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Although it has become increasingly common for hospitals to engage in development projects aimed at improving the social determinants of health in surrounding communities, scholarly literature examining the establishment of trust between hospitals and communities is sparse. Because of an extensive and complex history of abuse suffered by marginalized populations at the hands of medical institutions, trust building is critical to the pursuit of equitable health outcomes in these communities. A scoping review was conducted to assess the current base of knowledge for building trust between hospital systems and community members. The review identified only 13 relevant articles addressing this topic, centered on six key themes: with whom to form partnerships; how to form partnerships; conceptualizing and defining trust; questions about investment and hiring; effective communication with communities; and, understanding communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay offers a layered account of the origins and enactment of a narrative medicine program at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine titled the Open Book Project (OBP). Narrative medicine positions clinical judgment as involving both scientific and narrative reasoning, a set of practices particularly well-suited to fostering inclusive health care and social justice. The OBP involved first-year medical students who met bi-monthly to witness, reflect on, and write about literary passages, visual images, music and lyrics, and other works of art. Sessions also provided opportunities for participants to attentively listen and respond to others, opening themselves to diverse ways of knowing and being. The authors move between academic literature, participants' compositions developed during the project, and students' testimonies to illustrate the dividends and difficulties of narrative medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asian citrus psyllid (Diaphorina citri Kuwayama) is the insect vector of the bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), the pathogen associated with citrus Huanglongbing (HLB, citrus greening). HLB threatens citrus production worldwide. Suppression or reduction of the insect vector using chemical insecticides has been the primary method to inhibit the spread of citrus greening disease. Accurate structural and functional annotation of the Asian citrus psyllid genome, as well as a clear understanding of the interactions between the insect and CLas, are required for development of new molecularbased HLB control methods. A draft assembly of the D. citri genome has been generated and annotated with automated pipelines. However, knowledge transfer from well-curated reference genomes such as that of Drosophila melanogaster to newly sequenced ones is challenging due to the complexity and diversity of insect genomes. To identify and improve gene models as potential targets for pest control, we manually curated several gene families with a focus on genes that have key functional roles in D. citri biology and CLas interactions. This community effort produced 530 manually curated gene models across developmental, physiological, RNAi regulatory and immunity-related pathways. As previously shown in the pea aphid, RNAi machinery genes putatively involved in the microRNA pathway have been specifically duplicated. A comprehensive transcriptome enabled us to identify a number of gene families that are either missing or misassembled in the draft genome. In order to develop biocuration as a training experience, we included undergraduate and graduate students from multiple institutions, as well as experienced annotators from the insect genomics research community. The resulting gene set (OGS v1.0) combines both automatically predicted and manually curated gene models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Clinical teaching cases are a cornerstone of health professions education programs, but cases historically have lacked diversity and have the potential to reinforce essentialism. In this article, we describe the creation, implementation, and feasibility assessment of a professional development workshop aimed at integrating an existing bias reduction tool into discussion and revision of teaching cases., Methods: Six 60-minute workshops were held introducing "The Race and Culture Guide for Editors of Teaching Cases" to different health profession education programs wherein all participants worked in small groups to critique and edit two sample teaching cases. To assess initial feasibility, facilitators completed a facilitator evaluation survey to capture experiences after the first three workshops. Due to positive feedback, workshops were continued, and participants completed a participant evaluation survey to understand learner impact., Results: Facilitators (n=6) identified the workshop as addressing an important need, highlighted the value in small-group format, and noted their ability to facilitate future sessions. Participants (n=18) rated the workshop as useful, effective at challenging biases, and would recommend the workshop to others., Conclusion: The purpose of this study was to understand the feasibility of implementing a discussion-based workshop integrating a bias reduction tool. Initial feasibility and acceptability assessments demonstrate that this workshop., (© 2024 by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine.)

Context: There is strong evidence that social support-particularly perceived social support-functions as a protective factor for health. Few studies have investigated how medical students perceive the types of social support they experience., Objective: To determine how osteopathic medical students perceive social support, understand the factors that influence their perceptions, and explore how group participation in a cocurricular, academic program could affect student perceptions., Methods: In this cross-sectional study of 983 medical students at a multicampus osteopathic medical school in the Midwest, potential respondents were invited by email in March 2018 to participate in a self-reported evaluation of their perceived social support using a 40-question Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL). The demographic variables included gender, race, age, current phase in medical school, Hispanic heritage, campus assignment, and hometown population type. A total score for each type of social support and a summative score for overall perceived social support were calculated. Descriptive statistics were applied to provide a summary of the distribution of study variables. Bivariate analyses were conducted using student t test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistic to determine distribution of 4 social support constructs and overall social support by all the study variables; α < .05 was considered statistically significant. Linear regression analysis was performed to determine the association between all study variables and 4 social support constructs. Pairwise interactions were calculated to determine whether the association differed by any of the study variables., Results: Self-esteem support was the lowest type of perceived social support overall in the total sample (mean [SD], 23.5[2.0]). Hispanic students reported lower overall mean perceived social support than those who did not identify as Hispanic (100 vs 104; P=.04). Older study participants had higher mean tangible support compared with their younger counterparts (26.25 vs. 25.60, P=.018; t [264]=1.18). Older study participants also had higher mean appraisal support compared with their younger counterparts (26.57 vs. 25.92, P=.06; t [266]=1.27). Female medical students reported lower levels of belonging support overall (mean [SD] 26.79, [2.10]). Students from rural hometowns reported a higher sense of belonging support than any other group. Female students from suburban and urban hometowns reported lower levels of belonging support compared with women from rural hometowns (Adj. β=-0.96, P=.01). Students who participated in the rural and urban underserved program had higher self esteem support compared with those who did not participate in the rural and urban underserved program (Adj. β=-1.30, P=.05). Students in the clinical phase of medical education reported lower levels of belonging support than students in the preclinical phase (26.14 vs. 26.69, P=.05; t[256]=1.07)., Conclusions: It is critical to understand the ways medical students experience social support and the factors that contribute to it. Longitudinal studies following medical students over time would contribute to a more complete understanding of social support in medical students as they move from preclinical to the clinical phases of medical school.