and it’s at 28% currently, which is less than their authorship.”
Tammy Clifford, PhD, vice president of research programs at the CIHR observed that data collection was “a critically important step, but of course that’s not the only step,” she said. “We need to look at and analyze the data regularly, and then when you see things that are not on track, you make changes.”
One of the changes the CIHR has made is to train people who are reviewing grant applications on factors that may unconsciously affect their decisions. “There are things to be done, and I don’t think we are quite there yet, but we are committed to continually looking at those data, to making the changes that are required.”
Representing the Wellcome Trust, Ed Whiting, director of policy and chief of staff, said that the funding of projects led by female investigators was moving in the right direction. He noted that there was still a lower rate of applications from women for senior award levels, but that the panels that decide upon the funding were moving toward equal gender representation. The aim was to get to a 50/50 female to male ratio on the panels by 2020, he said; it is was at 46%-52% in 2018.
Dr. Witteman and all other commentators had no financial disclosures.
SOURCE: Witteman HO et al. Lancet. 2019. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32611-4
LONDON – Female investigators are less likely to secure research funding than male investigators, not because their proposed project is of lesser scientific merit, but simply because they are women, according to research published in The Lancet.
Women had a 30% lower chance of success in getting funding for a project than did their male counterparts when the caliber of the principal investigator was considered as an explicit part of the grant application process, with an 8.8% probability of getting funded versus 12.7%, respectively. If the application was considered solely on a project basis, however, the gender bias was less (12.1% vs. 12.9%).
The overall success of grant applications was 15.8% in the analysis, which considered almost 24,000 grant applications from more than 7,000 principal investigators submitted to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) between 2011 and 2016.
“I see our study as basically one good thwack in a long game of whack-a-mole,” lead study author Holly O. Witteman, PhD, said during an event to launch a special edition of The Lancet focusing on advancing women in science, medicine, and global health.
Dr. Witteman’s research is one of three original articles included in the thematic issue that brings together female authors and commentators to look at gender equity and what needs to be done to address imbalances. The issue is the result of a call for papers that led to more than 300 submissions from more than 40 countries and, according to an editorial from The Lancet, highlights that gender equity in medicine “is not only a matter of justice and rights, it is crucial for producing the best research and providing the best care to patients.”
That there are discrepancies in research funding awarded to female and male investigators has been known for years, Dr. Witteman, associate professor of family and emergency medicine at Laval University, Quebec City, said at the London press conference. To learn how and why, a “quasiexperimental” approach was used to find out what factors might be influencing the gender gap.
“Women are scored lower for competence compared to men with the same publication record,” she said. It’s not that they publish less or do easier research, or that the quality is lower, they are just viewed less favorably overall throughout their careers. Even when you control for confounding factors, “they still don’t advance as quickly,” she said.
“It had been documented for a while that, overall, women tend to get less grant funding and there hasn’t been any evidence to show either way if maybe women’s grant applications weren’t as good,” Dr. Witteman explained.
In 2014, the CIHR changed the way it funded research projects, creating a “natural experiment.” Two new grant application programs were put in place which largely differed by whether or not an explicit review of the principal investigator and their ability to conduct the research was included.
Adjusting for age and type of research, Dr. Witteman and her coauthors found that there was little difference in the success of women in securing research funding when their grant applications were judged solely on a scientific basis; however, when the focus was placed on the principal investigator, women were disadvantaged.
Dr. Witteman said that “this provides robust evidence in support of the idea that women write equally good grant applications but aren’t evaluated as being equally good scientists.”
So how to redress the balance? Dr. Witteman suggested that one way was for funders to collect robust evidence on the success of grant applications and be transparent who is getting funded and how much funding is being awarded. Institutions should invest in and support young investigators, distributing power and flattening traditionally male-led hierarchies. Salaries should be aligned and research support evened out, she said.
Investigators themselves also have a role to play to do the best possible work and try to change the system. “Advocate for others,” she said. That included advocating for others in groups that you may not be part of – which can be easier in some respects than advocating for a group that you are in.
“Funders should evaluate projects, not people,” Jennifer L. Raymond, PhD, and Miriam B. Goodman, PhD, both professors at Stanford (Calif.) University wrote in a comment in The Lancet special issue. They suggested that people-based funding had been gaining popularity but that funders would be better off funding by project to achieve scientific and clinical goals. “Assess the investigator only after double-blind review of the proposed research is complete,” they suggested. “Reduce the assessment of the investigator to a binary judgment of whether or not the investigator has the expertise and resources needed do the proposed research.”
