college

WSU College of Medicine receives accreditation to launch first residency program in Everett | WSU Insider

By Shelton Muro 2 weeks ago


Providence Regional Medical Center Everett

SPOKANE, Wash.–Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine today announced that it has earned accreditation to launch its first residency program and is accepting applications immediately.

The WSU Internal Medicine Residency Program-Everett, based at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, is a three-year residency training program with a focus on primary care. Sixteen resident positions have been approved for the first year; 12 categorical and four preliminary positions will be welcomed in June 2021 with 12 more added each year over three years to cap at 40 total residency positions when fully supported.

“This is an extremely proud moment for the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine and is something we’ve been working toward since the day we started the college,” said Dr. John Tomkowiak, founding dean of the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. “More residency programs in Washington increases the likelihood that

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These immunocompromised college students felt isolated when the fall semester began. So they did something about it

By Shelton Muro 1 month ago

On the list of proposed topics: “Have you had a hard time with friends in the pandemic?”, “Are you planning to go back to school in the fall?” and “How have you been coping on a day-to-day basis?”

But Lynch quickly realized that the group of immunocompromised college students didn’t need questions to guide them. They just wanted to talk about their shared feeling of isolation during the pandemic.

They bonded over the fact that people assume that all teens are healthy. They questioned whether their schools were taking the right measures to help those who are more at-risk. They vented about their friends not understanding their inability to leave the house without fear of contracting Covid.

It’s a virtual support group for immunocompromised students — but its members don’t call it that. They prefer the name “Chronic and Iconic.”

They're living with an invisible illness. Social distancing will save their lives

It all started with a social media post. Lynch, who

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Shands, College of Medicine stop incentive pay for employees due to virus

By Shelton Muro 1 month ago

Sarah Nelson
 
| The Gainesville Sun

Some employees at the University of Florida’s Shands Hospital and College of Medicine won’t get their usual year-end incentive pay for the next 12 months, to offset what administrators say is millions in lost revenue from the pandemic. 

Physicians, faculty and researchers typically receive additional “incentive” pay on top of their base salary, but UF Health officials announced Wednesday that the bonus pay won’t be coming for the next 12 months. The incentives are based on additional work or services a physician performs, and the cost of living in the area. 

“Any distribution of incentives would come with the effect of deepening our financial hole and stalling any forward momentum gained prior to the pandemic,” Adrian Tyndall, UF College of Medicine’s interim dean, wrote in an email to employees Wednesday. 

A 2018 study by the American Medical Association reported that a little over half

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How to Navigate Online College Classes as a Student With Disabilities

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

As the fall semester begins and students head back to class, many are doing so virtually. Colleges are taking coronavirus prevention precautions, with hundreds opting for fully or partially online classes.

But what does the shift to online classes mean for students with disabilities?

To get a sense of what lies ahead, it may be useful to look back at the spring semester, when campuses closed and classes were suddenly shifted online, forcing students with disabilities to make quick adjustments.

Lessons Learned From the Spring Semester Online

One advantage that college officials have to plan for the fall is the ability to look back on the spring of COVID-19.

“Accommodations that had been approved for (face-to-face) communication were revisited, depending on the disabled students’ needs,” Mary Lee Vance, director of services for students with disabilities at California State University–Sacramento, wrote in an email.

While “not all students experienced a need

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My Fight to Get a POTS Diagnosis in College

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

Laurie looking at the mountains
Laurie looking at the mountains

It took three years of seeing different doctors and enduring countless medical tests to finally receive a POTS diagnosis. In between all of that, I was finishing my undergraduate studies, completing graduate school, and working a part-time job on campus, all while watching my health deteriorate without proper intervention.

Now that I know what’s causing my symptoms — and have seen much improvement in them — I want to share my story. I want to be a source of inspiration for those who are living with POTS, or struggling to get a diagnosis: a time that, for me, felt grim and hopeless. I want to show others that it can get better with knowledge, persistence and consistency. Getting a POTS diagnosis doesn’t have to be the end of any hopes you ever had of living an interesting, dare I say, exciting life.

