Teaching is Fun!

Carrie Rheingans

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m teaching undergraduates this semester in exchange for a tuition waiver, a stipend, and health insurance. It’s been going well so far and I really enjoy it!

Each week, I teach one three-hour lab on Monday, have a three-hour meeting with the other GSIs and the course instructor, and hold three hours of office hours in the lab. The lab is set up for students to come in outside lab time to complete projects, so I’m in and out at other times, checking on students’ experiments. I also get to create a lab handout each week, which takes time, as well as grade homework, lab reports, quizzes and exams. I was told to plan on it taking about 20 hours/week, and it’s taking about that much time. That’s on top of my 16 hours/week social work field placement!

In the lab, I teach the lab techniques for the week and explain the steps of the experiments. We have six projects this semester, and the longest one is a 7-week fruit fly experiment. We’re squarely in the middle and it’s going well! It’s been fun so far, listening to the students reactions to looking at the flies under the microscope and such.

Fly examination microscope

The other thing that I’ve noticed about teaching is how I now look at my own instructors. We do so much back-end planning for each week’s lab, to make sure everything goes well. I didn’t really think before how much planning professors have to do outside classtime – I just assumed ‘hey – they’re the experts in the field, what planning do they really have to do?’. Now I know it’s A LOT of planning! I also get to help write the exams, the first of which is coming up soon. That’s interesting, too, because I have to make sure the questions aren’t too easy, but aren’t too tricky.

My view of the lab

View from the back of the lab

Doctoral Qualifying Exams

Tiffany Yang

The other evening I attended a presentation put together by the Rackham Graduate School that addressed the issue of reaching candidacy. The presentation included a panel of professors and a panel of graduate students who had already achieved candidacy. They addressed a bunch of questions about communicating with your committee or mentor, the amount of time you should allocate to studying and preparing, etc.

As a Ph.D. candidate, at least the way I understand it, you take a bunch of classes, go through some research rotations and, at the end of your first year, you take the most intense written examination ever. The following year, you have an oral defense of your research proposal. If you pass, you become a candidate. If not…let’s not talk about that. No, no, I think you get a second chance. It really depends on how your department feels but after having put so much money and energy into shaping you into a proper scientist, they really don’t want you to fail. I’m sure (or hope, anyway) it would be downright embarrassing for them if you failed under their watch. I feel pretty confidant saying that if you work hard and smart, you’ll do ok. But, I am a little scared because it seems like there is a whole lot of stuff that we need to know and be able to do. It is kind of overwhelming to think about.

So, as things are progressing along the semester with classes and research, I’m starting to think a little further ahead about my qualifying exams and what to do with my summer. I’ll make sure to keep you posted!

The University of Michigan Museum of Art

David McCormick

Last weekend I visited the University of Michigan Museum of Art as a way to escape work, classes, and the dreary weather for a few hours.  I mostly visited out of curiosity (to be honest, I wasn’t expecting too much from a university art museum), but I was surprised by the diversity of their collection – it’s got everything from copies of Greco-Roman statues to Buddhist sculpture, with American landscape paintings and German Expressionist prints thrown in for good measure.  While the main exhibits were impressive, my favorite gallery was an exhibition on Chang Ku-nien, an artist who trained in classic Chinese landscape painting in the 20th century. Following the cultural revolution, he fled to Taiwan and he was the first to paint Taiwanese landscapes in the traditional Chinese style.   In his later years, he traveled extensively throughout the United States and eventually settled in Michigan, where he began to paint the landscapes of the Upper Peninsula in the traditional Chinese style (see the image below).  You can find a link to the exhibition with more examples of his work here.

A Different Look at a MI Landscape (Courtesy of UMMA)

The Lobby of UM's Art Museum

It’s not related to public health (well, I could probably find a connection if I really tried…), but the university’s art museum represents one of the University of Michigan’s great advantages – it’s size.  The sheer size of the university has two primary consequences: it can have excellent programs in many fields, and it draws world-class speakers (Kenneth Cole and Paul Krugman spoke at UMich last term).  For students, the benefits are pretty obvious (free access to the vast majority of these events) and the diversity of the faculty mean that it’s never difficult for a student to find an expert.  The faculty, at least the ones with whom I’ve had contact, are willing to help even if you’re not from their department.  As an example, I’ll need to get training from medical school faculty in order to carry out my internship this summer, and to get that training all I have to is walk down the street.

