2021 Edition
“The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me.”
-Ayn Rand
ABOUT US Here at AMWA UTD, we want to do our very best to inform you of all of the issues relevant to women and healthcare, together and separately. We hope that our monthly newsletter becomes an enlightening source to you all as we learn about the multitudes of important topics and issues that we all need to be aware of.
The Editor’s Take: Welcome Back to AMWA UTD’s Newsletter!
By: Shraddha Trehan
Welcome Back UTD AMWA! It’s so wonderful to be starting this year not only writing for AMWA again but seeing your beautiful faces in person and knowing exactly who is reading the words we put out. Starting off this year as your Editor-in-Chief is an honor, and I am so grateful to be here not only writing but also having input into what exactly this newsletter is all about.
We can’t wait to bring back old favorites this year, like the Sex Talk You’ve Never Had and Mind over Matter. But, we’ve also got some really exciting news and columns planned for you all. For example, this new “Editor’s Take” column will be starting off the newsletters. Here, I’ll give baby summaries of the articles that y’all have to look forward to as you read on in the newsletter as well as commenting on important things happening for women in medicine and at UTD! I’ll also answer any quick questions that anyone in the community has emailed us, so make sure to send those in. Finally, we’re also hoping to include more featured writers and questions from the AMWA community overall, so make sure to speak up and out for things you want to read and topics you want to or you want us to write about!
We’ve decided to start this year off with three fantastic articles. Your writers paired up to cover Mental Health, National Healthcare, and Breast Cancer Awareness, so make sure to stick around and read all about these very important things. In this edition, you’ll find some tips on how to handle the stress of being a pre-health woman in college, commentary on how exactly national healthcare will affect all of us as we move into being healthcare professionals, and facts about the second most common cancer found in women.
More than anything, I hope you all wholeheartedly enjoy the 5-10 minutes it takes to read these newsletters because we really do put our whole hearts into them. Looking forward to this year with the best, brightest, and most beautiful girls in the world: our AMWA girls! :) <3
Mental Health Stigma and Tips to Help Deal with Pre-Health Stress
By: Hibah Rasool and Zoe Du
The first week of October is mental illness awareness week, so we felt that this would be the perfect time to discuss mental health stigma and dealing with pre-health stress.
In the past years, mental health resources and treatments have immensely improved, but the stigma surrounding mental illnesses remains. Though the majority of the public in the US has positive attitudes towards mental health and seeking treatment, this varies by sociodemographic characteristics. Individuals of different cultures and income backgrounds have differing views on the importance of mental health issues and coping methods. It seems that stigmatization of mental health stems from a lack of education and understanding of the nature of mental health and illnesses.
It is important to address this stigma because mental health issues that are left untreated have a significant impact on an individual's quality of life. Stigmatizing has many harmful effects including not reaching out for help which can result in long-term effects on the brain and self-shaming. In order to break mental health stigmas, we have to avoid contributing to them by having open conversations and being mindful of how we discuss mental health. Along with bringing awareness to mental health issues, it’s super important to be understanding and validating of friends/family especially when they’re showing symptoms. As midterms wrap up and grades come out, stress levels will be high across campus. We wanted to take this opportunity to discuss student mental health, especially in pre-health, and ways to healthily address stress and mental health struggles. Being a college student is stressful, and being a pre-health student can feel downright overwhelming at times. Medical school admission blogs make it sound like you have to maintain a perfect GPA, contribute to groundbreaking research, and get clinical experience, and if you don’t, you’re falling behind.
Spoiler alert: you aren’t.
Studies have shown depression is 2.2 to 5.2 times more prevalent in medical students, and many of these struggles begin to take root in undergraduate school, with one study finding 14.7% of pre-med students (more than 1 in 7!) meet the criteria for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), but only 2.2% were diagnosed with MDD. This large discrepancy reveals a troubling trend in which pre-health students are not receiving help, and a large contributing factor is the cut-throat culture of the pre-health world. Health professional schools are notoriously competitive, and that competitiveness unfortunately often feeds into a toxic pre-health environment. We have all heard the horror stories of students sabotaging peers just to gain an upper hand, but there are also more subtle signs. There is the expectation to always do something productive, there is jealousy and judgment. There is pressure to always present your best front.
