United States

Infertility impacts 1 in 4 female physicians which is twice a s high in comparison to the women in the general population. As the proportion of women in the medical workforce
continues to rise, it becomes crucial to address reproductive health issues for female physicians. This study aims to a s s e s s medical students&#39; knowledge of fertility, risk factors for infertility, and available treatment options.

2023 AMA Research Challenge

Assessing Medical Students&#39; Understanding of Fertility and Infertility: Implications for Physician Well-being and Reproductive Health

Infertility impacts 1 in 4 female physicians which is twice a s high in comparison to the women in the general population. As the proportion of women in the medical workforce
continues to rise, it becomes crucial to address reproductive health issues for female physicians. This study aims to a s s e s s medical students' knowledge of fertility, risk factors for infertility, and available treatment options.

Assessing Medical Students' Understanding of Fertility and Infertility: Implications for Physician Well-being and Reproductive Health

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**Abstract:**



The Neurological Examination: Overcoming Language Barriers to Increase Access to Patient-Directed Neurologic Care


Background
Extensive research has been done on the necessity of DEI in the medical profession, particularly its benefits in increasing cultural awareness in physicians. However, there is very little in the literature about how medical students and new trainees’ view DEI events put on in medical schools, and the impact of these events in their personal journey towards becoming well-rounded physicians. This research study serves to examine the impact of DEI training in medical schools from the perspectives of medical students and first year residents. 

Methods
A cross sectional survey of medical students and first-year residents was conducted. A 17-question survey was constructed using a Likert-type Scale (Figure 1). The survey was disseminated via email, and on messaging platforms commonly such as discord and GroupMe. Survey results were stratified into three parts-exposure to DEI events and medical students and resident responses respectively. Statistical analyses were performed on these data sets via two sample t-tests and Pearson correlation coefficients. 

Results
Data analyses of student responses showed positive correlations between DEI events and improved cultural awareness and confidence in caring for diverse patient populations. On the other hand there was a negative correlation between DEI training and its usefulness in the post-graduate training setting. This seems to suggest that while medical students feel DEI events may be beneficial to their training, that impact is greatly diminished during residency training. 

Conclusion
The impact of DEI on medical student and resident training is a challenging parameter to quantify. However the efficacy of these events in medical training must be elicited to understand which events have more impact on the trainees, and which might better serve them as they provide optimal, culturally sensitive, patient-centered care. The goal is to provide medical trainees with the necessary DEI tools to care for a wide variety of patients, and to produce well-rounded physicians with whom patients can better relate.

Medical Students and Residents’ Perspectives on the 
Impact of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Events during Medical Training

Background 

Despite the prevalence of sexual health-related issues, only half of medical schools in the United States necessitate formal education in sexual medicine. The lack of standard guidelines leaves trainees unprepared to handle sexual health, undermining the quality of overall healthcare.1 This deficit disproportionately impacts women, gender minorities, and the LGBTQIA+ community. 

To address this, we developed a structured, week-long educational initiative, 'Sex Positivity Week' (SPW). This student-led program aimed to address these gaps in formal curriculum, focusing on sexual health of marginalized communities. 



Methods 

SPW is a week of student-run and professional-taught workshops and lectures on topics including birth control, gender and sexual diversity, sexually transmitted infections, sex work, mental health, and anatomy. 

One week before SPW 2022, preclinical students were invited to complete a voluntary, anonymous survey that utilized a 6-point Likert scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree) to assess self-reported comprehension of sexual health and positivity before and during medical school. After SPW 2022, students were sent the same survey with additional questions about SPW 2022’s impact. Data was analyzed with SPSS.   



Results 

In the first survey, 79% of students reported not having an LGBTQIA+ inclusive education prior to medical school, and 34.2% and 55.2% of students felt uninformed about women’s sexual health and non-heteronormative sex, respectively. 

Responses reflected perceived inadequacy of the required curriculum. 62% of students agreed the curriculum failed to make them feel knowledgeable about sexual health needs of LGBTQIA+ patients, and 78.2% and 65.6% of students disagreed that the curriculum educated them on non-heteronormative sex practices and female patient needs, respectively. 

Following SPW, 96% of students agreed they learned more about sexual health from SPW than from the required curriculum . 94% and 96% of students agreed SPW made them feel more knowledgeable about women’s health and LGBTQIA+ sexual health topics, respectively. Furthermore, 96% of students reported they felt more comfortable speaking about LGBTQIA+ sexual health topics, and 94% of students agreed they felt more comfortable discussing birth control options with patients. 