During a panel discussion at The Lancet event, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, PhD, associate professor of informatics at Indiana University in Bloomington and a program director for the Science and Innovation Policy Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) observed that data on gender equality in research funding were already being collected and will be used to determine how best to adjust funding policies.
“Looking from the 1980s to the present, women make up shy of 20% of the funds given by the National Science Foundation,” Dr. Sugimoto said. “That’s improved over time, and it’s at 28% currently, which is less than their authorship.”
Tammy Clifford, PhD, vice president of research programs at the CIHR observed that data collection was “a critically important step, but of course that’s not the only step,” she said. “We need to look at and analyze the data regularly, and then when you see things that are not on track, you make changes.”
One of the changes the CIHR has made is to train people who are reviewing grant applications on factors that may unconsciously affect their decisions. “There are things to be done, and I don’t think we are quite there yet, but we are committed to continually looking at those data, to making the changes that are required.”
Representing the Wellcome Trust, Ed Whiting, director of policy and chief of staff, said that the funding of projects led by female investigators was moving in the right direction. He noted that there was still a lower rate of applications from women for senior award levels, but that the panels that decide upon the funding were moving toward equal gender representation. The aim was to get to a 50/50 female to male ratio on the panels by 2020, he said; it is was at 46%-52% in 2018.
Dr. Witteman and all other commentators had no financial disclosures.
SOURCE: Witteman HO et al. Lancet. 2019. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32611-4
LONDON – Female investigators are less likely to secure research funding than male investigators, not because their proposed project is of lesser scientific merit, but simply because they are women, according to research published in The Lancet.
Women had a 30% lower chance of success in getting funding for a project than did their male counterparts when the caliber of the principal investigator was considered as an explicit part of the grant application process, with an 8.8% probability of getting funded versus 12.7%, respectively. If the application was considered solely on a project basis, however, the gender bias was less (12.1% vs. 12.9%).
The overall success of grant applications was 15.8% in the analysis, which considered almost 24,000 grant applications from more than 7,000 principal investigators submitted to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) between 2011 and 2016.
“I see our study as basically one good thwack in a long game of whack-a-mole,” lead study author Holly O. Witteman, PhD, said during an event to launch a special edition of The Lancet focusing on advancing women in science, medicine, and global health.
Dr. Witteman’s research is one of three original articles included in the thematic issue that brings together female authors and commentators to look at gender equity and what needs to be done to address imbalances. The issue is the result of a call for papers that led to more than 300 submissions from more than 40 countries and, according to an editorial from The Lancet, highlights that gender equity in medicine “is not only a matter of justice and rights, it is crucial for producing the best research and providing the best care to patients.”
That there are discrepancies in research funding awarded to female and male investigators has been known for years, Dr. Witteman, associate professor of family and emergency medicine at Laval University, Quebec City, said at the London press conference. To learn how and why, a “quasiexperimental” approach was used to find out what factors might be influencing the gender gap.
“Women are scored lower for competence compared to men with the same publication record,” she said. It’s not that they publish less or do easier research, or that the quality is lower, they are just viewed less favorably overall throughout their careers. Even when you control for confounding factors, “they still don’t advance as quickly,” she said.
“It had been documented for a while that, overall, women tend to get less grant funding and there hasn’t been any evidence to show either way if maybe women’s grant applications weren’t as good,” Dr. Witteman explained.
In 2014, the CIHR changed the way it funded research projects, creating a “natural experiment.” Two new grant application programs were put in place which largely differed by whether or not an explicit review of the principal investigator and their ability to conduct the research was included.
Adjusting for age and type of research, Dr. Witteman and her coauthors found that there was little difference in the success of women in securing research funding when their grant applications were judged solely on a scientific basis; however, when the focus was placed on the principal investigator, women were disadvantaged.
Dr. Witteman said that “this provides robust evidence in support of the idea that women write equally good grant applications but aren’t evaluated as being equally good scientists.”
So how to redress the balance? Dr. Witteman suggested that one way was for funders to collect robust evidence on the success of grant applications and be transparent who is getting funded and how much funding is being awarded. Institutions should invest in and support young investigators, distributing power and flattening traditionally male-led hierarchies. Salaries should be aligned and research support evened out, she said.
