Six Hot Health Care Careers

Learn more about health care careers that are projected to see high growth from 2010 to 2020.

By Amanda Hearle

Want to take advantage of the growing career opportunities in health care? Now is the time to start preparing, as the industry is showing no signs of slowing down.

"Whether the economy is up or down, people's need for health care doesn't change," says Andrea Santiago, About.com's Guide to Health Careers.

In May alone the industry added 33,000 new jobs, bringing the over-the-year health care employment to 340,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's "Employment Situation Summary" released in June.

According to Santiago, factors leading to the demand in health care include "an industry-wide shift in focus to preventative care, combined with a growing need for diagnostic and therapeutic care among the older baby boomer generation."
Ready to prepare to pursue a career in this growing industry? Check out these six hot health care careers...

Career #1: Medical Assistant

2010 to 2020 Job Growth: 31 percent*

If you're looking for a health care career where you can act as a jack-of-all-trades, then medical assisting is a growing field that could use more people like you.

By handling administrative and clinical tasks, medical assistants could help make sure that doctors' offices run smoothly and efficiently. Their duties can range from scheduling appointments and filling out insurance forms to measuring patients' vital signs and assisting the doctor with medical exams, says the U.S. Department of Labor.

Why it's a hot career: "More people are getting insured and entering the health care system," says Santiago. "That increases the number of patients doctors are seeing, which places a greater burden on support staff." And this support staff she's referring to? That includes medical assistants.
Click to Find the Right Medical Assisting Program.

Education options: Most medical assistants have at least a high school diploma and develop skills on the job, but some employers may favor candidates who have completed a formal education program, says the Department of Labor. These formal education programs could include a certificate or associate's degree in medical assisting.

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Career #2: Medical and Health Services Manager

2010 to 2020 Job Growth: 22 percent*

Medical facilities would be chaos without a behind-the-scenes medical and health services manager calling the shots. If you're interested in a health care leadership position, consider pursuing a career in this expanding field.

As a medical and health services manager, you could use your management skills to direct and organize medical and health services at a health care facility or in a clinical department, says the U.S. Department of Labor. Common duties could include staying updated on new laws and regulations, handling finances, making work schedules, and communicating with the medical staff.

Why it's a hot career: "As the large baby-boom population ages and people remain active later in life, the health care industry as a whole will see an increase in the demand for medical services," according to the Department of Labor. This increase will in turn spur the demand for medical and health services managers to coordinate medical information and staff.

Click to Find the Right Health Care Administration Program.

Education options: Medical and health services managers need at least a bachelor's degree to prepare to pursue this field, says the Department. Other common credentials include master's degrees in health services, long-term care administration, public health, public administration, or business administration.

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Career #3: Medical Records and Health Information Technician

2010 to 2020 Job Growth: 21 percent*

Are you a computer whiz who's looking to pursue a career in health care? If so, consider exploring the growing number of opportunities in the field of health information technology.

As a medical records and health information technician, you could spend your workday organizing health information data and making sure that it's accurate and secure in paper and electronic systems, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. You could also be responsible for coding patients' health information with classification software.

Why it's a hot career: With the aging population requiring more tests, treatments, and procedures, there will be an increase in insurance claims and the need for people who can organize and manage these records, says the Department of Labor.

Santiago adds: "As the health care field is forced to update its technology, the need for people who can create and maintain these systems increases."

Click to Find the Right Health Information Technology Program.

Education options: To prepare to pursue a medical records and health information technician position, you typically need to earn a certificate or associate's degree in health information technology, says the Department. And most employers prefer candidates with professional certification, which could be based on passing an exam or completing an accredited program, adds the Department.

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Career #4: Registered Nurse

2010 to 2020 Job Growth: 26 percent*

When you consider how much patient care falls to nurses, it's no wonder nursing is seeing an increase in employment opportunities.

As a registered nurse, you could be accountable for performing diagnostic tests, administering medications, creating treatment plans, and educating patients and the public about health conditions, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Why it's a hot career: "The increased emphasis on preventative care is definitely driving up the demand for more primary care givers like nurses," says Santiago. "Nurses frequently take over aspects of patient care that doctors are too busy to do themselves."