Conclusion 

Medical students report poor understanding of LGBTQIA+ and female sexual health before medical school. This poor understanding persists with current curriculum standards. Following SPW, students felt more knowledgeable about sexual health and more comfortable discussing it. This study identifies a gap in medical school education regarding sexual health of LGBTQIA+ and female populations, and an improved reported understanding of these topics following implementation of inclusive sexual health education delivered through SPW. 







References: 



Beebe S, Payne N, Posid T, et al. The Lack of Sexual Health Education in Medical Training Leaves Students and Residents Feeling Unprepared. J Sex Med. 2021;18(12):1998-2004. doi:10.1016/j.jsxm.2021.09.011

Improving Future Provider Understanding of LGBTQIA+ and Women’s Health Through a Novel Curriculum Enhancement Model for Sexual Health Education in Medical School

Background
Trauma-informed care (TIC) is an approach that assumes every patient has probably experienced some traumatic event in their lifetime. Studies have shown that 63% - 89% of people living in the United States have experienced at least one traumatic event in their lifetime, which is evidence that supports the importance of this assumption. TIC is also an approach that recognizes common signs and symptoms of trauma that a patient may present with, such as dissociation, hypervigilance, or self-harm. Furthermore, TIC acknowledges that past traumas could still influence patients' current lives regarding their mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being. For example, trauma can lead to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which has been associated with an increased risk of chronic mental and physical health conditions such as substance use, depression and anxiety, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Trauma-informed care integrates these ideas and overall knowledge of trauma into practice and policy so that practitioners can proactively avoid retraumatizing patients while providing patients with the care they need.

Methods 
To promote the use of trauma-informed care by medical students at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine (UCCOM), we decided to incorporate it into the preclinical curriculum. We revised the instructional packets used to teach physical exam skills to first-year medical students within the clinical skills course. These revisions included revised informational packets that included suggestions for how to drape patients during exams, how to approach sensitive topics or exam maneuvers, and other TIC practices. At the beginning of the academic year, first-year students were asked to respond to the statement “I feel confident in my ability to provide trauma-informed care.” Responses were based on a 5-point Likert scale from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1). 

Results
After the introduction to TIC through the clinical skills course materials, the number of students who responded “agree” or “strongly agree” (likert rating of 4 or 5, respectively) increased from 20% to 76%. Additionally, the number of students who responded “disagree” or “strongly disagree” (likert rating of 2 or 1, respectively) decreased from 57.5% to 16%. The average rating increased from 2.45 to 3.76.

Conclusion
Students reported overall increased confidence in their abilities to provide trauma-informed care after exposure to TIC practices and suggestions during their preclinical courses. Based on these results, we intend to continue the integration of TIC into the preclinical curriculum for the upcoming academic year and hope to elicit more student feedback using existing evaluations collected by UCCOM for further improvement.

Incorporating Trauma-Informed Care into the Preclinical Curriculum

Background: After the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has become exponentially more important for attracting fellowship applicants. Virtual interviews have made it difficult for applicants to learn about aspects of a program, such as the culture of the program, appearance of the hospital, and what the city has to offer. Social media can bridge that gap for many fellowship programs. It also gives programs the opportunity to show how they are unique and connect with applicants on a personal level. We sought to evaluate the presence of social media across allergy and immunology fellowship programs in the United States and determine if it is being effectively used to attract applicants to the field and their program. 

Methods: A comprehensive list of all allergy and immunology fellowships offered in the United States was compiled via the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology website and the AMA FREIDA Fellowship database. Subsequently, a search was performed for each fellowship's social media presence on Twitter and Instagram, in addition to YouTube for a recruitment video. For programs that did not have a specific fellowship social media account, the department account was used if there was fellowship prevalent content being shared. An additional search was performed to evaluate if each program had an active up-to-date website with information for applicants. Further analysis was subsequently performed looking at the number of followers and the total number of posts on both instagram and twitter. Microsoft Excel was subsequently used to analyze the data and perform descriptive statistics. 

Results: Based on the analysis, the social media platform most utilized by allergy and immunology fellowship programs was YouTube via recruitment videos (27.92%). This is followed by Twitter (15.22%) and lastly Instagram (5.81%). A majority of fellowship programs were found to have an actively updated website (95.34%). In comparing Twitter vs. Instagram followers, Twitter was the more popular platform of choice displaying an average of 415 followers per allergy and immunology fellowship program. Meanwhile, Instagram displayed an average of 257 followers.

