I know, I know. No one is very happy with me for bringing up the academic part of the program, but I thought it might be fun to have a place for all Summer 2008 future attendees to discuss some medical topics.

I found a bunch of sites that might help people learn more about medicine and health care issues in the news. Here are a few:
New York Times Health News-This site has a lot of good information.
MSN Health & Fitness-Although the news on this site is not very scholarly, the Medical Encyclopedia has a lot of easy to understand explanations for complex terms.
MedlinePlus-A really great reference site.
Medical Atlas Videos-At this site, you can view dynamic videos on numerous health issues.
Healthcare Career Resource Center-I'm pretty sure a lot of the more recent information on the site isn't very accurate, but the historical information is very interesting.
New! Biology News Net-Added by ~Sophia~ - Here you can find various articles on advancements in Biology.
New! WebMD- Added by MattRollins- This site is has a variety of information on current health issues.

Here are some websites that are more for fun than for reference:
Edheads-This site has a few cute virtual surgeries you can try out. Check out some of the pictures of actual surgeries, because they're pretty neat.
Medical Specialty Aptitude Test-Although a lot of the questions seem to be very redundant, this is an interesting, fast-paced test.

That's all the sites for now. If anyone has any they think I should add to the list, let me know. Now, lets talk about the actual issues. I've been reading a lot about MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), Cancer-related issues, mental health, obesity, and politician's views on medical issues (ex. S-CHIP). Does anyone have any opinions about anything I mentioned? Maybe you have another topic you feel that we should discuss. Feel Free to mention anything you want!

TTYL!

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Sophia here,
I would like to discuss topics with you. But I wonder why no one else is replying? Im not sure about that. but I do know another news site that is related to biology. It has all types of news articles just on Biology and microbiology and stuff in that vicinity.
The website is

www.biologynews.net

Its definetely another good place to be informed of these type of stuff.

I also want to discuss stuff about the MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)It has such a big impact on me because there are elementary school students and high school students in my county and high school who have this. Of course it is being treated and it has just been confirmed to be taken care of. The student is back at school. Although I have just heard of thias disease, it has been around for decades and has just now been spread to schools/ hospitals. I would love to hear your opinion about it.

I feel like hand washing is the best way to prevent MRSA, but since it's nearly impossible to convince everyone to use proper hand washing techniques, schools are now being forced to disinfect entire buildings. While this will kill the disease, disinfecting with such potent chemicals is not entirely healthy.

Therefore, the only way to solve this problem completely is by getting to its roots, which is drug-resistance. There are so many bacteria that are now evolving to resist many drugs that we have depended on for so long, but are now useless against fighting many diseases. For instance, Streptococcus pneumoniae, a recently discovered ear infection, can often not be treated with children's medicines, although adult medicines have proven effective. How long will it be, however, before the bacteria evolves, making adult medicines ineffective as well?

Another problem is when a drug is useless to fighting a disease, companies may be hesitant to create a new drug. It is not as profitable to create a drug to fight a disease that afflicts a small number of people, so they would rather spend their time working on drugs to help more widespread problems, such as colds or insomnia.

Drug resistance really needs to be stressed to people. Everyone needs to understand that is is important to prevent it. Some ways include obstaining from antibiotic use unless it is really very necessary and completing the prescribed amount of time when you do take an anibiotic (don't take a drug for 6 days if your doctor said to take it for a week, even if you do feel better).

If anyone has any other suggestions or opinions, feel free to share them. The only way we can stop drug resistance is by collaborative effort in the community.

Here's a good site to go to if you're interested in MRSA:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mrsa.html

And I just read about a discovery regarding MRSA. You can read about that here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071111/ap_on_he_me/staph_infections_3

Also, I just read this article about the UN's stance on human cloning ( http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071111/sc_nm/clones_dc_1 ). This could be a very interesting topic for debate. Does anyone have any opinions about it?

I greatly appreciate someone taking the time to post a list of the best websites for current medical information. I enjoy spending free time learning about the latest advancements in medicine, especially the latest discoveries in cancer research.

P.S. WebMD is also a very informative site for a variety of areas.

Matthew Rollins

If you want to read about the current medical issues for fun then go ahead, but you really don't need to. They give you everything you need to know for the forum in a medical journal. I'm a slacker so I didn't do any research or anything before I went and I was fine.