Click to Find the Right Registered Nursing Program.

Education options: To prepare to pursue a nursing career, you could earn an associate's degree or diploma in nursing from an accredited nursing program, says the Department of Labor. Then you need to pass the national nursing exam (NCLEX-RN) to get licensed.

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Career #5: Pharmacy Technician

2010 to 2020 Job Growth: 32 percent*

If you want a health care career that's focused more on medicine and less on hands-on patient care, then the expanding pharmacy technician field may be a good fit for you.

As a pharmacy technician, you could work alongside pharmacists in retail pharmacies or hospitals, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Common duties include mixing medications, measuring prescription dosages, packaging prescriptions, and taking payments from customers.

Why it's a hot career: "As a result of advances in pharmaceutical research, more prescription medications are being used to fight diseases," says the Department of Labor. "Also, the number of older people is growing, and older people use more prescription drugs than younger people."

Click to Find the Right Pharmacy Technician Program.

Education options: Most pharmacy technicians have a high school diploma and gain their knowledge on the job, but some states require candidates to pass an exam and complete a formal education program - like a certificate in pharmacy technology, says the Department. Check with your state to find out more about your requirements.

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Career #6: Physical Therapist Assistant

2010 to 2020 Job Growth: 46 percent*

Want to spend your workday helping people recover from physical trauma? Consider pursuing a thriving physical therapist assistant career.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, physical therapist assistants could help patients recover from injuries, illnesses, or surgery. By teaching certain exercises and providing therapeutic methods like massage or electrical stimulation (under the supervision of a physical therapist), you could help patients manage their pain and regain mobility, adds the Department of Labor.

Why it's a hot career: Because "baby boomers also are entering the prime age for heart attacks and strokes, increasing the demand for cardiac and physical rehabilitation," says the Department.
Santiago adds: "Physical therapy facilities are now about to reduce their costs, making treatment more accessible to more people."

Click to Find the Right Physical Therapy Assistance Program.

Education options: Education requirements vary by state, but most states require physical therapist assistants to earn an associate's degree from a physical therapist program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education, says the Department. Check your state's requirements to see if you must earn an accredited degree and pass a licensing exam.

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*Potential job growth information is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012-13 Edition, at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/home.htm (visited June 1, 2012).

Young People Frequent Libraries, Study Finds

 

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
 

 

In a digital world where many younger readers feel increasingly comfortable downloading novels and textbooks onto their computers or e-readers, a majority of Americans from the ages of 16 through 29 still frequent libraries.

According to a study released Monday by the Pew Research Center, 60 percent of Americans surveyed in this age group said they still visited the library. They use libraries to conduct research, borrow print, audio and electronic books and, in some cases, read magazines and newspapers.
That finding would seem to clash with the popular notion that young readers have turned away from libraries and print books as the source of their reading material, said Kathryn Zickuhr, research analyst with the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. “A lot of people think that young people aren’t reading, they aren’t using libraries,” Ms. Zickuhr said. “That they’re just turning to Google for everything.”

The Pew Center has been researching the use of the nation’s libraries for more than two years, with financing from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The latest study involved a telephone survey, conducted last November and December, of nearly 3,000 people 16 and older talking about their reading habits, and data from two telephone polls conducted in January. While young people clearly do not read newspapers as regularly as their parents and grandparents did, their consumption of magazines is more closely aligned. The study showed that 40 percent of surveyed Americans under 30 regularly read newspapers, compared with 62 percent of older Americans. Seventy-one percent of those under 30 who do read news regularly said they viewed all of their news through hand-held devices.

While 42 percent of Americans under 30 read magazines, 50 percent of older adults read magazines.
But in troubling news for tablet makers, the study also found that the subjects under 30 who read electronically were more likely to read books on a cellphone or a computer.
In fact, the study found that 41 percent of readers under 30 view books using a cellphone and 55 percent read from a computer. Only 23 percent of Americans under 30 used an e-reader and 16 percent used a tablet.
“That’s definitely something we will keep an eye on,” Ms. Zickuhr said.