Investigators themselves also have a role to play to do the best possible work and try to change the system. “Advocate for others,” she said. That included advocating for others in groups that you may not be part of – which can be easier in some respects than advocating for a group that you are in.
“Funders should evaluate projects, not people,” Jennifer L. Raymond, PhD, and Miriam B. Goodman, PhD, both professors at Stanford (Calif.) University wrote in a comment in The Lancet special issue. They suggested that people-based funding had been gaining popularity but that funders would be better off funding by project to achieve scientific and clinical goals. “Assess the investigator only after double-blind review of the proposed research is complete,” they suggested. “Reduce the assessment of the investigator to a binary judgment of whether or not the investigator has the expertise and resources needed do the proposed research.”
During a panel discussion at The Lancet event, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, PhD, associate professor of informatics at Indiana University in Bloomington and a program director for the Science and Innovation Policy Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) observed that data on gender equality in research funding were already being collected and will be used to determine how best to adjust funding policies.
“Looking from the 1980s to the present, women make up shy of 20% of the funds given by the National Science Foundation,” Dr. Sugimoto said. “That’s improved over time, and it’s at 28% currently, which is less than their authorship.”
Tammy Clifford, PhD, vice president of research programs at the CIHR observed that data collection was “a critically important step, but of course that’s not the only step,” she said. “We need to look at and analyze the data regularly, and then when you see things that are not on track, you make changes.”
One of the changes the CIHR has made is to train people who are reviewing grant applications on factors that may unconsciously affect their decisions. “There are things to be done, and I don’t think we are quite there yet, but we are committed to continually looking at those data, to making the changes that are required.”
Representing the Wellcome Trust, Ed Whiting, director of policy and chief of staff, said that the funding of projects led by female investigators was moving in the right direction. He noted that there was still a lower rate of applications from women for senior award levels, but that the panels that decide upon the funding were moving toward equal gender representation. The aim was to get to a 50/50 female to male ratio on the panels by 2020, he said; it is was at 46%-52% in 2018.
Dr. Witteman and all other commentators had no financial disclosures.
SOURCE: Witteman HO et al. Lancet. 2019. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32611-4
FROM A LAUNCH EVENT HELD BY THE LANCET
Key clinical point: Funding bodies should focus on the science of a research project not on who is conducting the research.
Major finding: Between 2011 and 2016, 8.8% of projects proposed by female researchers and 12.7% of those proposed by male researchers were funded.
Study details: Analysis of nearly 24,000 grant applications from more than 7,000 principal investigators submitted to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research during 2011-2016.
Disclosures: The research was unfunded. Dr. Witteman and all other commentators had no financial disclosures.
Source: Witteman HO et al. Lancet. 2019. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32611-4.
Getting a good night’s sleep
For most things, the harder you work at it, the more successful you’ll be. Except when it comes to sleep. Nothing frightens sleep away faster than an all-out effort to find it. And yet, it should be the easiest of all health habits to cultivate. Sleep should be a hardwired, physiologic, default condition (sort of like eating and sex, all are which are evolutionary imperatives). And yet, lack of sleep is a common and grave problem even in our safe and comfortable modern environment.
Lack of sleep depletes your willpower, making it less likely you’ll actually go to the gym or be able to resist that bear claw pastry calling you back to the break room. Poor sleep impairs your ability to lose and keep off weight. It can lead to mistakes of inattention – a problem if you’re flying a plane or screening for melanoma.
As a recovering insomniac, I’ve scouted out the territory for you and have taken a few notes as a Baedeker on your journey to better sleep. Tracking sleep is easy; most any fitness tracker or smart watch outfitted with the right app will do the work for you. I’ve used my Apple Watch and Pillow for years. (I’ve no conflict of interest). I’ve found that the quality score it provides each night is interesting, but not all that important. Using pad and paper you could just as easily quantify your sleep: How many hours were you in bed, asleep, and how did you feel the next day.
Here is something important I learned about myself: I don’t need 8 hours. You might not either. Most articles say that we adults need 7-8 hours of sleep. I wasted a lot of effort trying to keep it above the 7-hour mark. Then I realized that even on nights when I got 6-7, I felt fine the next day! Don’t assume you need 8 hours. It could be 6 or it could be 9. It might in fact change depending on how you slept recently, what is happening in your life, or which season it is. If you feel alert and well rested, then you’ve likely found all the sleep you need.
