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New Way Of Gauging Professional Behavior In Medical Students
A new way of assessing professionalism among medical students could help to make better doctors, a new research study suggests.
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HCL Anticipates Increasing Demand For Locums As NHS Funding Is Squeezed, UK
HCL, the UK"s largest health and social care recruiter, said today that it anticipates increasing demand for its temporary and locum staff as the NHS seeks to increase efficiencies in healthcare provision.
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Opposition To Abortion Rights Declining Among Black Voters, Opinion Pieces States
"In recent years, conservative political strategists have painted African Americans as being more opposed to abortion than the white population," but experts believe that there actually "is a declining black support for conservative social policies like abortion," Tracie Powell, a former congressional fellow with the American Political Science Association, writes in a CQ Politics opinion piece. According to Powell, a recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey found that 49% of black U.S. residents -- who generally are considered more religious than the entire U.S. population -- are in favor of keeping abortion legal in most or all cases.Powell continues that experts vary in their explanations of the declining opposition to abortion rights among blacks. She writes that Christopher Metzler, an associate dean at Georgetown University, said that economic concerns, such as the high unemployment rate for black workers, have become more important than abortion for the group. According to Powell, Metzler said that black U.S. residents also have started questioning the antiabortion-rights agenda because they received little support from conservatives in return.Powell writes that some experts believe the feelings of black U.S. residents regarding abortion might go "deeper than current economic and social realities." Powell adds that Salamishah Tillet, founder of the organization A Long Walk Home, said that reproductive injustice for black women dates to times of slavery, when they had no reproductive rights. According to Tillet, black women face reproductive injustice in modern times through underfunding of family planning programs, lack of access to contraception and legislation like the Hyde Amendment, which restricts access to abortion for low-income women, who are disproportionately black and Hispanic.Powell writes, "I doubt most Americans, including those who are black, consider abortion a civil rights issue, and I"m not arguing that it should be." However, "I do know that while black Americans remain one of the most religious demographics in the country, this isn"t the 1960s and African Americans no longer march lock-step behind the church," she writes (Powell, CQ Politics, 6/10).
Diagnostics

Cardiac Research At Colorado State University Shows Diseased Heart Valves In Dogs Produce Serotonin

A significant part of the question of what causes mitral valve disease in dogs, giving scientists and medical experts clues into new possible ways to treat or prevent the disease, may have been solved by a Colorado State University veterinarian. The discovery refutes the current believe that mitral valve disease, the top heart disease in dogs, is inevitable as a part of aging in pets. Dr. Chris Orton, a cardiac surgeon at Colorado State"s Veterinary Teaching Hospital, has been investigating the role of serotonin in heart valve disease in dogs. It has been known for some time that drugs that enhance serotonin production in humans -- such as appetite suppressants, migraine medications and antidepressants -- cause drug-induced heart valve disease. It turns out that naturally occurring heart valve disease, known as degenerative myxomatous heart valve disease, is virtually identical in dogs and humans. Dr. Orton"s group has discovered that cells in diseased heart valves of both dogs and humans produce serotonin locally, and this may be driving the disease process. "Serotonin is made in the brain and in cells in the gut. We previously thought that those were the only places it was made before it is circulated in the blood," Orton said. "But we found the local creation of serotonin in diseased heart valves. We think that drug-induced and naturally occurring heart valve disease share the same mechanism for creating the disease - the production of serotonin. The valve is making serotonin, which causes its own disease. Serotonin is directly linked to pathologic changes in the valve, which cause the malfunction of the mitral valve." Orton"s group is working to discover what triggers the enzyme in the valve that makes serotonin, and he would like to launch a clinical trial on dogs to look at the impact of a drug that inhibits the enzyme that produces serotonin in the heart. Mitral valve disease impacts the mitral valve, one of two valves on the left side of the heart. In degenerative valve disease, the valve becomes deformed and begins to leak. Serotonin is made in the gut by an enzyme called TPH1, Serotonin then goes into the blood stream where it is picked up by platelets which are involved in blood clotting. Orton"s group has shown that TPH1 is present in high levels in abnormal mitral valves from both dogs and humans. "Like all diseases, mitral valve disease is mediated by cells," Orton said. "If we can understand the mechanism in cells that triggers the disease, we can slow, treat or prevent the disease process in new ways." Mitral valve disease, also often called mitral valve prolapse in humans, tends to impact smaller breed dogs and usually develops when they are middle aged or older. Chihuahua, King Charles spaniels, and other toy and small breeds of dog tend to develop the disease more often than other breeds. Of the dogs that develop heart disease, 40 percent develop mitral valve disease, and the disease is the eventual cause of about 70 percent of all heart failure in dogs. Orton heads up Project CARE at Colorado State. The project focuses on researching the causes of and development of new treatments for mitral valve disease in dogs. The project is supported through grass roots funding. To learn more about the program or to support the research, visit here. Colorado State University


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