Journal of the American Osteopathic Association

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Context: Research has been scarce on health professionals' knowledge about guidelines regulating service dogs in a clinical setting. Gaining insight into health professionals' understanding of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations concerning service dogs is critical for navigating compliance and reducing risk. Misinformation about service dogs could influence decisions affecting policy and care, leading to poor treatment and suboptimal health outcomes for patients with service animals...

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Context: Limited opportunities exist to practice technical skills and to be exposed to various surgical specialties during preclinical medical education. Objectives: To assess the value of workshop-based educational opportunities to medical students during preclinical training. Methods: One hundred and 75 medical and physician assistant students from 10 medical schools attended the 2019 Philadelphia Surgery Conference. All students received STOP THE BLEED® bleeding control training and participated in four workshops, chosen from a list of 23, that demonstrated a variety of surgical skills...

Context: With the advent of increasingly accessible three-dimensional (3D) printing, the possibility to efficiently design and generate prototype innovations is also increasing. This type of manufacturing can potentially enhance medical education by allowing design of models specific to osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM). Objectives: To determine the viability of a 3D-printed mechanically moveable rib cage in enhancing the teaching of rib osteopathic principles...

Current testing for the presence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 virus), which causes the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) infection, is typically reliant upon collection of nasal swab samples from subjects. These tests (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction [RT-PCR] and antigen) are intrusive, can take significant time to process, and can give deleterious false negative and false positive results. Alternative methods for COVID-19 testing and screening are being studied, including the use of trained scent detection dogs to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs) associated with the COVID virus...

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Context: The true prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has been difficult to determine due to limited testing, inconsistent symptom severity, and asymptomatic infections. Systematic investigation of the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 has been limited to urban environments and large academic centers. Limited data on the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 is available for those who live in a rural community setting, leaving rural practitioners to extrapolate the epidemiology of COVID-19 to a nonhomogeneous population...

Context: Stress, anxiety, and depression affect medical student populations at rates disproportionate to those of general student populations. Emotional intelligence (EI) has been suggested as a protective factor in association with psychological distress. Objective: To explore the relationships between EI and stress, anxiety, and depression among a sample of US osteopathic medical students. Methods: From February to March 2020, a convenience sample of medical students enrolled at an osteopathic medical school in the southeastern region of the United States were invited to complete a voluntary and anonymous 54-item online questionnaire that included sociodemographic items as well as validated and reliable scales assessing perceived stress, anxiety, depression, and EI...

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a cardio-renal-metabolic condition that is frequently associated with multiple comorbidities, including atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), heart failure (HF), and chronic kidney disease (CKD). The sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, which lower glycated hemoglobin, fasting and postprandial plasma glucose levels, body weight, and blood pressure, as well as reduce the risk of a range of cardiovascular and renal outcomes without increasing hypoglycaemic risk, have heralded a paradigm shift in the management of T2DM...

Context: In the past decade, two changes have affected the pathology residency match. First, the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) Match, which did not offer pathology residency, became accredited under a single graduate medical education (GME) system with the Main Residency Match (MRM), which offers pathology residency. Second, substantially fewer United States senior-year allopathic medical students (US MD seniors) matched into pathology residency. Objective: To determine whether there were major changes in the number and percentage of osteopathic students and physicians (DOs) matching into pathology residency programs over the past decade...

Context: While the data generated by medical students at schools that require electronic patient encounter logs is primarily used to monitor their training progress, it can also be a great source of public health data. Specifically, it can be used for syndromic surveillance, a method used to analyze instantaneous health data for early detection of disease outbreaks. Objective: To analyze how the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) codes input by medical students at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine into the Clinical Rotation Evaluation and Documentation Organizer (CREDO) patient encounter logging system could act as a new syndromic surveillance tool...

Context: The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 was approached with a variety of management techniques available at that time, including osteopathic care in addition to standard medical care. Objective: To analyze the osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) techniques used for the management of patients affected by the Spanish flu according to four themes: the principles and procedures used, frequency and length of OMT, reported side effects, and advice for patients...

Context: Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) has been used to predict mortality during infection and inflammatory diseases. It also been purported to be predictive of mortality following traumatic injury. Objective: To identify the role of RDW in predicting mortality in trauma patients. We also sought to identify the role of RDW in predicting the development of sepsis in trauma patients. Methods: A retrospective observational study was performed of the medical records for all adult trauma patients admitted to Loyola University Medical Center from 2007 to 2014...

Although both are initially asymptomatic, mitral valve prolapse/myxomatous mitral valve disease (MVP/MMVD) and bicuspid aortic valve (BAV), with its associated aortic disease, are currently the two most common congenital valvular heart diseases. Severe mitral regurgitation due to rupture of chordae tendineae (CTR) prompts surgery for MVP/MMVD. Surgery for BAV is performed for severe aortic stenosis and/or regurgitation, often with management of root and/or ascending aortic enlargement. There may be an association between straight back syndrome (SBS) and MVP/MMVD, which may be a key to earlier diagnosis...

In the United States, the 37 colleges of osteopathic medicine and 154 schools of allopathic medicine face challenges in recruiting underrepresented minority (URM) applicants, and gaps in racial disparity appear to be widening. In this Special Communication, the authors describe a URM recruitment and support strategy undertaken in 2015 through a special interest group called Creating Osteopathic Minority Physicians who Achieve Scholastic Success (COMPASS) at the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine-New York...

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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had an overwhelming impact on both clinical practices and learning environments. On March 17th, 2020, the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine and Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation issued a statement recommending a "pause" in medical student participation in-person at clinical sites. In response, the Family Medicine Department at the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine recognized the need to evolve the traditional curriculum and quickly transitioned to an online format, incorporating telemedicine into the clerkship...

Context: The combination of osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis affects nearly one-fourth of Americans. Many of the risk factors for arthritis are lifestyle related, such as obesity, physical activity, dietary behaviors, and alcohol and tobacco use. Objective: To analyze lifestyle behaviors of patients with vs. those without arthritis. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of 2017 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data was conducted on patients with and without a history of arthritis...

Context: Concussion is among the most common injuries in athletes. Over the past 10 years, concussion knowledge has expanded, and guidelines for management have changed. Recent changes include recommendations against strict mental and physical rest after sustaining a concussion, a better recognition of preexisting conditions predisposing protracted concussion recovery, and the addition of preliminary patient counseling and education about the expected course of concussion recovery. Objective: To assess the impact of changes in concussion management on the duration of symptoms in middle school and high school athletes after sustaining a first-time, sports-related concussion...