Dreaming about the State of the Union

MB Lewis

I watched all 70 minutes of President Obama’s address Wednesday, plus the Republican response. I tuned in shortly after I logged off  my SPH online class discussion on the U.S. health care system.  So it’s no surprise that I dreamed last night about being in D.C. and talking health reform in its hallowed halls. Class this week was devoted to values, and Professor Rich Lichtenstein was a masterful devil’s advocate as he provoked us on the hard questions: Is health care a right, even for people who aren’t working? If so, who should pay for it? Should the government require individuals to get health insurance or else fine them through IRS?

“Most health policies start with a values position,” he said. Avedis Donabedian did groundbreaking work on the topic when he taught at UM SPH, and it’s as pertinent today as ever before.

Our distance learning class in the Certificate in the Foundations of Public Health had weighed in slightly more conservatively than the daytime SPH class on whether individuals or government bear responsibility for health care. Perhaps that’s because we’re older than the residential students. Many of my 25 classmates work  in medicine, social work, research, and education (one is an emergency worker, now  in Haiti). Many say they’re taking the class to find out how the complex U.S. health care system works. They know their piece, but not the big picture.

We’re getting the big picture in class, and it’s scary. The system of largely employer-funded insurance  is not sustainable. If Starbucks spends more on employee health than on coffee, and GM spends more on it per car than on steel, how can our economy thrive? And imagine how much more costly government programs like Medicare will become as baby boomers age.

I didn’t mention how often President Obama and the Republican respondent used the words “values” and “freedom” in their speeches. I noticed it though. And I have a better understanding of why.

PS: See the public letter that 3 more UM SPH professors signed urging health care reform.

Special Guest Interview: Stay hungry, stay foolish

***UPDATE: Congratulations, Alon, for being accepted to UM SPH!!***

 

Valentina Stackl

 

Stay hungry, stay foolish. –Steve Jobs (Alon’s favorite quote)

What am I doing at 5:30AM? I am most likely curled up in fetal position, snoozing for the next foreseeable future. What is Alon Mandel doing? Getting ready to jump in the pool. Alon is an Olympic swimmer who is part of the Michigan Varsity Men’s Swim Team. He also wants to study Environmental Health Science at SPH in the fall. I met up with him over lunch this week:

Alon started swimming when he was six. He followed in his older sisters’ footsteps who both loved to swim in their native Netanya, Israel. He won his first national championship when he was 10, in the age group for 11 year olds. His sister Maya came to Michigan when Alon was 12. When he visited her during her senior year it was love at first sight: he wanted to be a Wolverine too- especially after some of the girls on the women’s team beat him in the pool. He said that for the first time ever, he did not feel like a fish, he felt like plankton, and it was then that he knew that he wanted to come to UM to train. He wanted his picture, swim cap and the Israeli flag hung in the pool’s hall of fame, he wanted to train with the best of the best (including Michael Phelps).

 

When I asked Alon when he knew that he was good enough to be going to the Olympics, he said that he made a tag for his backpack that had the opening day of the Beijing Olympics carved on it- he made it in 2001, seven and a half years before the big day. 

Alon came to the University of Michigan to study engineering. But, he had to continue competing to qualify for the Israeli Olympic team. I can’t imagine studying for exams, and traveling back to Israel (and other countries) to compete. He made the team one month before the Olympics. 

August 11 was a Monday. Alon was in lane 8. On that day, he set the new Israeli record for the 200 fly. When I asked Alon about the opening ceremony of the Olympics, he said it was more exciting to walk the field of the big house. He’s a Wolverine through and through!

Alon started taking classes at SPH in environmental health science as an undergrad. He is especially interested in environmental chemistry. Alon found what he loved and is eager to learn more. He told me that there are so many things he still wants to know, so many questions he still has. By the end of the semester, Alon will already have three EHS classes under his belt- and he isn’t even a student at SPH yet!

I asked him how swimming has influenced his studies. He said that swimming makes you a person who can plan for the future, who can multi task, and manage their time. No wonder, the team has 10 practices per week and competitions almost every other weekend. 