In October of

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Smell Tests for COVID-19 Are Coming to a College Near You

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

ALEJANDRO PAGNI/AFP via Getty Images
ALEJANDRO PAGNI/AFP via Getty Images

When Carthage College students begin returning to campus in Kenosha, Wisconsin, next week, two very non-traditional welcome back gifts will await them: a thermometer, and a scratch-and-sniff smell test card.

Temperature checks as a way to quickly provide a gauge for a common symptom of the novel coronavirus aren’t exactly uncommon in the United States. But smell tests are relative newcomers to the screening scene. Both will be part of daily self-monitoring at the liberal arts college.

“Losing your sense of smell is an early symptom—sometimes the only symptom—of COVID,” Leslie Cameron, a psychology professor and expert on sensory perception at Carthage, told The Daily Beast. “We should be testing for it.”

Carthage is among a growing number of schools, businesses, and other institutions looking to leverage growing knowledge of how COVID-19 can wreak havoc on the olfactory system to make something resembling safe reopening

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What Will College Look Like in Fall 2020?

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

From Seventeen

Any other year, incoming college freshmen would be filled with giddy anticipation at this very moment, counting down the weeks until they get to step on to their awaiting campus. They’d be making a packing list, trying to decide whether or not their beloved stuffed animal should make the journey to their dorm room or stay behind with their high school years. They’d be awkwardly chatting with their future roommates, comparing sleep schedules, asking about majors, and subtly trying to figure each other out.

While some 17 and 18-year-olds are doing that right now, many are not. Instead, they’re getting ready to buckle down for another semester of Zoom classes. They’re trying to imagine living under their parent’s roof for the next few months, instead of on the dorm floor like they planned. This semester, the coronavirus pandemic is forcing hundreds of thousands of college students to stay

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‘I can’t teach when I’m dead.’ Professors fear COVID-19 as college campuses open

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

Students' return for fall semester was staggered over 10 days at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, to enforce social distancing during as they settled in. <span class="copyright">(Gerry Broome / Associated Press)</span>
Students’ return for fall semester was staggered over 10 days at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, to enforce social distancing during as they settled in. (Gerry Broome / Associated Press)

When masked students walk back into his Northern Arizona University lab room at the end of the month, Tad Theimer will face them from behind a Plexiglas face shield while holding an infrared thermometer to their foreheads. As they examine bat skulls under microscopes, the biology professor will open windows and doors, hoping to drive out exhaled aerosols that could spread the coronavirus.

But as one of hundreds of professors who will be back on campus along with 20,000 students in one of the states hit worst by the pandemic, Theimer is also torn on whether to enter his classroom at all.

“I want to teach and it’s best done in person,” said Theimer, 62, who has been a

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High-risk students ask, why can’t all college courses be offered online?

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

College sophomore Cameron Lynch has lived the past five months in a single square mile, only venturing outside her home a couple times a week for early-morning or late-night walks.

“It’s already a stressful time to be immunocompromised,” said Lynch, who has Type 1 diabetes, celiac disease and a form of muscular dystrophy. “Now, a good portion of able-bodied people are going back to the way life was, leaving us behind.”

Several weeks ago, Lynch, who attends the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, authored a letter expressing her frustrations and posted it to social media. She never expected the response she would get: Dozens of immunocompromised college students from across the U.S. started reaching out to her, so they formed a support group to share information on the policies their schools were implementing.

Lynch is just one of the thousands of college students with weakened immune systems

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Mississippi gov says college football essential

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

JACKSON, MISS. – Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said college football is “essential” Tuesday, a day after President Donald Trump tweeted in support of colleges moving forward with the football season as planned amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“What do opponents of football think, these kids will end up in a bubble without it? You can get COVID anywhere,” Reeves tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “There are forces who want to cancel everything to avoid risk at all societal costs. It’s foolish. We have to balance risk & costs.”

Two of college football’s five power conferences, Big Ten and Pac-12, announced Tuesday that teams won’t play football this fall because of concerns about COVID-19. Reeves lamented that decision, saying that in Mississippi, officials have been working with big football schools like Mississippi State and the University of Mississippi to design a season that does not compromise the safety of players or fans.

“I personally

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