Let’s assume you aren’t well rested. Now what? Like most of good health, a behavioral approach is needed to get you on the right path. You’ve likely heard that bright, particularly blue, light is harmful to falling asleep. Good news! Most devices will let you filter blue light out if you must continue that “Better Call Saul” binge. Better options: Leave your tablet in the living room and plug in your phone on the opposite side of the room (with a short cord). Invest instead in a book light and actual books. There is something about the patina of paper that can encourage sleep to come find you.
Keep the room comfortably cool. What’s important here is the temperature drop. That is, going from warm to cool. This is why a warm shower or bath before getting into bed can help you. Your temperature will drop, a signal for sleep.
So now you’re asleep. But wait, you say you’re awake again and it’s 3:00 a.m.? This is sleep maintenance insomnia. You lie there, patiently waiting, like anticipating your waiter’s return when you’re eating in Rome – ah, you could be there all night. Nothing you do seems to bring sleep back around. The best advice is to try to retrain yourself that when you are up, you’re up, and when in bed, you’re asleep. You can try getting up, moving to a different room. Try meditation or reading. Wait until you feel the urge to sleep sneak back on you, then head back to bed. Although sometimes difficult, you might consider riding it out. If you can’t fall back, then get on with your day (although I don’t recommend sending emails at 3:45 a.m., it freaks people out, I’ve learned). The following night, you will likely be sleep deprived and might find you can fall asleep easier and for longer.
Be forgiving. Unlike your diet or exercise, sleep isn’t as much in your control. You can work a little harder in spin, or double your effort to keep to your plant/keto diet. But for sleep, you must just be patient. It will come. When it is good and ready.
Dr. Benabio is director of Healthcare Transformation and chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego. The opinions expressed in this column are his own and do not represent those of Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter. Write to him at dermnews@mdedge.com.
For most things, the harder you work at it, the more successful you’ll be. Except when it comes to sleep. Nothing frightens sleep away faster than an all-out effort to find it. And yet, it should be the easiest of all health habits to cultivate. Sleep should be a hardwired, physiologic, default condition (sort of like eating and sex, all are which are evolutionary imperatives). And yet, lack of sleep is a common and grave problem even in our safe and comfortable modern environment.
Lack of sleep depletes your willpower, making it less likely you’ll actually go to the gym or be able to resist that bear claw pastry calling you back to the break room. Poor sleep impairs your ability to lose and keep off weight. It can lead to mistakes of inattention – a problem if you’re flying a plane or screening for melanoma.
As a recovering insomniac, I’ve scouted out the territory for you and have taken a few notes as a Baedeker on your journey to better sleep. Tracking sleep is easy; most any fitness tracker or smart watch outfitted with the right app will do the work for you. I’ve used my Apple Watch and Pillow for years. (I’ve no conflict of interest). I’ve found that the quality score it provides each night is interesting, but not all that important. Using pad and paper you could just as easily quantify your sleep: How many hours were you in bed, asleep, and how did you feel the next day.
Here is something important I learned about myself: I don’t need 8 hours. You might not either. Most articles say that we adults need 7-8 hours of sleep. I wasted a lot of effort trying to keep it above the 7-hour mark. Then I realized that even on nights when I got 6-7, I felt fine the next day! Don’t assume you need 8 hours. It could be 6 or it could be 9. It might in fact change depending on how you slept recently, what is happening in your life, or which season it is. If you feel alert and well rested, then you’ve likely found all the sleep you need.
Let’s assume you aren’t well rested. Now what? Like most of good health, a behavioral approach is needed to get you on the right path. You’ve likely heard that bright, particularly blue, light is harmful to falling asleep. Good news! Most devices will let you filter blue light out if you must continue that “Better Call Saul” binge. Better options: Leave your tablet in the living room and plug in your phone on the opposite side of the room (with a short cord). Invest instead in a book light and actual books. There is something about the patina of paper that can encourage sleep to come find you.
Keep the room comfortably cool. What’s important here is the temperature drop. That is, going from warm to cool. This is why a warm shower or bath before getting into bed can help you. Your temperature will drop, a signal for sleep.