Acknowledging the fact that mental health is often stigmatized in the pre-health community, we know that it can feel hard to show “weakness” in a cut-throat environment, but seeking help for mental health is not weakness. It takes courage and strength to ask for help. As a society, we often speak of mental health and physical health as separate entities, but it is important to remember that they are both health. As pre-health students, many of us ultimately have dreams of dedicating our lives to improving the health of others, but it should not come at the cost of our minds and souls. We want to encourage everyone to take care of their mental health and to build a pre-health community in which we support and uplift each other through our highs and lows.
Here are five tips on living a healthy mind, healthy life lifestyle:
Treat yourself: Each and every one of you are amazing! All of you have put in so much hard work to make it here; Celebrate the small victories and give yourself grace. Make sure to enjoy your college experience by going out with friends and celebrating the end of midterms!
Check-In with Each Other and Avoid Comparisons: In a healthy, supportive community, we should all look out for each other. With midterm grades coming out, it may be tempting to compare yourself to your peers, but this can be toxic and unhealthy. The journey to medicine is not prescribed, and it will look different from person to person. Lend an ear, provide support and validation, show that you are here and that you care and others will follow suit.
Do what you are passionate about: Take a moment to consider why you are pre-health. Choosing pre-health is just that: a choice. Do not force yourself to trudge through a path that does not excite you for the sake of checking off boxes. Your worth is not attached to your career -- pursue what you are passionate about!
Do not dwell on the past: Sometimes things will not go according to plan, and that’s okay - it’s part of being human. Our failures do not define us, but how we respond says a lot. Do not let your mind turn into your worst enemy. Learn from mistakes and move forward with a game plan and determination.
Take care of your physical health: Get enough rest, stay hydrated, eat nutritious foods, and stay active. Taking care of your physical health can improve your mental health. Now that midterms are over, catch up on some sleep!
National Healthcare Quality Week: How Healthcare Professionals Have Struggled
By: Tanya Baiju & Anjali Binoy
The week of October 17 to the 23rd is considered National Healthcare Quality Week hosted by NAHQ (National Association of Healthcare Quality). Usually, it is to acknowledge the progress made by healthcare quality workers and the improvements that can be made in healthcare quality overall. For 2021, NAHQ has dedicated this week specifically to bring awareness to all those professionals who have made an impact in their communities amidst the pandemic, and to bring light to the areas that need improvement in quality specifically for healthcare professionals.
The pandemic has brought forth greater struggles for healthcare workers. The article, “Picking Up The Pieces: Healthcare Quality in a Post-COVID-19 World,” states that the “parallel pandemic” of the “emotional toll” through “anxiety and stress from the burden and uncertainty of the pandemic” has become a top priority (Vinoya-Chung et al.). Not only is quality focused on patients but employees as well. The pandemic has ultimately brought one question to mind, “To what extent did burnout and second victimization during the COVID-19 surge affect our workforce, and will this impact healthcare quality in the future?” (Vinoya-Chung et al.). At this point in healthcare, quality can be applied to both sides. The struggle as of now is figuring out a way to achieve a perfect sense of quality for both physicians/employees and patients. This article answers a part of this question. It relies on building resilience and developing improvements in the present in preparation for a future surge.
Healthcare workers have, to put it simply and honestly, struggled mentally and physically over this past year and a half. Although they know their career comes with frequent high-stress events involving quick decisions, high numbers of patients, and cases that had a very grim chance of success, few were fully prepared for having to go through these situations multiple times every day that they work. Whether they were doctors, nurses, assistants, residents, or any other staff in a hospital, healthcare workers have had to bear through so much stress so it’s important to understand and hear what they had to say about their experience.
The article, “What Seven ICU Nurses want Americans to Know [...]” penned by journalists from the Washington Post went into detail about the trials healthcare workers (especially nurses) have been put through during the pandemic and also had the opportunity to interview some nurses as well. Two of these interviews truly encapsulate the amount of emotional and physical strain they went through and help put into perspective how devastating this pandemic has been.
