Articles: ninos.
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The Association With Physical Fitness and Academic Performance at America's Military Medical School.
Undergraduate and graduate medical education both have been reported to have high rates of depression, anxiety, and burnout as a result of the rigors of their educational curricula. Wellness, including physical fitness, is important to the profession because it may help mitigate these increased rates of depression and anxiety. While several studies examine physical fitness and academic performance in primary and secondary education, few studies have examined the association between fitness and performance in health professions education. Given the demands of medical school, this investigation aimed to investigate the possibility of an association between physical fitness and body mass index (BMI) with academic performance. Another goal was to examine the change in physical fitness and BMI throughout medical school. ⋯ Our investigation suggests that there may be correlations between physical fitness and clinical exam performance such as USMLE Step 2 CK and average core clerkship NBME exams. Although there is no statistically significant change in individual fitness total points or BMI, the study suggests that physical fitness and BMI may decline during medical school. This may be as a result of increasing academic demands while balancing clinical duties from clerkship rotations.
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Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is spreading all over the world. Health systems around the globe have to deal with decreased capabilities and exhausted resources because of the surge of patients. The need to identify COVID-19 patients to achieve a timely opportunity to treat and isolate them is an ongoing challenge for health care professionals everywhere. A lack of testing capabilities forces clinicians to make the crucial initial decision on the basis of clinical findings and routine diagnostic laboratory test. This article reviews the current literature and presents a new adapted protocol for diagnosing and triaging COVID-19 patients. A special emphasis lies on the stepwise approach guiding the medical provider to a triage decision that is suitable for the individual patient and the situation of the local medical treatment facility. ⋯ The designed Early Recognition and Triage Tool enables the medical provider to use the applicable modules of the protocol for capabilities of the local setting to get the most appropriate diagnostic and triage done. The tool should give guidance for the initial approach until specific testing for the COVID-19 virus is available.
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Rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are higher among U.S. military personnel than their civilian counterparts. Yet there is a paucity of military-specific research that has utilized theoretical frameworks to describe the relative influence of the multiple and interrelated risk factors associated with STIs in this population of young, healthy men and women. The aim of this study was to examine the relative influence of Information, Motivation, and Behavioral Skills Model (IMB) factors known to be associated with condom use and STI diagnosis, as well as examine gender differences among a cohort of young, active duty enlistees who are in the very early stages of their military careers. ⋯ Our findings support the need for development of STI prevention strategies that include education and skills-building approaches to reduce alcohol misuse among enlisted military personnel, and especially male personnel. Such programs should include factors that uniquely influence the experiences of males and females in the military context.
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Although military nurses and medics have important roles in caring for combat casualties, no standardized pre-deployment training curriculum exists for those in the Army. A large-scale, survey-based evaluation of pre-deployment training would help to understand its current state and identify areas for improvement. The purpose of this study was to survey Army nurses and medics to describe their pre-deployment training. ⋯ Most nurse and medic respondents were evaluated for clinical competency before deployment, and they attended a variety of courses that covered many topics. Importantly, most nurses and medics were satisfied with the quality of their training, and they felt confident and prepared to provide care. Although these are encouraging findings, they must be interpreted within the context of self-report, survey-based assessments, and the low response rate. Although these limitations and weaknesses of our study limit the generalizability of our results, this study attempts to address a critical knowledge gap regarding pre-deployment training of military nurses and medics. Our results may be used as a basis for conducting additional studies to gather more information on the state of pre-deployment training for nurses and medics. These studies will hopefully have a higher response rate and better quantify how many individuals received any form of pre-deployment training. Additionally, our recommendations regarding pre-deployment training that we derived from the study results may be helpful to military leadership.
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The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has presented a myriad of organizational and institutional challenges. The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, like many other front line hospitals and clinics, encountered a myriad of challenges in fostering and sustaining the education of students enrolled at the nation's only military medical school. Critical to the function of any academic medical institution, but particularly one devoted to the training of future physicians for the Military Health System, was the ability to rapidly adapt, modify, and create new means of keeping medical students engaged in their core curricula and progressing toward full and timely attainment of established educational goals and objectives. ⋯ Recognizing and embracing these key tenets of academic change management can accelerate the generation of a cohesive, organizational response to the next pandemic or public health crisis.