So now you’re asleep. But wait, you say you’re awake again and it’s 3:00 a.m.? This is sleep maintenance insomnia. You lie there, patiently waiting, like anticipating your waiter’s return when you’re eating in Rome – ah, you could be there all night. Nothing you do seems to bring sleep back around. The best advice is to try to retrain yourself that when you are up, you’re up, and when in bed, you’re asleep. You can try getting up, moving to a different room. Try meditation or reading. Wait until you feel the urge to sleep sneak back on you, then head back to bed. Although sometimes difficult, you might consider riding it out. If you can’t fall back, then get on with your day (although I don’t recommend sending emails at 3:45 a.m., it freaks people out, I’ve learned). The following night, you will likely be sleep deprived and might find you can fall asleep easier and for longer.
Be forgiving. Unlike your diet or exercise, sleep isn’t as much in your control. You can work a little harder in spin, or double your effort to keep to your plant/keto diet. But for sleep, you must just be patient. It will come. When it is good and ready.
Dr. Benabio is director of Healthcare Transformation and chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego. The opinions expressed in this column are his own and do not represent those of Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter. Write to him at dermnews@mdedge.com.
For most things, the harder you work at it, the more successful you’ll be. Except when it comes to sleep. Nothing frightens sleep away faster than an all-out effort to find it. And yet, it should be the easiest of all health habits to cultivate. Sleep should be a hardwired, physiologic, default condition (sort of like eating and sex, all are which are evolutionary imperatives). And yet, lack of sleep is a common and grave problem even in our safe and comfortable modern environment.
Lack of sleep depletes your willpower, making it less likely you’ll actually go to the gym or be able to resist that bear claw pastry calling you back to the break room. Poor sleep impairs your ability to lose and keep off weight. It can lead to mistakes of inattention – a problem if you’re flying a plane or screening for melanoma.
As a recovering insomniac, I’ve scouted out the territory for you and have taken a few notes as a Baedeker on your journey to better sleep. Tracking sleep is easy; most any fitness tracker or smart watch outfitted with the right app will do the work for you. I’ve used my Apple Watch and Pillow for years. (I’ve no conflict of interest). I’ve found that the quality score it provides each night is interesting, but not all that important. Using pad and paper you could just as easily quantify your sleep: How many hours were you in bed, asleep, and how did you feel the next day.
Here is something important I learned about myself: I don’t need 8 hours. You might not either. Most articles say that we adults need 7-8 hours of sleep. I wasted a lot of effort trying to keep it above the 7-hour mark. Then I realized that even on nights when I got 6-7, I felt fine the next day! Don’t assume you need 8 hours. It could be 6 or it could be 9. It might in fact change depending on how you slept recently, what is happening in your life, or which season it is. If you feel alert and well rested, then you’ve likely found all the sleep you need.
Let’s assume you aren’t well rested. Now what? Like most of good health, a behavioral approach is needed to get you on the right path. You’ve likely heard that bright, particularly blue, light is harmful to falling asleep. Good news! Most devices will let you filter blue light out if you must continue that “Better Call Saul” binge. Better options: Leave your tablet in the living room and plug in your phone on the opposite side of the room (with a short cord). Invest instead in a book light and actual books. There is something about the patina of paper that can encourage sleep to come find you.
Keep the room comfortably cool. What’s important here is the temperature drop. That is, going from warm to cool. This is why a warm shower or bath before getting into bed can help you. Your temperature will drop, a signal for sleep.
So now you’re asleep. But wait, you say you’re awake again and it’s 3:00 a.m.? This is sleep maintenance insomnia. You lie there, patiently waiting, like anticipating your waiter’s return when you’re eating in Rome – ah, you could be there all night. Nothing you do seems to bring sleep back around. The best advice is to try to retrain yourself that when you are up, you’re up, and when in bed, you’re asleep. You can try getting up, moving to a different room. Try meditation or reading. Wait until you feel the urge to sleep sneak back on you, then head back to bed. Although sometimes difficult, you might consider riding it out. If you can’t fall back, then get on with your day (although I don’t recommend sending emails at 3:45 a.m., it freaks people out, I’ve learned). The following night, you will likely be sleep deprived and might find you can fall asleep easier and for longer.
Be forgiving. Unlike your diet or exercise, sleep isn’t as much in your control. You can work a little harder in spin, or double your effort to keep to your plant/keto diet. But for sleep, you must just be patient. It will come. When it is good and ready.
Dr. Benabio is director of Healthcare Transformation and chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego. The opinions expressed in this column are his own and do not represent those of Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Benabio is @Dermdoc on Twitter. Write to him at dermnews@mdedge.com.
