Exploring Healthcare News and Developments in Medical Education with Dr. Tanner Schrank

To finish Season 1 of the AMBOSS Podcast: Beyond the Textbook, your host, Dr. Tanner Schrank, explores the latest headlines from healthcare and medical education around the world. A special focus is placed on mental health of medical students, climate change in medical education, how artificial intelligence helps and harms, and an update on the continuing war in Sudan. We hope you enjoy this episode, and if you do, let us know! We'll consider doing more episodes like this in Season 2, coming next month.
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Mental Health:
Scientific Reports  /  JAMA  /  Academic Medicine  /   Frontiers in Psychology

Climate Change:
Academic Medicine  /  The Lancet /  Frontiers in Public Health

FDA Finalizes Move to Recommend Individual Risk Assessment to Determine Eligibility for Blood Donations

Artificial Intelligence:
PLOS Digital Health  /  Axios  /  HealthNews  /  Anthropic  /  AAMC  /  USA Today  /  International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health  /  HealthNews

War in Sudan:
NYT  /  Doctors Without Borders  /  NYT  /  Gavi  /  The Guardian

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Transcript

Tanner 0:22

I'm your host and boss partnerships manager. Dr. Tanner shrank. In today's episode. Instead of an interview with the medical student or health professional, We'll be looking at news stories and journal articles recently published. To give you a more beyond the textbook. Look. At medical education. And healthcare. So today we'll focus on mental health Climate change. Artificial intelligence. And the continuing war in Sudan. Let us know if you liked this episode and we'll do more of this in season two coming next month. Let's dive in. Mental health is a growing concern among medical students with high levels of stress, burnout, and depression. Supporting the wellbeing of medical students is crucial for their success and the future of healthcare. In the vein of medical news for mental health of medical students. Let's take a look at the headlines. Just this month on May 2023. An article in scientific reports stated that an improvement in stress management, anxiety and mental wellbeing in medical students can be found through. twice a week. meditation classes, dietary advice. And brief yoga sessions. This builds off of a study from 2016 Published in the journal of the American medical association. Which stated that medical students with mental health problems may be undertreated. So mental health programs, their accessibility and quality should all be improved and taking into account. The 2016 study even showed that introducing a wellness program That taught Mind, body based stress reduction skills should be considered. There are other recommendations included a formal faculty advisor mentor program. Uh, Curriculum structure to balance clinical and nonclinical learning environments. Since medical students reported less burnout and stress, when clinical time was increased. And all of this studies in its meta analysis showed that a preclinical pass, fail grading system, improved medical student wellbeing. Now let's switch to Climate change Climate change is increasingly recognized as a critical issue in medical education. with medical professionals, needing to understand the health impacts of climate change and incorporate. This knowledge into their practice. An article in the journal, academic medicine from 2018, stated that The integration in medical school of climate change related topics with training of essential physician skills in a rapidly changing environment is feasible In medical school curricula Beyond that last year, an article in frontiers in public health. Looked at climate and health education. Specifically, the authors recommended that advocacy for climate change and its inclusion in medical education curriculum should extend all the way up to the U S medical licensing exams. and the a M C. They stress that everyone, especially future physicians should be aware of climate change and its effects on the public's health. And just this year in February of 2023, the Lancet issued this statement about planetary health. Primary care practitioners. Should you receive professional education in how to directly respond to planetary health challenges? They discuss a massive open online course On planetary health for primary care physicians. And they stressed that a cost free accredited planetary health education. Should be provided as a public. Good. Your next headline. On May 11th, 2023, the U S food and drug administration. Removed a rule restricting blood donations from gay and bisexual men. The agency has removed the time-based deferrals And screening questions specific to men who have sex with men. In favor of an individual risk based approach. Involving all perspective, blood donors to receive a series of survey questions. To determine their eligibility to give blood. Now let's turn to artificial intelligence. Chat bots such as chat GPT are becoming increasingly sophisticated and have raised questions about their potential impact on medical education. In February of this year. An article in plus digital health. Showed that chat GPT specifically. Could perform at or near the passing threshold of 60%. On the U S medical licensing exams. Step one, step two CK. And step three. So clearly AI has potential in medical education. However its implementation also raises significant issues. For example, researchers in 2022. I used an AI tool to create 40,000 new chemical weapons in just six hours. They use an AI model that is designed to reduce and. Predict toxicity and instead trained it to increase toxicity. this comes alongside news that AI has successfully found an antibiotic to fight a superbug just last week, May 26th, the 2023. Uh, Key critique of the technology Is that the artificial intelligence chatbots are good at brainstorming. But they're not trustworthy. So there require a human in the loop. To address this one. AI assistant named Claude is called constitutional AI. It was taught the principles of the UN declaration of human rights. As well as trust in safety, best practices and principles. In March, 2023, the association of American medical colleges. Wrote an article. About chatbots and artificial intelligence. And they said, quote, Educators say chatbots can accelerate and deepen learning in several ways. If students and teachers use them well. Students can use chatbots as starting points for research, writing and studying. Alongside artificial intelligence is virtual reality. An article in health news last month. Stated that virtual and augmented reality are being used to enhance patient care by treating anxiety and phobias, managing pain and providing surgical navigation. They stated that virtual and augmented reality may improve healthcare, accessibility and affordability through immersive, remote learning and remote consultations. A study from February, 2023 in the journal, environmental research and public health. Looked at using virtual reality in medical education. They identified a significant improvement in the virtual reality groups, skill and satisfaction levels. And interestingly, they noted that less immersive VR was more efficacious for knowledge outcomes. Then fully immersive VR. And now we turn to the war in Sudan. The sudanese armed forces and the rapid support forces Have been fighting in sudan since april 15th, 2023. Since then Just 16% of hospitals in khartoum the sudanese capital are still functioning at full capacity according to the who And there are serious grounds to worry that Unless urgent help arrives the entire healthcare system may collapse Doctors without borders is on the scene specifically in darfur The project coordinator in north Stated that medical supplies in health facilities are running out and staff are unable to get to work This is on top of an already massive healthcare provider shortage Where For every 10,000 citizens there were only four doctors there have been several disease outbreaks in the capitol including measles polio and dengue fever As well as malaria across the country Not only this but tens of thousands Of refugees are moving across Borders to neighboring south sudan chad egypt and ethiopia One specific group effected Is pregnant people They're an estimated 1.1 million Pregnant sudanese people And more than 29,000 of them are expected to give birth in the next month according to the un population fund With hospitals closing maternity wards Difficult to reach Tens of thousands of expectant parents have been displaced Or trapped At home delivering Babies by midwives This specific group of healthcare professionals midwives Have been moving across the country To deliver care where they can much of the has fallen to non-governmental organizations To provide Health aid and hope where they can doctors without borders has donated medical supplies With workers in three hospitals in khartoum as well as their work in darfur The international committee of the red cross Has sent Eight tons of medical supplies to port sudan And medical professionals will continue helping wherever they can Even though they're without drinking water electricity and basic medical supplies That's it for the headlines and news in medical education and health around the world For any health care professionals who are looking for medical resource available online and offline. The aan boss library app is available to download and the am boss Global health initiative works with 20 partner universities and hospitals across 10 countries in africa to provide students and physicians with The latest medical knowledge at their fingertips with the AAN boss app And to address climate change And Boston's moving to become a carbon neutral company And to offset all the carbon emissions and boss has created since its founding in 2012. For more on the latest developments in medical education. And studies in climate change