Recent Articles
Martial arts training helps curb violence
After 20 years of sporadic training in various martial arts, I have mastered only one move — walking away. It's a move that serves me well whenever I am on the receiving end of a racial slur along East Grand River Avenue.
Medical simulation comes to MSU
First-year doctors can find out how they will fare in real-life medical situations by working with actors and mannequins at MSU. Faculty of the MSU College of Human Medicine are using standardized patients — actors trained to exhibit symptoms of any ailment — and computerized dummies with programmable vital signs to assess the strengths and weaknesses of residents. Residents are doctors who have completed medical school and work in hospitals while pursuing further studies in their preferred areas of specialization. About 250 residents will be participating in the Objective Structured Clinical Evaluation program of the MSU College of Human Medicine. The program began on Friday and will continue on selected days until August at the new Learning and Assessment Center in Fee Hall. "When residents have a clear idea of their skills sets, they can feel more comfortable in their new roles as doctors," said Dr. Dianne Wagner, associate dean for Graduate Medical Education for the MSU College of Human Medicine. Wagner worked closely with other doctors from area hospitals during the past year and a half to develop the evaluation program. Participants are videotaped and evaluated as they go through 10 different stations and perform basic medical procedures on a standardized patient, such as performing a medical examination, evaluating symptoms and recommending treatments, Wagner said. She added that in these scenarios, the actors who stand in as patients also provide feedback to MSU faculty on the interaction skills of the doctor. "This is a good way to take knowledge we learned in school for the past four years and apply it to clinical situations," said Dr. Tracy Riddle, who went through the program and is a physician at the Ingham Regional Medical Center. The doctors also get the chance to save SimMan and MegaCode Kelly. SimMan is a computerized mannequin that can cough, wheeze, gasp and produce different heart and lung sounds. It can be programmed to mimic a critically-ill patient with changing vital signs and can even say, "I'm going to die," Wagner said. MegaCode Kelly is a less sophisticated version of SimMan with changeable parts that can make it either a male or female patient. It got its name because "Kelly" can either be a man or woman, Wagner said. "Working with the dummies gives you a chance to interact with a patient that was not really dying but has serious respiratory and cardiac issues," said Dr. Andrew Riddle, another physician at Ingham Regional Medical Center.
Jujitsu training growing in popularity
Passers-by taking a stroll on a lazy Friday afternoon stopped and peered through the glass window as four combatants grabbed and grappled with each other on the floor. No, this was not a fight that broke out in one of the bars across from MSU's campus — the four fighters were really good friends honing their skills in ground fighting skills. It was just another day of training at the Institute of Traditional Asian Martial Arts, 130 W.
Heating up downtown
After the dust and din of construction settles along the corner of East Grand River and M.A.C. avenues, two businesses will give residents a taste of something old and something new. B-Tan, a popular tanning salon, has moved four stores down on East Grand River Avenue to a freshly renovated building.
Drugs' environmental impact to be studied
What happens when a fish ingests Viagra? Scientists aren't sure, but MSU researchers are looking for ways to prevent pharmaceuticals from reaching unintended patients, specifically, marine life in lakes and rivers. An MSU study on how microbes break down pharmaceutical components that are discharged into the environment received a grant of more than $375,000 from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Inc. "Pharmaceuticals are reaching the environment because it's used in humans and animals; yet, in some cases, we do not know about the environmental fate of these chemicals," said James Tiedje, director of the Center for Microbial Ecology and one of the principal investigators for the study. Hui Li, an associate professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, and Mary Beth Leigh, a research assistant at the Center for Microbial Ecology, are also helping lead the study. When a person ingests medicine, what is not absorbed into the blood stream passes out of the body with stool and urine that is flushed down the toilet, said Amy Perbeck, a toxicologist at the Water Bureau of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. The waste water then goes to a treatment plant and is released into streams and rivers or is sprayed out to fields or sand basins, Perbeck said.