In search of an ear
On our way up north to go backcountry skiing with another couple, we stopped at a roadside restaurant/tavern for lunch. We seated ourselves and, after a long 10 minutes, our waitperson arrived like a tornado, looking frazzled. She offered an apology and the first installment of her tale of woe. Before taking our order, she explained it all began when her car wouldn’t start, and then her day care provider called to say that she was sick and our server would have to find some other arrangement for the day. When our meal finally arrived, it looked appetizing but didn’t quite match our order. Again, our waitperson apologized, adding that it has been a particularly hard week because her husband was out of town and not around to help with her three children.
Had we been dining at a high-end restaurant with a white tablecloth and a candle, we would have considered our server’s behavior unprofessional and off-putting. However, we were in no hurry as the light snow had turned to a ski-unfriendly drizzle. While our original intent had been to simply have lunch, we accepted our role as a sympathetic audience for this unfortunate woman. In fact, we asked a few open-ended questions to help the cathartic process along.
The need to share one’s troubles seems to be a universal human trait. Our server had no illusions that we were going to provide any solutions to her problems. Nor was she seeking any expression of sympathy beyond our patience. However, I’m sure that unburdening herself by telling the story made her feel better, at least temporarily. Hopefully, there would be additional understanding diners to help her through the day.
For many people, the workplace serves as a therapeutic outlet where they can share their troubles and concerns. At times, the whining can be annoying to coworkers but in general, woe sharing is a harmless and valuable perk of having a job. Unless, of course, one’s job is primarily serving the public.
As physicians we are accustomed listening to our patients’ troubles. However, our job is not one of those that affords much opportunity to unburden ourselves of our own concerns. The patients assume that we are the problem solvers and don’t have any of our own. Or, if we do have some troubles, their office visit is not the time for us to share them.
The occasional sharing, such as that we are running late because we’ve had a flat on the way to the office, is harmless and can remind patients that we are human. But one must be careful stay off the slippery slope that leads to unprofessional oversharing.
Without that luxury of a workplace that allows for occasional catharsis, physicians have an additional risk for burnout. There are no easy solutions. Sharing with patients is unprofessional. Our peers are as busy as we are and probably don’t have the time to listen. Or at least they don’t seem to have the time. And then there is that ego-vulnerability issue where we are hesitant to reveal to anyone, be they staff or peers, that we have a soft underbelly.
I don’t have any easy answers to the problem beyond the usual suggestion that, Personally, I have to admit that, when my bad day was the result of an accumulation of minor bumps, I would follow our waitperson’s example and share them selectively with patients whom I deluded myself into believing had the time and concern to listen. It probably was unprofessional, but it made me feel better.
Dr. Wilkoff practiced primary care pediatrics in Brunswick, Maine, for nearly 40 years. He has authored several books on behavioral pediatrics, including “How to Say No to Your Toddler.” Email him at pdnews@mdedge.com.
On our way up north to go backcountry skiing with another couple, we stopped at a roadside restaurant/tavern for lunch. We seated ourselves and, after a long 10 minutes, our waitperson arrived like a tornado, looking frazzled. She offered an apology and the first installment of her tale of woe. Before taking our order, she explained it all began when her car wouldn’t start, and then her day care provider called to say that she was sick and our server would have to find some other arrangement for the day. When our meal finally arrived, it looked appetizing but didn’t quite match our order. Again, our waitperson apologized, adding that it has been a particularly hard week because her husband was out of town and not around to help with her three children.
Had we been dining at a high-end restaurant with a white tablecloth and a candle, we would have considered our server’s behavior unprofessional and off-putting. However, we were in no hurry as the light snow had turned to a ski-unfriendly drizzle. While our original intent had been to simply have lunch, we accepted our role as a sympathetic audience for this unfortunate woman. In fact, we asked a few open-ended questions to help the cathartic process along.
The need to share one’s troubles seems to be a universal human trait. Our server had no illusions that we were going to provide any solutions to her problems. Nor was she seeking any expression of sympathy beyond our patience. However, I’m sure that unburdening herself by telling the story made her feel better, at least temporarily. Hopefully, there would be additional understanding diners to help her through the day.
