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What is pre-med? When people say that they’re pre-med, what does that actually mean? If you’re planning to attend a med-school and become a doctor, it’s important that you understand the definition of pre-med and what you should be doing as a pre-med student.
Read on to learn what it really means to be a pre-med, what you should be focusing on to get into med school, and what the best majors for pre-meds are and why.
What Does Pre-Med Mean?
“Pre-med” is the term people use to show that they want to go to a med-school and are taking the classes they need to get there. It’s primarily used by college students. There isn’t actually a major called “pre-med;” pre-med is just a term to let people know you have plans to be a doctor. You can be a biology major and a pre-med, a Spanish major and a pre-med, etc.
Hepatitis C (HCV) is a viral infection that affects the liver and an estimated 3.2 million people in the USA are infected with HCV, and most do not feel ill or know that they are infected. Since 2010, acute cases of HCV have more than doubled, with new cases predominantly among young, white individuals with a history of injection drug use.
The current recommendations are that doctors screen patients at high-risk for contracting HCV, which include but are not limited to people born between 1945 and 1965, those diagnosed with HIV, children born to HCV-positive women and individuals who engage in injection drug use (PWID), among other select populations at high risk. This strategy is called "targeted" screening. "Routine" screening, as defined in the study, tests all individuals in a community with a high prevalence of HCV.
Video: One step Hepatitis C Virus Test Cassette, Raecho International
There are two ways to perform these screenings. Rapid testing is when results are given on the same day that the sample is drawn. Standard testing requires patients to return for a second appointment to get the results. Scientists at Boston Medical Center (Boston, MA, USA) and their colleagues evaluated the clinical benefits and cost-effectiveness of testing strategies among 15 to 30-year-olds at urban community health centers. They developed a decision analytic model to project quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), lifetime costs (2016 USDs) and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICER) associated with nine strategies for one-time testing. The strategies differed in three ways: targeted versus routine testing; rapid finger stick versus standard venipuncture; and ordered by physician versus counselor/tester using standing orders.
Illustration of the Hepatitis C Virus
The team found that compared to targeted risk-based testing (current standard of care), routine testing increased lifetime medical cost by USD 80 and discounted QALYs by 0.0013 per person. Across all strategies rapid testing provided higher QALYs at a lower cost per QALY gained, and was always preferred. Counselor-initiated routine rapid testing was associated with an ICER of USD 71,000/QALY gained. Results were sensitive to offer and result receipt rates. Counselor-initiated routine rapid testing was cost-effective (ICER greater than USD 100,000/QALY) unless the prevalence of PWID was greater than 0.59%, HCV prevalence among PWID less than 16%, reinfection rate greater than 26 cases per 100 person-years, or reflex confirmatory testing followed all reactive venipuncture diagnostics.
Sabrina A. Assoumou, MD, MPH, an infectious disease physician and lead author of the study, said, “When standard testing was applied, patients were less likely to come back for that second appointment to get their results, which in turn meant more people weren't getting the treatment they so desperately needed. Our results indicate that we must initiate rapid testing strategies so that more people will know their status and get treatment more quickly.” The study was published on September 9, 2017, in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Surgeons have restored the sensation of touch to a paralyzed man using a robotic arm connected to electrodes in his brain.
Twelve years ago a promising science student, Nathan Copeland, was involved in a car accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He went from being an active 18-year old to being quadriplegic. He was unable to feel anything from the chest down and could not move his lower arms and legs, so needed assistance with all his daily activities.
Having a seizure can be an alarming experience, and whether yours have been mild or severe, you probably have many questions. Understanding what’s happening to your brain and how it’s affecting your body can be helpful and comforting for you and your loved ones as you learn more about managing your condition.
Epilepsy Symptoms
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder, which affects some or all functions of your brain. It can be caused by mutated genes, brain injury or disease. Since your brain controls everything from movement and balance to memory and emotions, an epileptic episode can disrupt this activity, resulting in a seizure or other unusual behaviors or sensations.
Chances are good you think you're more or less the same person you were last week. But the lining of your gut is totally different, and the hairs on your head are 2.5 millimeters longer.
The human body's ability to replace worn out cells with shiny new ones is key to the long lifespans we're so used to. There are a couple things we keep all our lives, like the visual cortex, but almost everything wears out and gets replaced, at least for part of our lives. And some things, like our hair and nails, just grow and grow and grow.
We've gathered together scientists' estimates scientists of how quickly we go through different types of cells. Many of these ages have been established using a technique called bomb-pulse dating, which uses the traces of atomic radiation we each carry to determine how old cells are.
Forget mouth-to-mouth rescue breaths. This expert-backed technique is the correct way to perform this lifesaver
Sudden cardiac arrest occurs when the heart unexpectedly stops beating, which cuts off blood flow to the brain and other organs. If not treated, it can cause death within minutes.
In fact, only about 10 percent of people overall who experience it outside a hospital survive with their brain functions intact, a new study in JAMA found.
But early action can stave off the Grim Reaper: When sudden cardiac arrest victims first received CPR from bystanders, they were more likely to survive with favorable prognoses, the researchers discovered.
But the way you perform CPR has changed in recent years. You no longer have to put your mouth on the victim’s.