A version of this article appeared in print on 10/23/2012, on page B8 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Young Americans Frequent Libraries, Pew Study Finds.

Check it out!!! The Human Eye enlarged approx. 5 times

The Human Eye enlarged

Added to our anatomy parts collection is the Human Eye enlarged approximately 5 times. Check it out at the Student Sucess Center, Medical Campus.

 

 

Film and Video Resources - Film and Video - LibGuides at Miami Dade College InterAmerican Campus

International Community Observes Global Handwashing Day

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

 

The international community on Monday observed Global Handwashing Day, GlobalPost reports in a roundup of news coverage surrounding the day. "According to the Guardian, 3,000 children under the age of five die each day from diarrhea alone, making it the second most common cause of child mortality worldwide," GlobalPost writes.

"While it may seem trivial, science has proved handwashing education necessary," the news service continues, noting Lifebuoy soap estimates that by promoting handwashing "over the last five years the number of deaths caused by diarrhea have been cut in half."

According to GlobalPost, India's Economic Times reports "a review of 11 countries showed the average rate of handwashing after using the toilet is only 17 percent" (Leasca, 10/15).
"Teaching children to wash their hands after using the bathroom and before eating could save more lives than any single vaccine, according to the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing," the Huffington Post's "Impact" blog writes in a post highlighting a number of resources about the day (10/15).

In a news release, UNICEF "said it has new data showing how the practice of handwashing varies from country to country and is influenced by location, culture and wealth," the U.N. News Centre writes, and provides examples (10/15).

Global Handwashing Day Theme Video

 

Meningitis outbreak "nowhere near the end": health expert

NEW YORK | Tue Oct 16, 2012 9:44am EDT

The meningitis outbreak that has so far killed 15 people and sickened more than 200 others is "nowhere near the end," a top medical expert said Tuesday, a day after federal authorities warned more tainted drugs may be linked to the health crisis.

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, said on "CBS This Morning" that he expects a "steady increase" in the number of fungal meningitis infections over the coming weeks.

The move on Monday by the Food and Drug Administration to widen its investigation into the cause of the fungal meningitis outbreak to other drugs made by a Massachusetts pharmacy, the New England Compounding Center (NECC), is "ominous," Schaffner said.

"We were concerned that there might be other medications that might be contaminated coming from that pharmacy," said Schaffner, who is past-president of National Foundation for Infectious Disease. "The FDA has given us a heads up that that looks to be the case. We'll have to notify many more patients across the country that they may have been exposed to a fungal infection."

"I think we're still in the middle," Schaffner said, when asked about the outbreak's scope. "We're nowhere near the end of this problem. And we will see more patients reporting in ill and we'll have to treat many more going forward."

The FDA said Monday it was looking into two other drugs made by NECC, based outside of Boston in Framingham, Massachusetts.

The agency said it had received reports of a patient with possible meningitis who received an injection of a different steroid than the one found to have caused 15 deaths. It also said two transplant patients were infected with the rare fungus linked to the meningitis outbreak after receiving a heart drug also made by NECC.

Also on Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said nine more people were diagnosed with fungal meningitis linked to possibly tainted vials of the injected steroid methylprednisolone, bringing the number of cases to 212.

The patient identified by the FDA as potentially having meningitis received an injection of the steroid triamcinolone, also supplied by NECC.

The FDA said its investigation of that patient and the two who received the heart drug during surgery was ongoing, and it cautioned that any injectable drugs made by NECC, including those intended for use in eyes, are of "significant concern."

The FDA has not confirmed that these three infections were caused by NECC products. NECC in a statement said it was reviewing the new information from the FDA.

On Monday a Tennessee woman filed a lawsuit against NECC seeking $15 million in damages.

SUSPECT LOTS

All but eight of the 23 states that received suspect medications from the Massachusetts specialist pharmacy have reported at least one case of fungal meningitis, a rare and deadly disease that has proven difficult to treat.

The suspect lots of steroid were shipped to 76 facilities.