Conclusion: Social media can be an effective tool to help applicants learn more about programs and to distribute information quickly. However, it is being severely underutilized by many fellowship programs in the era of virtual interviews. It is imperative that graduate medical education departments remain current with trends in social media to maintain and keep an active professional presence on easily accessible platforms. 


The Utilization of Social Media in Allergy & Immunology Fellowship Programs

Background: Social media (SoMe) has revolutionized the way people communicate and transformed various aspects of modern life. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated reduced in person interaction and the ACGME recommended a shift to virtual residency interviews. This shift increased the reliance of residency programs and medical school graduates on SoMe for recruitment and information. This study aims to determine the impact of social media during the anesthesiology residency application cycle and characterize the content that anesthesiology residency programs can use to most effectively optimize programs’ ability to recruit applicants.
Methods: This project was approved by the Augusta University Institutional Review Board. An anonymous online survey was distributed to residency program directors and coordinators at all US ACGME-accredited anesthesiology residency programs for dissemination to their residents. This 17-question survey was created on Qualtrics and included questions regarding demographics, current PGY year, type of medical degree, interview type, social media use, and social media impact. Microsoft Excel was used to perform descriptive statistics and t-tests where applicable. Responses were summarized using frequencies and percentages for categorical data. The chi-square test (or Fisher exact test, as appropriate) was used to examine the association between categorical variables. Theme analysis was used for the open-ended questions.

Results: A total of 109 respondents completed the survey. Respondents were similarly distributed among the four PGY years. Participants under 30 years older were significantly more likely to look at SoMe while applying for residency compared to individual older than 35 years old (p<0.01). Female respondents used Instagram significantly more often than males, and males used YouTube and Reddit significantly more often than females (p < 0.05). Participants primarily sought information regarding program culture (58%) and lifestyle (50%) from SoMe. Regarding improving efficacy of SoMe outreach, common themes identified include resident-made content, using different elements of SoMe posts to increase engagement, and increasing accessibility to SoMe via increasing number of platforms.

Conclusion: This study presents a national analysis of SoMe impact on the anesthesiology residency application process. To cultivate a more purposeful approach to SoMe usage among anesthesiology residency programs, a meticulous examination of the content that is most beneficial to residency applicants is paramount. This study underscores the importance of using social media’s original "social" function by crafting posts that spotlight program culture and residency lifestyle in a clear and welcoming manner, all with the goal of engaging and appealing to anesthesiology residency applicants.

Making Social Media “Social” May Improve Anesthesiology Residency Program Outreach

Background
While substantial progress has been made toward gender parity in dermatology, significant gender gaps remain in Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS). Less than one-third of US Mohs surgeons are women, compared to 52% of dermatologists and 37% of all physicians. Fellowship directors (FDs) play a pivotal role in shaping the future of MMS through direct mentorship and advocacy of subspecialty-wide changes. Characterizing FDs in terms of gender, research productivity, and career timeline have yielded crucial insights into mitigating future inequities. Presently, studies characterizing FDs within MMS are lacking. Herein, we aimed to explore gender trends in MMS FDs and fellows over time and analyze FD characteristics to provide a framework for improving gender diversity.

Methods
We compiled a comprehensive list of FDs and fellows for all Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education–accredited Micrographic Surgery & Dermatologic Oncology programs from 1996 to 2023. Publicly available data from various internet sources from February 1, 2023 to May 30, 2023 were used to assess characteristics of MMS FDs, including gender, research productivity, program type, educational background, and career timeline. Student’s t-test, Chi-square test, Fisher's exact test, and linear regression were used for statistical analysis.

Results
From 1996 to 2023, the percentage of women fellows increased from 24% to 43% and women FDs increased from 6% to 25%. Women FDs were more likely to select women fellows than men FDs (p=0.0002). Six residency programs accounted for 32% of current FDs, and 10 fellowship programs accounted for nearly 50% of current FDs. Women FDs had fewer years between fellowship completion and FD appointment (9.1 ± 4.7 years) compared to men (13.6 ± 8.8 years; p = 0.036). Women FDs also had fewer years of practice (18.3 ± 6.8 years) compared to men (24.2 ± 10.8 years; p = 0.030). H-index, program type, and academic rank were similar between men and women FDs.

Conclusion
Earlier involvement in academic leadership for women Mohs surgeons is a promising predictor of gender equality on the trainee level, though gender diversity of FDs must be improved. Limitations of this study include that our methods did not account for non-binary genders; thus, the collected data may not be entirely representative of the study population. Future studies should explore ethnic/racial representation in MMS leadership. Such endeavors will propel the field towards building a more representative medical community that delivers the best patient care.