For many people, the workplace serves as a therapeutic outlet where they can share their troubles and concerns. At times, the whining can be annoying to coworkers but in general, woe sharing is a harmless and valuable perk of having a job. Unless, of course, one’s job is primarily serving the public.
As physicians we are accustomed listening to our patients’ troubles. However, our job is not one of those that affords much opportunity to unburden ourselves of our own concerns. The patients assume that we are the problem solvers and don’t have any of our own. Or, if we do have some troubles, their office visit is not the time for us to share them.
The occasional sharing, such as that we are running late because we’ve had a flat on the way to the office, is harmless and can remind patients that we are human. But one must be careful stay off the slippery slope that leads to unprofessional oversharing.
Without that luxury of a workplace that allows for occasional catharsis, physicians have an additional risk for burnout. There are no easy solutions. Sharing with patients is unprofessional. Our peers are as busy as we are and probably don’t have the time to listen. Or at least they don’t seem to have the time. And then there is that ego-vulnerability issue where we are hesitant to reveal to anyone, be they staff or peers, that we have a soft underbelly.
I don’t have any easy answers to the problem beyond the usual suggestion that, Personally, I have to admit that, when my bad day was the result of an accumulation of minor bumps, I would follow our waitperson’s example and share them selectively with patients whom I deluded myself into believing had the time and concern to listen. It probably was unprofessional, but it made me feel better.
Dr. Wilkoff practiced primary care pediatrics in Brunswick, Maine, for nearly 40 years. He has authored several books on behavioral pediatrics, including “How to Say No to Your Toddler.” Email him at pdnews@mdedge.com.
On our way up north to go backcountry skiing with another couple, we stopped at a roadside restaurant/tavern for lunch. We seated ourselves and, after a long 10 minutes, our waitperson arrived like a tornado, looking frazzled. She offered an apology and the first installment of her tale of woe. Before taking our order, she explained it all began when her car wouldn’t start, and then her day care provider called to say that she was sick and our server would have to find some other arrangement for the day. When our meal finally arrived, it looked appetizing but didn’t quite match our order. Again, our waitperson apologized, adding that it has been a particularly hard week because her husband was out of town and not around to help with her three children.
Had we been dining at a high-end restaurant with a white tablecloth and a candle, we would have considered our server’s behavior unprofessional and off-putting. However, we were in no hurry as the light snow had turned to a ski-unfriendly drizzle. While our original intent had been to simply have lunch, we accepted our role as a sympathetic audience for this unfortunate woman. In fact, we asked a few open-ended questions to help the cathartic process along.
The need to share one’s troubles seems to be a universal human trait. Our server had no illusions that we were going to provide any solutions to her problems. Nor was she seeking any expression of sympathy beyond our patience. However, I’m sure that unburdening herself by telling the story made her feel better, at least temporarily. Hopefully, there would be additional understanding diners to help her through the day.
For many people, the workplace serves as a therapeutic outlet where they can share their troubles and concerns. At times, the whining can be annoying to coworkers but in general, woe sharing is a harmless and valuable perk of having a job. Unless, of course, one’s job is primarily serving the public.
As physicians we are accustomed listening to our patients’ troubles. However, our job is not one of those that affords much opportunity to unburden ourselves of our own concerns. The patients assume that we are the problem solvers and don’t have any of our own. Or, if we do have some troubles, their office visit is not the time for us to share them.
The occasional sharing, such as that we are running late because we’ve had a flat on the way to the office, is harmless and can remind patients that we are human. But one must be careful stay off the slippery slope that leads to unprofessional oversharing.
Without that luxury of a workplace that allows for occasional catharsis, physicians have an additional risk for burnout. There are no easy solutions. Sharing with patients is unprofessional. Our peers are as busy as we are and probably don’t have the time to listen. Or at least they don’t seem to have the time. And then there is that ego-vulnerability issue where we are hesitant to reveal to anyone, be they staff or peers, that we have a soft underbelly.
I don’t have any easy answers to the problem beyond the usual suggestion that, Personally, I have to admit that, when my bad day was the result of an accumulation of minor bumps, I would follow our waitperson’s example and share them selectively with patients whom I deluded myself into believing had the time and concern to listen. It probably was unprofessional, but it made me feel better.
Dr. Wilkoff practiced primary care pediatrics in Brunswick, Maine, for nearly 40 years. He has authored several books on behavioral pediatrics, including “How to Say No to Your Toddler.” Email him at pdnews@mdedge.com.