A list of recalled NECC products on the FDA website ran 70 pages long. here

Meningitis is an infection of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms include headache, fever and nausea. Fungal meningitis is not contagious.

The outbreak has raised questions about how the pharmaceuticals industry operates. NECC engaged in a practice called drug compounding that is not regulated by the FDA, which generally oversees drug makers.

In compounding, pharmacies prepare specific doses of approved medications, based on guidance from a doctor, to meet an individual patient's need.

A Reuters investigation found that NECC solicited bulk orders from physicians and failed to require proof of individual patient prescriptions as required under state regulations, emails to a customer showed.

State pharmacy regulators have said that NECC violated its license in Massachusetts by not requiring patient prescriptions before shipping products.

The 15 states reporting cases of meningitis are Tennessee, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, Texas, Idaho, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Florida.

(Writing by Dan Burns; Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Vicki Allen)

U.S.

Health

One Day, Growing Spare Parts Inside the Body

By HENRY FOUNTAIN

LOS ANGELES — Dr. Tracy Grikscheit held a length of intestine in her gloved hands, examining it inch by inch as if she were checking a bicycle tube for leaks.

The intestine was still attached, at one end, to Mark Barfknecht, a 1-year-old whose pink cheeks belied the reason he was lying on an operating table at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Born three months premature, Mark had developed a disorder that affects up to 10 percent of babies who weigh about 3 pounds or less at birth, causing some of their intestinal tissue to die. Mark’s case was so severe that most of his intestines had been removed.

Now Dr. Grikscheit, a surgeon, was trying to determine how much of the rest she could save.

Dr. Grikscheit is renowned for her skill in treating infants like Mark, whose only way to survive may be as what she calls a “short gut kid” — left with too little intestine to absorb food normally and forced to get nutrition through a needle into the bloodstream.

But devoted as she is to saving children in the operating room, Dr. Grikscheit is equally determined to find a better solution than the intravenous feeding, possibly for life, that such patients face. Much of her time is spent in her laboratory across the street, at the hospital’s Saban Research Institute, where she is working with her research team to find a way to make replacement intestines for infants like Mark, using the body itself to nourish and push the engineered tissue to grow.

Dr. Grikscheit’s work is at the forefront of efforts in laboratories around the world to build replacement organs and tissues. Although the long-sought goal of creating complex organs like hearts and livers to ease transplant shortages remains a long way off, researchers are having success making simpler structures like bladders and windpipes, thanks to advances in understanding stem cells — basic cells that can be transformed into other types within the body — and to the development of innovative techniques.

So far Dr. Grikscheit has concentrated on growing rat, mouse and pig intestinal tissue in laboratory animals. But she has recently had success in growing human intestinal tissue, using donor cells, and is beginning to study how to develop the technique for human patients. There are many hurdles, and human testing is still years away, but she has a surgeon’s confidence that the technique will work.

“We have a huge problem that if we solve it, it will change the future for a lot of children,” she said.

In her lab, her team is currently working with mice. They first remove good intestine from the animals, cut it up and treat it with enzymes and other compounds to form clusters of mixed cells, including stem cells that are found in the absorptive lining of the intestine and others that make up the tougher connective tissue.

The clusters are then placed on a piece of porous biodegradable plastic, about the size and shape of the eraser on a pencil. The plastic serves as a scaffold, supporting the cells and orienting them, which has the effect of making the lining grow inward while the connective tissue grows on the outside.

This kind of seeding of scaffolds with cells is a common approach in the field of regenerative medicine, also known as tissue engineering. But in most cases, the goal is to swap the bad organ — a windpipe, for example — with the engineered replacement, where it can grow into its permanent position in the body.

Dr. Grikscheit has had success in the lab with a different method, using another part of the body to nourish the replacement as it grows.

She and her team sew the bundle of cells into the mouse’s omentum, a membranous fold inside the abdomen. There, the bundle is surrounded by blood vessels that supply nutrients, helping it to grow. The plastic eventually dissolves as the bundle grows into a hollow ball of tissue. A few weeks later, Dr. Grikscheit and her researchers remove the ball from the omentum — for study, to better understand how the regenerative growth occurs. The tissue has all the components of intestines, including the lining, muscles, nerves and blood vessels.