MattRollins- No problem, I'm glad you find it useful. I didn't realize WebMD wasn't on the list. That definitely is a good site.

SmaLLs- I read around the forum and I understand that you may not need to know everything about medicine for the forum. However, I really enjoy reading about advancements and current events in science.

Here are a few big health care issues that I just thought of:
-The imports from China and other industrial countries that contain lead or other highly dangerous chemicals.
-The issue on children's cold medicine and the voluntary withdrawal of many medicines from the market.
-Finally, I know this is fairly old news, but the issue with schools providing middle school children in Maine with birth control. Also, abortion is a timeless example of an ongoing medical ethics (and political) debate.

Opinions? Comments?

Edit: I just found this article that is pretty interesting: HIPAA Privacy Rule Impacts Badly On Health Research, Say Two-thirds Of Clinical Scientists.

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Has anyone heard the news about patients contracting HIV/AIDS from organ donations? Seems to question certain tests and precautions used during organ donation.

I read an article a few months ago about a few other problems with organ transplants in the NY Times. There was one very interesting situation that occurs frequently and causing controversy that I found especially problematic:

Say a man of ethnicity A wants to donate a kidney, but only to someone else of ethnicity A. Another person who is of ethnicity B might be in dire need of the transplant, but the man will refuse to donate the kidney to him. This is clearly a case of prejudice. However, nobody can make the man donate the kidney, but if he does donate it, even though it may not go to the person who should have received it, the kidney will possibly save the life of someone of ethnicity A.

Apparently, situations like this are common among different religions or ethnic groups.

Hi this is sophia again. I know this isnt one of the topics that you mentioned but, I would like to learn more about ebola, the effects of it, where it originated, stuff like that. If anyone has any suggestions on whivh site would be most helpful. Id really appreciate it, Thanks!

Hey guys, its Liz. Can I jump back into your MRSA topic? I dont know if this is what you were talking about, but I read that it has become resistant to almost all antibiotics. HOLY SAFETY HAZARD is that true?

To Sophia: One of the best websites I found for ebola was wikipedia. It explains the types of the virus, origins, and symptoms. There are many other websites with information, but wikipedia is just my go-to website.

Has anyone ever heard of malaria being I wouldn't say cured, but...idk how to put it honestly....with getting a blood transfusion from someone with the sickle cell anemia trait. But not from someone with full blown sickle cell. I just thought that that was pretty interesting...just thought that I would share that.

I would also like to thank everyone who has given great medical websites. They have deffinetly helped with my Biology class and all of my medical classes. A lot of those classes have required a weekly or every other week short reoport on recent medical news!! Thanks a ton!!

To my knowledge this treatment method has never been attempted. Malaria is a parasite that reproduces in healthy red blood cells. If a person already has healthy cells for the Malaria to reproduce in, there is not much that sickle cells would help. Being codominant for sickle cell usually just prevents Malaria, it would more than likely not treat it. Also, because of sickle cells being a foreign type of cell, even if they were the same blood type, they would probably be rejected by the recipient's body.

I know! Thats what I had thought of when I first heard about that treatment. Of course wanting to see if this was true or not, I did some more research. It is a treatment that is under going careful considerations.

I haven't read through this thread yet, but I noticed that there were many websites being suggested.

Allow me to suggest two neat sites!

Bio Interactive is a site managed by Howard Hughes Medical Institute. There is a collection of lectures to watch and interactive labs.

Or-Live is a fantastic site where you can watch live operations! During each streaming session, you can even submit questions and they'll answer them on the broadcast, live. Curious to see when each show is? Have the Or-Live calendar connect to your google calendar and every session will be visible. Also, if you're unable to catch the next new show simply check out their archives and you'll find yourself sitting through the next open heart surgery, pediatric brain tumor removal, or gastric bypass! Check it out!

Thanks so much for two really great sites. I'm definitely going to be spending way too much time on them! Also, it's so cool that you're studying under a doctor. I would really love to have a mentor, but I'm really not sure how to approach someone, or even who to approach. Any advice would be appreciated.

Also, if you want to know how health issues are going to play a big part in the upcoming election, I found a pretty good explanation here.

how does everyone feel about stem cell research?
They just found a way to generate human embryonic stem cell lines without destruction.

I think stem cell research has a good and a bad side. The good side is the cells can help treat life threatening disease but the bad side is you have to kill an innocent baby to get them. What do you think?