JAMA Medical Student Elective in Medical Editing

Medical students:

JAMA offers a 4-week elective in medical editing to third- and fourth-year US medical students. The elective is full-time and must be taken for academic credit. For information and an application, you can send an e-mail to: jamams@jamanetwork.org

Alternative Careers for Physicians

Have you read the JAMA PULSE edition titled, "Making a Living: Alternative Careers for Physicians?" PULSE is the medical student section of JAMA. Now, this was written back in 1998 and it was written in the context that people believed that we would face a surplus of physicians in this nation. I think we all know that the opposite is now true.

The Editor's Note is written by Jason A. Konner, a medical student at Stanford University School of Medicine (remember, this was back in 1998). It appears that Dr. Konner is now a medical oncologist in NY at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (see his bio here). I like his quote where he said, "Tomorrow’s doctors should not be unemployed; rather, they should be redefined." I still believe that's true today. Any physician who chooses to pursue an alternative or non-traditional career path should have the opportunity to redefine a medical career. After all, in today's world, it's rare to find physicians having the opportunity to repeat a residency in a different specialty.

In this edition of PULSE, the two main alternative career paths that get highlighted include:

1. Medical Journalism
2. Pharmaceuticals and biotechnology

How do you find non-clinical jobs?

How do you find a non-clinical job? Do you still look in the newspaper? Medical journals? I don't think you'll find many listed in JAMA or the New England Journal of Medicine. So what's the best method?

Well, perhaps you landed on this site because you were looking for a non-clinical job. Do you depend on job boards to find non-clinical opportunities? How about LinkedIn? Are you looking for part-time work or a full-time career?

In today's world of buzzing information technology and connectivity, the best way to find a job is through a combination of social networking, recruiters, online job boards, and diligence. Forget about the newspapers or printed journals. Leverage networking sites like LinkedIn and meet as many qualified and competent recruiters as you can. Stay active in online communities and you may just find a job that meets your personal and professional needs.

Congrats to Dr. Ivan Oransky!

Ivan Oransky, MD has been hired as the new executive editor for Reuters Health. Dr. Oransky is a Harvard graduate (BA in biology) and he received his MD from the New York University (NYU). According to the NYU Journalism Facutly website, Dr. Oransky did his postgraduate training at Yale and he has served on the board of directors of the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) since 2002. Dr. Oransky also has experience teaching medical writing in the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP). Previously, he was deputy editor of The Scientist, editor in chief of the medical student section of the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA).

Future of Science Journalism

This is from an MIT Museum presentation on science journalism. MIT President Dr. Susan Hockfield states that science journalism “is now, and in the decades ahead, absolutely indispensable.” As we confront global warming and health pandemics, science reporting must be sustained, Hockfield says, “in its rightful place, at the top of the profession and in the thick of the national conversation.”


Speakers:
Jill Abramson
Managing Editor, The New York Times

Philip Hilts
Director, Knight Science Journalism Fellowships, MIT

Cristine Russell
Senior Fellow, Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Andrew Revkin
Reporter and blogger, The New York Times

Ivan Oransky
Managing Editor, Online, Scientific American (previously served as deputy editor of , editor in chief of the medical student section of the Journal of American Medical Association or JAMA.

Evan Hadingham
Senior Science Editor, NOVA

Medicare and Care Coordination - a disappointing study in JAMA

There's an interesting article in JAMA this month. It's titled, "Effects of Care Coordination on Hospitalization, Quality of Care, and Health Care Expenditures Among Medicare Beneficiaries"

Here's the bottom line: Care coordination programs don't seem to reduce healthcare costs among Medicare beneficiaries. This is very disappointing since you would hope that patient education would improve clinical outcomes. In this instance, nurses were contacting patients roughly twice each month. Since the patients mainly had heart failure, heart disease, and diabetes, these were patients with significant medical problems.

In my opinion, patient education that only occurs twice per month is not enough. We now have ways to automate and tailor messages. These can be sent via phone, SMS, e-mail, and a variety of other ways. When this study was designed, these resources may not have been refined like they are now. I'm sure a better study could be conducted that utilizes some of these automated technologies. After all, now we have older patients with implanted defibrillators living at home where wireless data is being captured and sent to clinicians in hospitals and offices. These types of systems can all be integrated with a robust care coordination program that can alert patients when they need to make some changes in their lifestyle before they end up being hospitalized.

Experimental Advanced Prosthetic Arm Systems

I've always loved biomedical engineering. When I went to MIT, I thought I was going to pursue a career in biomedical engineering. Now, the concept of biomedical engineering has evolved in bioengineering (tissue, molecular, and genetic biology) and of course you still have people working in biomechanical engineering (that would have been my choice many years ago).

There's a really neat story in JAMA about patients using experimental advanced prosthetic arms. Does this remind you of a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger? I love the Terminator series. I think it's great to see advances in engineering that are improving healthcare.