The Women's Health Scholars Program has been getting a lot of attention lately and we are very excited about all of your interest! So for those who do not know and for those who need a refresher, Here is a quick breakdown the Women's Health Scholars Program. You will earn the official title of "Women's Health Scholar" if you complete four requirements during your time a DUCOM:
1.
Complete the WH Seminar Series Elective [Available for first and second year students] - You must attend at least 8 seminars in one year and fill out an evaluation form for each seminar attended. Seminars you have gone to in year one cannot roll over to be completed in year two. For more info on seminar series
click here
2. Make a Women's Health Education Resource by creating either a bulletin board, newsletter or brochure.
3. Community Education / Outreach - You must spend at least 15 hours demonstrating leadership in a community based environment.
4. Scholarly paper - You will compose a 15-20 page paper on a specific women's health topic.
For those of you who are interested in learning more, upcoming we will be holding a Women's Health Scholars info session (still TBA). We will be sending an email out with details to all first and second year students. The info session will describe the requirements in greater detail and give a general timeline so you can begin to assess if this is something you would like to do. If so, you will work further with WHEP to craft your own personal plan of action.
Continue to look for more information here and in your mailbox!
To read the official WH Scholars document
click here
So what are the numbers? Khurshid R. Ghani, MD, and his colleagues from the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit analyzed the changes from 2006-2009. They conducted a national survey using charges for patients with upper urinary tract stones from ER visits. Per 100,000 patients, incidence for upper urinary tract stones increased from 289 to 306. In Total, over 3.6 million were treated. For women, treatment rose an estimated 2.85% per year and they were also more likely to be hospitalized. Over the course of the study, that would be a 3 year increase of about 8.5 percent, and if those numbers have stayed the same, there would have been about an almost 20 percent increase from 2006 to today!
With rising incidence rates, kidney stones are another issue that may need to be discussed with certain patients; especially women who are obese or borderline obese. Trying to lower rates of obesity and encouraging patients to take proper care measures if they are able to pass a stone are important. In addition, the future of medical technology may benefit financially by finding an alternative diagnostic method for kidney stones. If obesity trends continue, we are likely to keep seeing these rates of kidney stone hospitalizations, with similar or higher costs to the healthcare system. 
For those of you who are interested in learning more, upcoming we will be holding a Women's Health Scholars info session (still TBA). We will be sending an email out with details to all first and second year students. The info session will describe the requirements in greater detail and give a general timeline so you can begin to assess if this is something you would like to do. If so, you will work further with WHEP to craft your own personal plan of action. 
It is also apparent that this is an issue we are seeing more in young girls. Girls are more likely to both be cyberbullied and cyberbully someone else. And while many student suicide cases are not based solely on cyber bullying, we have been seeing an increase of (girls especially) suicide in which cyberbullying is involved. In some of the worst cases, students are sexually assaulted only to have it posted on the internet where they are further humiliated and sometimes blamed for what happened. Examples like this have come to light recently with cases such as the Stubenville, Ohio rape case.
What could this mean for physicians? In the future young patients may benefit from screening questions that target cyberbullying. In addition to asking if kids feel safe at home or school, perhaps physicians should ask if they feel safe using a phone or the internet (first asking about access), Or ask additionally about technomedia experiences if young patients seem despondent. And while children and teens are effected most frequently, adults can also experience cyberbullying, and it should be considered in patient assessment at every stage of the life cycle.
