Tatum
It’s probably been thirty years since I last saw The Bad News Bears. Amazingly, this film holds up really well – in a way. It’s unlike anything you’ll see today, but it comes across as well made and engaging throughout. There are some peculiarities about it though that I just had to comment on. Best to talk about it on my film blog.
Today, in microbiology, we talked a bit about protein translation in Eukaryotes and how this may involve the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) and Golgi Apparatus. I saw some blank faces and promised to point to a place where I discussed it before on this blog and had a video as well. You can find that here.
Apropos of class discussion about vaccine compliance and public policy, check out Adrienne LaFrance’s article from The Atlantic on how Measles is re-emerging in many countries – including the United States – that have considered it eradicated for decades.
Click here to visit the article
The numbers in recent years are nothing like the devastation that Measles used to visit in the US, however, it is the trend that is disturbing. Prior to the introduction of the vaccine, cases numbered in the hundreds of thousands per year in the US. Globally, in 2013, there were 145 700 measles deaths compared to an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year prior to widespread immunization. (data from the WHO)
Measles cases in the US prior to and after the introduction of vaccine Langmuir AD. Medical importance of measles. Am J Dis Child 1962;103:54-56
Some Data
Measles Cases in the US 2001 – 2014
I’ve spent most of this week re-organizing the Pathophysiology course after a long discussion on the matter with my wife – who is an invaluable resource for all things, but especially so for this sort of a course where our experience gap extends the length of a additional graduate degree and a career in medicine.
She advised me that my focus was all wrong. As a cell and molecular biologist, I naturally wanted to spend time building up slowly from sub cellular functions to tissues, organs, and finally organ systems. Rather, she proposed, I should skip quickly into the major organ systems (see below) with only a short time spent skimming the first several units. Furthermore, I keep forgetting the ‘path’ prefix and spend far too much attention on building systems, rather than examining how they fail.
Of course, she’s right (and not just because she reads this blog). My students have already had general biology, microbiology, and anatomy and physiology. They only need reminders of this previous material – not valuable class time spend there.
To recalibrate our course, I’ve decided to take her advice entirely. The only change I will make is to talk about Neoplasms (Chapter 7), which I think are extraordinarily important and fun to talk about. I won’t spend much time there, but I will use it as a mechanism to buffer some time before going into systems, where I will be introducing each system followed by student presentations of diseases associated with each.
Schedule:
First Weeks of Semester: Chapters 1, 2, and 7 (Cells&Tissue, Cell response to Injury, Neoplasia)
Systems: (intro & pathology)
Pathological conditions to be presented by students:
Students will be able to work alone in or a group, however, each presentation results in one grade for one individual.
Presentations must include / will be graded on:
Presentations should be ten minutes with no more than ten slides.
And I almost forgot about the hints for the quiz tomorrow…
The first hint is that it is good to know what ion is important in triggering muscle contraction.
The second is that there is something about the way muscle cells come together to form tissue that is important.
And lastly…
There’s an old children’s verse about a certain double homicide committed many years ago in the city of Fall River, Massachusetts. I’ll probably ask about it.
that about covers it.
You see, here I was, just minding my own business and trying to maybe teach a couple of classes – when all of a sudden kids started showing up wanting me to teach them something about Pathophysiology. I don’t know how much experience you have with this…
Seriously, I’m teaching a new pair of classes this semester and I’ve been struggling with how to make one into a class at all (Medical Terminology) and what narrative to abstract for the other (Pathophysiology).
This has left Medical Terminology as a pretty boring class so far that needs to be transformed into a game or something if we’re ever to survive it.
As for Patho…
What’s to be done? I originally imagined this class to come together as a project for all students to contributing towards create the materials, jointly lead class through the content, and even come together in building examinations. However, I quickly changed tack when the class overfilled and I balked at the idea of so many people working together (or even independently) in an effective manner. My knee-jerk reaction: bounce right back to a standard lecture format.
It went over like a lead balloon.
The decision now is how to go forward.
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