In earlier studies in rats, Dr. Grikscheit went a step further, splicing the tissue into the digestive tract of animals that had had much of their intestines removed. Rats with the engineered intestine recovered more quickly than those without it.

By combining this kind of lab work with her surgical practice, Dr. Grikscheit is doing what she has always thought surgeons should do. “You move medicine ahead,” she said.

Dr. Grikscheit, 40, who is intense and energetic and easy to spot in the hospital in her strawberry-print surgical cap, says she always knew she was going to be a surgeon — she told her great-grandmother as much when she was 6, growing up outside Salt Lake City. During her training she gravitated toward pediatric surgery. Compared with adults, children were works in progress — sometimes imperfect ones.

“The really fascinating thing is how to put something together that came out wrong and make it as right as possible,” she said.

She envisions a day when her approach moves beyond the lab to the operating room. Future operations to remove dead intestine from a baby — or from other patients with severe intestinal damage — would include an additional step: a little bit of good intestine would be sent to a table nearby, where technicians would quickly prepare a bundle for immediate implantation in the patient’s omentum.

The patient might have to be on intravenous nutrition for a month or so while the intestine grows, but eventually could be weaned off it after the new tissue was harvested and sewn in.

Not much new intestine would be required. “You only need to engineer an organ up to the point where you fix the missing function,” Dr. Grikscheit said. Even a couple of inches might be enough. “That will tip them back over into having enough absorptive function to get off of I.V. nutrition and live a full life.”

Such a remedy is still too far off for Mark Barfknecht.

Back in the operating room on that day earlier this year, Dr. Grikscheit and a fellow surgeon, Dr. Demetri Merianos, continued to examine Mark’s intestines. Without the ability — yet — to regenerate the child’s intestinal tissue, they were focused on keeping as much of the damaged organ as possible.

“This is coming down to something narrow,” Dr. Grikscheit said as she felt the tissue, which she and Dr. Merianos had spent the better part of two hours delicately freeing from Mark’s abdominal cavity, smoke rising from the cauterizing blade as they cut through places where it had adhered to the liver after an earlier surgery.

To ensure that they could properly reconnect Mark’s digestive tract at the end of the four-hour procedure, they tagged the open ends of the intestines with surgical thread and clamps of different kinds, and jotted notes on the paper surgical drapes about which end went where.

“I don’t care for this,” Dr. Grikscheit said, frowning. She and Dr. Merianos agreed that a 3-inch length of intestine would probably have to be cut out.

For a baby who had about only 15 inches of small intestine remaining, that was not good news.

But Mark, his mother says, is a survivor.

“Oh yeah, he’s been through it,” Karen Barfknecht said a few hours before the surgery, after his father, Michael, had detailed all the procedures their son had endured. “He has a cry that just makes you feel so bad,” Ms. Barfknecht said. “You’ll do absolutely anything for him.”

No one knows precisely what triggers the disorder, but prematurity plays a role.

Called necrotizing enterocolitis, the disorder can crop up suddenly in the weeks after birth. In about a quarter of cases, the death of intestinal tissue ultimately proves fatal. For many of the rest, emergency surgery to resect, or remove, dead tissue creates new problems.

“When I look at their intestine, I already know that to save their life I’m going to resect more than they can manage,” Dr. Grikscheit said. If the amount of dead tissue exceeds 75 percent of the total, the child will almost certainly be forced to get nutrition intravenously, which over the long term can damage the liver. Other operations, up to and including an intestinal transplant, may be needed, which bring other risks.

Mark is near that 75 percent threshold, so doctors at another hospital closer to his home in Indio, Calif., had put him on the special intravenous feeding, called total parenteral nutrition, or T.P.N., months before; now his liver is starting to suffer.

He has required such a high level of care that Mr. Barfknecht quit his job as a mechanic. Still, Mark has been in either a hospital or a convalescent facility almost all his short life; his big sister has hardly spent any time with him.

