Publications by authors named "Nessika Karsenti"
Background: Educating future physicians about sexual and gender minority (SGM) patients and their health care needs is an important way to mitigate discrimination and health disparities faced by this community. Canada, across its 17 medical schools, lacks a national standard for teaching this essential topic. This paper aims to review the best practices for teaching an SGM curriculum in undergraduate medical education and synthesize this information into actionable propositions for curriculum development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- An immunocompetent male from the Democratic Republic of Congo presented with fever and a rash, raising suspicion for Mpox due to current epidemiological trends.
- After testing, he was diagnosed with primary varicella zoster virus (pVZV) using PCR from a lesion sample.
- The patient recovered fully with supportive care, highlighting the need for careful differentiation among common viral rashes in medical settings.
Unlabelled: Medical schools have been striving to equip students with the tools and skills needed to serve patients from the LGBTQ + community, also called the Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) community. This study aims to assess student comfort with providing care, and faculty knowledge and preparedness in delivering SGM-centered education at our home institution. We conducted two mixed-methods surveys, one geared towards medical students across four years of study and one towards medicine faculty.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFspp. are the causative pathogens of several infections, including amoebic keratitis (AK), a vision-threatening infection. Acanthamoebae from corneal specimens of patients with AK harbor bacterial endosymbionts, which may increase virulence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Suboptimal agreement between molecular assays for the detection of Acanthamoeba spp. in clinical specimens has been demonstrated, and poor assay sensitivity directly imperils the vision of those affected by amoebic keratitis (AK) through delayed diagnosis. We sought to develop and validate a single Taqman real time PCR assay targeting the Acanthamoeba 18S rRNA gene that could be used to enhance sensitivity and specificity when paired with reference assays.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: We evaluated the performance of stool microscopy, serology, and real time PCR (qPCR) for the diagnosis of strongyloidiasis at our reference laboratory.
Methods: Using a convenience sample of specimens submitted between April 1, 2014 and May 31, 2015, positivity rates and performance characteristics were calculated.
Results: During the enrolment period, 17,933 stool specimens were examined for O&P, 14 of which were positive for Strongyloides larvae.