Alon left me with a wonderful line, that actually gave me a more positive attitude about finishing at SPH. He said, Graduate School is mostly about your soul instead of the degree you get. Maybe that’s true. If we choose to do what makes us happy we will do it well. Alon’s plans for the future are getting his MS in EHS and then, London 2012. 

Alon got it right I think, set your goals high and then work, work hard as hell, to reach them.

Mystery Meat

Tiffany Yang

What are kids eating in school?

I remember as a kid getting one of those trays with a carton of milk, a main dish (no vegetarian options back then, at least at my school), a side of carrot sticks or mushy peas, and maybe some canned fruit cocktail. All of it was up to nutrition standards set forth by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National School Lunch Program (which public and not-for-profit private schools can choose to participate in) so I was definitely getting my caloric, vitamin, etc. needs. However, the food was not appetizing at all. OK. I take that back a little bit. It was a little exciting to me because I never got to eat “American” food at home so it was interesting (for a while) to eat fruit cocktail (yuck) and salibury steak (….).

Maybe I have strange notions about how things would have changed from when I was a child to what kids are eating these days, but it looks like not much has changed. This blog follows a teacher as she bravely eats what is being served in the school cafeteria. And it is not pretty. She concedes that most nutrition guidelines are being met with the lunches, but that they are just horrible. Some foods aren’t even completely thawed before they’re served (like the fruit cups) and everything seems to be packaged individually. This really confuses/angers me. When I had lunch, we got everything plopped onto a compartmentalized tray. It looks like this school just has one smooth tray and everything is in their own little shrink-wrapped or packaged bundle. This is a ridiculous waste of non-recyclable products (styrofoam, saran-wrap, plastic containers and trays, etc.). I guess I can kind of see them trying to reduce cross-contamination of foods when you have a big vat of it, but, honestly, I think individual packages are are such a waste (especially when you have a huge school population and this is happening everyday).

There are some advocates for reforming school meals, though, and they are starting to get some attention in the media. Jamie Oliver, a chef, is advocating meals that are less processed, freshly prepared,and local if possible. Alice Waters, of Chez Panisse fame, basically started the local farm to school idea with the edible schoolyard project where kids help grow foods that can be used in their school. Ann Arbor public schools picked up on this idea a few years ago and integrated The Agrarian Adventure into their school. The Agrarian Adventure consists of programs that expose, teach, and encourage students to gain knowledge about the where their food comes from, how to create a relationship with the foods they eat, and understanding the impact food has on their health. As for their school lunches, The Agrarian Adventure helped foster a collaboration between the public schools and the Ann Arbor Farm-to-School program to bring local fruits and vegetables to the school lunches.

So, while my school lunches were pretty dreary and many current school lunches are unappetizing, the hope is that proper nutrition as well as acceptable taste, texture, and (hopefully) environmental concerns such as packaging, local, sustainable, organic, etc., can play a bigger role in the foods that students are eating everyday.

SexLab Research Project as Part of Social Work Internship

Carrie Rheingans

The Sexuality + Health Lab is new to the School of Public Health. Dr. José Bauermeister is the principal investigator of a number of studies being conducted by current students and recent graduates. In its short time, the lab has already published and presented at conferences, including the Association of Public Health’s national conference.

As part of my social work internship at the HIV/AIDS Resource Center (HARC), I get to participate in their “Building a Technology-Enhanced Social Network Intervention to Promote HIV Testing among Young Men who have Sex with men (MSM)” project. We are using mixed methods (qualitative interviews and a quantitative survey) to learn more about if YMSM internet use for finding sexual partners correlates with HIV testing behavior. My role will be to help recruit people for the interviews and survey and to conduct interviews, including in Spanish. I’m very excited about this opportunity!

The funding for this pilot project is from the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR) program for Community Engagement. You can see the abstract on their pilot page. It enables research results to be applied to real-life community situations.