“We want him home,” his mother said. “We just want him home.”

That is Dr. Grikscheit’s goal, too. But before she and Dr. Merianos could determine whether Mark had enough good intestine to be weaned off the intravenous feeding eventually, they had to assess the narrow, diseased section they had found earlier. They looked at it again, weighing the options. They checked and rechecked their notes scribbled on the drapes.

“Unfortunately, sayonara,” she said, directing Dr. Merianos to begin cutting.

But that was the last piece of bad news for Mark. As the doctors continued to look at the remaining intestine, they grew increasingly optimistic that he would have enough. If so, they would stitch the remaining pieces together and reconnect everything from the stomach to the colon. Mark will have to continue the intravenous nutrition for some time, but eventually he should be able to eat normally.

“I think we’ll make it off T.P.N. and get him home,” Dr. Grikscheit said.

It is the infants who are not so fortunate — for whom surgery could not do enough — who motivate Dr. Grikscheit to keep working on a way to make new tissue.

“You keep finding these kids, in my case, who die,” she said. “I think it would be very frustrating to keep beating your head on the same problem and saying, ‘Well, that’s too bad.’ ”

 

 

Cancer overtakes heart disease among US Hispanics

By MIKE STOBBE | Associated Press

 

NEW YORK (AP) — Cancer has overtaken heart disease as the No. 1 killer among Hispanics in the U.S., and the rest of the country may be only a few years behind.

 

The change is not exactly cause for alarm. Death rates for both cancer and heart disease have been dropping for Hispanics and everyone else. It's just that heart disease deaths have fallen faster, largely because of improved treatment and prevention, including the development of cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Overall, cancer will probably replace heart disease as the nation's top cause of death in the next 10 years, said Rebecca Siegel of the American Cancer Society, lead author of a study reporting the new findings. Government health statisticians think the crossover point could be reached as early as this year, or at least in the next two or three years.

The reason it has already happened among Hispanics is that they are younger on average than non-Hispanic whites and blacks. And cancer tends to kill people earlier in life than heart disease, for decades the nation's top cause of death.

The shift could bring about a change in disease-prevention efforts, government spending priorities and people's attitudes.

"We've been so focused on heart disease mortality for so long. ... This may change the way people look at their risk," said Robert Anderson, who oversees the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control branch that monitors death statistics.

The study is being published in the September/October issue of a cancer society publication, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

Cancer society researchers looked at federal death data for 2009 and found that 29,935 Hispanics died of cancer and 29,611 of heart disease. It was the first year in which cancer deaths surpassed heart disease in that ethnic group.

Cancer is also the leading cause of death for Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. And it is now the leading killer in 18 states, according to 2009 numbers from the CDC.

Hispanics are the nation's largest and fastest-growing major ethnic group, and many of them are young immigrants from Mexico. Most heart disease deaths are in people 65 and older. The vast majority of Hispanics in the U.S. are under 55.

The story is different in Mexico, which has an older population. There, diabetes is the biggest killer, with cancer No. 2, according to 2009 statistics from the Pan American Health Organization.

Interestingly, none of the states where cancer has overtaken heart disease is in the Southwest, which has large Hispanic populations. Instead, most are in the nation's northern tier, including Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the four states of upper New England.

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Online:

Cancer Society journal: http://cacancerjournal.org

New Library Website

http://www.mdc.edu/main/library/

Study Digs Into Secrets of Keeping HIV in Check

By By Randy Dotinga HealthDay Reporter | HealthDay

SUNDAY, June 10 (HealthDay News) -- A small number of HIV-infected patients have immune systems that are able to keep AIDS at bay by preventing the virus from reproducing for years, and researchers are reporting that they've gained new insight into how that works.

These fortunate patients, known as "elite controllers" or "long-term non-progressors," are quite rare. They've long fascinated scientists who want to understand the secrets lurking inside their immune cells. Researchers trying to develop an AIDS vaccine are especially interested in these special patients.

The key seems to be that certain cells in the immune systems of these people are better able to detect and kill cells that are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, said study co-author Dr. Bruce Walker, a professor at Harvard School of Public Health.