The first interview was conducted by Carissa Wolf with the COVID ICU Supervisor, Kori Albi. Initially, she talks about how impersonal her duty feels - a career that is fundamentally built on the idea of a healing physical connection - and how the workers and patients are all stripped of their identity in an ICU. The masks, gloves, shields, and gowns are all layers of detachment in a place where human connection is one of the most powerful forms of aid in treatment. Another point she emphasizes is also how much death takes place around her, “the amount of death [that] has happened in such a short span of time - that’s what’s overwhelming,” is what she explains. How heartbreaking it can be for each family of each patient in each room is what many people forget about.
A second interview, this one done by Andrew Becker with Tammy Kocherhans, a nurse from the Respiratory ICU, goes into detail about the mental and physical strain experienced by healthcare workers. Kocherhans explains how at one point, she was in so much physical pain from the masks, from being on her feet constantly, and so much mental strain from the death and general negative mood in the ICU, that she had seriously considered whether she could continue her career as a nurse anymore. This, in turn, made her realize how desperately she needed a productive and mindful way to destress after her work. She turned to meditation and yoga as a means to avoid dwelling on the pain she has experienced as she works. “[The practices] have saved my life, my mental capacity, my spiritual capacity, and my physical capacity, everything that is required to give to these patients.”
It’s important to keep all healthcare workers in mind as the pandemic is still very much present around us. We must support those around us who still live in a world that is suffering from COVID-19 and must provide facilities for them to recover from the intense trauma that they are at such high risk for developing through their jobs. National Healthcare Quality Week is vital for the successful and healthy futures of healthcare workers who work for the good of the general public. The pandemic has shown us the faults within the mental care of healthcare employees. National Healthcare Quality Week not only focuses on the quality of patient care but also the quality of care among healthcare workers. Check out the National Association of Healthcare Quality website (www.nahq.org) for a list of events in recognition of Healthcare Quality.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
By: Megan Zachariah and Amulya Bhaskara
Some Quick Facts:
1 in 39 women treated for breast cancer end up passing away from the disease
African American women are 40% more likely to pass away from breast cancer
Prevalence of cancer types: In situ: 29%; Invasive: 81%
Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women, second only to skin cancer. There is a 13% risk of developing the disease, and it is responsible for over 43,000 deaths a year. In 2018, there were more than 250 thousand new cases in the United States alone.
There are 2 main categories in which the various types of breast cancer are separated into. In situ breast cancer refers to non-invasive cancer, which has not spread throughout the entire breast tissue. Invasive breast cancer is the more severe form in which cancer has moved into all surrounding tissue. In situ cancer can develop into an invasive form without treatment due to cancerous cells traveling through tissue via blood or lymph. In some severe cases, these cells can even travel to the lymph nodes and cause some lymphomas. Without treatment, invasive cancers can often lead to death. With treatment, the mortality rate from breast cancer dramatically drops. Treatment can include surgery of tumors, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, or radiation depending on the patient. However, these treatments are not equally effective for all patients.
It is impossible to spread awareness about breast cancer without acknowledging the racial disparity that exists within the population. On average, a woman living in the US has a 1 in 8 chance of developing breast cancer in their lifetime. Amongst African American women, this risk nearly triples. Not only are African American women more susceptible, but they also present a higher risk of developing more aggressive subtypes and a poorer prognosis. Attempts to understand this disparity point partially toward genetic makeup related to ethnicity. Some speculate that the genes encoding variant subtypes of breast cancer are more prevalent in African American women compared to Caucasian women, however socioeconomic factors play an equally harmful role.
For decades, the NIH and centers for women’s health have developed strategies to mitigate the disease course, mainly through preventive means. Such include early screening measures, annual breast exams, and enforcing healthy lifestyles through diet and exercise. Unfortunately, access to these preventive methods in the US can only be mediated through insurance and proximity to well-funded institutions that are equipped to run such examinations. Thus, the socioeconomic divide that exists along racial lines invariably bleeds into healthcare disparities. Reduced socioeconomic states limit access to robust healthcare plans and well-funded medical centers that are critical for early detection. Though major infrastructural changes are needed to reduce this disparity, it is equally important to spread awareness that access to preventive measures is partially responsible for the disparity and motivate individuals to take proactive steps to find the care that they need.
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