U-M Students Mobilizing to Help Haiti

Carrie Rheingans

On the Wednesday morning after the recent earthquake hit Haiti, students across U-M campus started mobilizing to create fundraisers and garner other donations to assist in the relief efforts in Haiti. SPH’s own Dr. Armando Matiz from the Health Behavior and Health Education Field Experience Office called a meeting of interested individuals the Thursday after the quake and things took off from there. The School of Public Health is working with others across campus to coordinate efforts. Please see the links below to learn more:

SPH News Release: http://www.sph.umich.edu/news_events/170press.html

Campus-Wide Blog:  http://umhaitirelief.wordpress.com/ (you can subscribe to email updates as news/events are posted)

Campus-Wide Twitter Account:  http://twitter.com/UMHaitiRelief

Add yourself to the U-M Email list:

1. go to http://directory.umich.edu
2. click ‘bind’ and log into the system
3. search for UMHaitiRelief2010
4. click ‘join’ on the top, left-hand corner
5. you are now subscribed to the relief update email list, which is unmoderated

Filling in to talk health care reform

Hi Everyone: MB Lewis here, and I’m going to fill as the 8th blogger for a while at UM SPH. I’m what is probably called a nontraditional student, older than most. (Please don’t think of the Chevy Chase character on the community college TV show!)

I’m in my second semester of the Certificate in the Foundations of Public Health online program, CFPH for short. I’ll take one course in each of UM SPH’s 5 departments and have 1/4 of an MPH when I’m done. I really got a lot out of the Health Behavior class I took last semester. The HMP 602 Survey the U.S. Health Care System I’m taking now looks to be such an amazing opportunity, I’m eager to tell more people about it. This is mostly because Rich “Doc” Lichtenstein is so enthusiastic himself to be teaching this course in this moment in time. He says he’s been teaching it for 30 years, talking about how the U.S. health care system is broken, just as his professors before him did. For the first time, health care reform seems possible… and for the first time he doesn’t know what his course content will be by the end of the term! He’s hoping we’ll all be talking 31 million more Americans becoming insured.So stay tuned as we learn what’s going to happen together.

I also meant to tell you that my day job is working on UM SPH web content for the Office of Communications–which is why it’s easy for me to jump in here with the bloggers.  More soon.

What Nuns Taught us about Cancer

David McCormick

In 1700, the Italian physician Bernadino Ramazinni published the first book about occupational epidemiology.  His method was simple: based on trends observed in his clinical practice, he studied his patients’ worksites and found that certain diseases were correlated with specific exposures, including heavy metals and dust with cancer in miners and industrial workers, and bad posture with pain in weavers.  He even looked into how the dangers of an “overtaxed mind” could cause disease in learned men.

However, his most enduring legacy is the observation that nuns had more breast cancer and less cervical cancer when compared to the general population of females living in Padua (his hometown).  It was a puzzling observation, and one that he did not expect (at the time, one theory about breast cancer was that it resulted from “vigorous sexual concourse”).  His explanation followed a similar line of reasoning – the breast is a sexual organ, and without regular sexual activity it would decay.  Cancer was the result.  Interestingly, he did not apply this same logic to the low incidence of cervical cancer in nuns, but he did propose that it was somehow related to the celibate lifestyle.

Bernardino Ramazzini

As it turns out, Ramazzini was right – even if for the wrong reasons.  Breast cancer is related to celibacy, but not in the way that you might think.  When women become pregnant, their bodies undergo dramatic changes in hormone output, and levels of estrogen decrease markedly.  Estrogen has been implicated in the development of breast cancer, and it’s thought that the decline in levels brought on by pregnancy has a protective effect.  Indeed, women who first become pregnant before the age of 30 have a lower risk of breast cancer than women who first become pregnant after the age of 35.

With cervical cancer, the link is even more dramatic – almost all cases of cervical cancer (>99%) are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted disease.  Since the nuns were celibate, they never acquired the virus and therefore never developed cervical cancer.  Taken together, these two observations were the first inkling that modern science into lifestyle factors as a possible cause of cancer.  We still use this thinking today – smoking is a lifestyle factor, and its role in the development of lung cancer is widely accepted as fact.  So although Ramazzini was right for the wrong reasons, his investigation of breast cancer in nuns is one of the great early epidemiologic studies and demonstrates how epidemiology can help us to understand ways to prevent disease and puzzle out risk factors even without a firm grasp of the biologic cause.