In essence, he said, they have better "glasses" than the same cells in patients who can't fight off the virus as well. These cells are better able to "see" signs of trouble from infected cells that send out a kind of distress signal.

The new research shows that "there's a way to measure what's good vision and what's bad vision," Walker said. "We can immediately start looking at vaccine candidates to see if our techniques of training these killer cells are leading to really good vision or not. We can also try to understand what it is that's impaired the vision in some of these patients and allowed for good vision to develop in others."

The researchers came to their conclusions after studying the blood of five "elite controllers" and five normal HIV patients.

Only about one in 200 or 300 HIV patients is able to naturally keep the virus from developing into AIDS without the help of medications, Walker noted. One person has been fending off AIDS since 1978.

"We can't be sure that everybody who achieves this state is actually going to persist in it, but it certainly looks like the vast majority of them will," he said.

Nitin Saksena, head of the retroviral genetics division at Westmead Millennium Institute's Center for Virus Research in Sydney, Australia, said the study needs to be confirmed by other research, and it has limitations, such as the small number of patients involved. It's important to consider that "elite controllers" are quite different from each other, Saksena added.

Dr. Mark Connors, chief of the HIV-specific immunity section with the Laboratory of Immunoregulation of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, questioned the study results, saying they don't demonstrate why the killer immune cells work more effectively in the elite controllers. Essentially, Connors doesn't think the study authors discovered why the cells have better "vision."

Study co-author Walker, however, said the research is valuable: "This is another example of HIV revealing its secrets. Having been in this field for 30 years, the remarkable thing is that we just keep learning more."

The study is published in the June 10 online edition of Nature Immunology.

National Library Week, Thursday April 12, from 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm Room 1175

Note Taking Skills

Posted on Wed, Feb. 08, 2012 MDC launches first-ever course to help Miami-Dade officers save their own lives MIAMI HERALD STAFF Florida currently leads the nation with the highest number of officer fatalities in the line of duty.Now, a pioneering course developed by Miami-Dade College’s Medical Campus and Miami-Dade police aims to reduce that number by training officers to tend to wounded partners, and even themselves, before paramedics arrive. Tactical Life-Saver course is the country’s first of its kind. The training will focus on what officers should do in the first minutes after an officer is shot, which can mean the difference between life and death. The intense 40-hour course will teach officers necessary medical knowledge and stay alive until help arrives, which can be delayed by circumstances. “If an officer is wounded and is pinned down by gunfire, the paramedics will not come into a crime scene until the bad guys are captured,” said MDC School of Health Sciences Dean Pete Gutierrez, who is a former Miami police officer. “This training is meant to teach officers to keep each other alive in that situation. It’s a way to buy them time.” Gutierrez said the impetus for the course, which resembled those given to U.S. Army soldiers, came after the slaying in January 2011 of two Miami-Dade police officers while trying to serve a warrant on a murder suspect in Miami. Fatally wounded were Officers Amanda Haworth and Roger Castillo. A third officer was wounded and the suspect was shot to death. “After that tragic incident, we decided to take a look and see what we could do to help officers better survive such a violent incident,” said Gutierrez, who is also the police department’s medical training director. Part of the officers week-long training will take place at MDC’s medical campus’ state-of-the-art Simulation Lab, where human simulators will be used to teach wound assessment and bleeding control; stabilize spinal injuries and treat a sucking chest wound. Another segment will be taught at the Miami-Dade police training center where officers will be placed in realistic, dangerous scenarios where they will simulate being wounded on duty. All officers who take the course will be giving special emergency trauma kits to carry during their shift. The course is underway all this week with 17 officers. It will continue until all county officers have gone through the training. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/08/v-print/2631319/mdc-launches-first-ever-course.html#storylink=cpy

Black Heritage Month presents MUSICOLOGY

Change in Eligibility for Financial Aid

New Federal Regulations limit Pell Grant Elegibility

WORLD AIDS DAY

Medical Campus Holiday Celebration

Miami Book Fair Inernational

Book Fair Guest author Dr. Marc Agronin Book Presentation