MedEd Connect Blog: Exploring Medicine Based Careers

                                                          Public Health: How Lice is Affecting Schools Today    O nce, any sign of lice meant immediate school dismissal until a child was completely lice-free. But most districts have replaced strict “no-nit” rules with “nonexclusion” policies, keeping students in class to prioritize learning time. Recently, this leniency has faced backlash as parents in states like Massachusetts, Texas, Ohio, and Georgia urge schools to reinstate stricter policies, blaming outbreaks on CDC guidelines that allow students with live lice to remain in school.      In Florida’s Hernando County, the district reinstated its old lice policy, with school board members citing ongoing reinfestations. However, public health experts argue that lice are more nuisance than...

 Cardiothoracics Haneen Hajra  Cardiothoracic health is often viewed through the lens of advanced surgical techniques, cutting edge technology and major hospital systems. But for millions of people around the world, especially children, cardiac disease begins long before they even touch an operating room. I learned this earlier than most. I developed rheumatic carditis, an inflammatory heart condition that quietly reshaped my life long before I even understood what “cardiothoracic” meant.  What stuck with me wasn’t the diagnosis itself but how easily it could have been missed. In many countries, it is missed. Rheumatic heart diseases, caused by untreated strep infections, remains one of the world’s most preventable cardiovascular killers. But, it still affects more than 40 million people globally and claims hundreds of thousands of lives every year. Most are young. Most live in places where basic antibiotics and early diagnosis are not guaranteed and are considered a rare...

  Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB/GYN) By: Lipikaanjana Addagada Obstetrics and gynecology is a very demanding job. Not a lot of people want to have to run to the hospital in the middle of the night because one of their patients is having a baby. You have to wake up in the middle of the night to run to the hospital. Sometimes you don’t even get home till the next day. You can have emergency surgeries at any time and you have to be prepared. And for these reasons, not a lot of people choose to be an OB/GYN.  There’s a shortage of doctors in the OB/GYN department. It takes months for a patient to schedule an appointment because the gynecologists are so busy. Gynecologists see over 40 patients a day, that’s 4.25 patients per hour. And by the time they get home, another patient is having an emergency and they have to get to the hospital again. Many believe the work life balance is horrible and that’s why they don’t want to be an OB/GYN. But there’s so much more to being an OB/GYN ...