Eeny, meeny, miny, “Mohs": Characterizing gender and leadership trends in Mohs micrographic surgery

Background: There is much excitement and curiosity about artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) among medical students and professionals, especially regarding the impact of automation in medicine. Despite the enormous impact that these technologies are poised to have in the delivery of healthcare, few programs exist to deliberately expose future physicians to the role of AI and ML in medicine, especially those without a background in data science or programming. While online courses exist to teach programming skills and machine learning model development, these are inaccessible to most medical students with limited time and varying technical backgrounds. We designed an interactive workshop to introduce students to basic AI/ML concepts and allow them to train a machine learning model without writing any code. The intended audience was students with no technical or coding background.
Methods: The 45-minute workshop consisted of a 25- minute didactic introduction to ML concepts, ethics, and limitations, and a 20-minute interactive application of ML. Using Teachable Machine, an online interface, students trained diagnostic models to classify dermatologic lesions. The workshop was conducted three times at Emory University School of Medicine, once virtually (September 2020) and twice in-person (November 2021 and April 2023). Anonymous pre- and post-workshop surveys were conducted to measure conceptual and technical understanding of AI/ML, awareness of applications and limitations, and interest in contributing to AI/ML innovation. Data were analyzed by the Wilcoxon Rank Sum test.
Results: Forty-eight total students attended the three sessions. The two in-person sessions in November 2021 and April 2023 were quantitatively evaluated; 26 in-person participants (87%) found the workshop helpful and enjoyable, reporting significant increases (p<0.001) for understanding of the difference between ML and AI (84%), ML applications in medicine (50%), and ML limitations (67%). We also observed a 13% increase in the group’s interest in contributing to AI/ML innovation (p=0.009).
Conclusion: This intervention shows that less than an hour of didactic and interactive training effectively lowers barriers to the promising fields of AI/ML, improving medical student competencies and attitudes towards machine learning.

An Interactive Introduction to Machine Learning for Medical Students


The importance of understanding the healthcare needs of individuals with skin of color (SoC) in dermatology has gained increasing awareness. Though research suggests dermatologic literature is one of the key sources providers reference for patient care, the focus is primarily on lighter skin tones, which can be detrimental in providing care for patients with SoC. While there has been recent emphasis on incorporating SoC-focused lectures in residency training, we believe there remains a deficit of this knowledge due to the deficiency of instruction throughout medical school curricula. This study analyzes medical students’ comfort with diagnosing dermatologic conditions among different presentations based on their didactic training.
First and second-year Rocky Vista University medical students (n=22) attended an educational workshop where they were presented with seven dermatologic conditions and asked to diagnose each beginning with a SoC patient, followed by an identical condition in a Caucasian patient, and finally a medical vignette with common descriptors of the condition. Students completed an anonymous survey before and after the seminar to evaluate their comfort level change in identifying dermatologic lesions. Participants' self-reported their comfort in diagnosing these conditions on a scale of 1-10. The number of correct diagnoses was also analyzed.
Prior to the workshop, participants had a mean comfort level of 6.04 ± 1.84 for Caucasian presentations and 4.09 ± 1.54 for SoC presentations. After the seminar, the comfort level increased to 7.04 ± 1.79 for Caucasian presentations and 6.18 ± 2.01 for SoC presentations. Nineteen participants provided anonymous diagnoses for each condition in SoC, caucasian, and clinical vignette presentations. The average percentage of correct answers were 23.26% for SoC presentations, 34.58% for caucasian presentations, and 68.42% for clinical vignettes.
Based on our sample, medical students exhibited higher comfort levels in diagnosing dermatologic conditions in Caucasian skin tones compared to SoC presentations, and correct diagnoses also favored Caucasian presentations over SoC patients. However, following the seminar, the greatest increases in comfort level resulted in SoC presentations, indicating the effectiveness of this instruction in didactic training. Clinical vignettes received the highest correct diagnoses, highlighting the reliance on terminology rather than visual interpretation in early medical education. These findings emphasize the need for diversity of visual dermatological presentations in early medical education and the importance of shifting away from excessive reliance on "buzzwords" in clinical vignettes. By addressing curricular gaps in medical training, we hope to enhance the quality of care for patients with SoC.

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Assessing Medical Students' Understanding of Fertility and Infertility: Implications for Physician Well-being and Reproductive Health

Next from 2023 AMA Research Challenge

The Neurological Examination: Overcoming Language Barriers to Increase Access to Patient-Directed Neurologic Care