Global health on the front lines: an innovative medical student elective combining education and service during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: An innovative medical student elective combined student-directed, faculty-supported online learning with COVID-19 response field placements. This study evaluated students' experience in the course, the curriculum content and format, and its short-term impact on students' knowledge and attitudes around COVID-19.

Methods: Students responded to discussion board prompts throughout the course and submitted pre-/post-course reflections.

What Impacts HPV Vaccination Recommendations? An Exploration of Medical Residents' Knowledge, Training, Barriers, and Practices.

Background And Objectives: Increasing human papillomavirus vaccination (HPVV) uptake is critical to the prevention of cervical cancer. Effective physician communication and clinical workflow policies have a significant impact on vaccination rates. However, resident training programs vary in the inclusion of training in effective HPVV practices.

Effectively Counseling Patients Amid the Anti-Vaccination Movement.

Primary care physicians are at the frontline of the annual battle against influenza. Many patients arrive at their clinician's office with erroneous information about the vaccine and have already decided to refuse their flu shot before they walk through the clinic doors. In response, practices and providers across the country have amplified their efforts.

Fatal pneumonia among metalworkers due to inhalation exposure to Bacillus cereus Containing Bacillus anthracis toxin genes.

Bacillus cereus pneumonia is unusual in nonimmunocompromised hosts. We describe fatal cases in 2 metalworkers and the associated investigation. Anthrax toxin genes were identified in B.

Characterization of Bacillus cereus isolates associated with fatal pneumonias: strains are closely related to Bacillus anthracis and harbor B. anthracis virulence genes.

Bacillus cereus is ubiquitous in nature, and while most isolates appear to be harmless, some are associated with food-borne illnesses, periodontal diseases, and other more serious infections. In one such infection, B. cereus G9241 was identified as the causative agent of a severe pneumonia in a Louisiana welder in 1994.

First reported prairie dog-to-human tularemia transmission, Texas, 2002.

A tularemia outbreak, caused by Francisella tularensis type B, occurred among wild-caught, commercially traded prairie dogs. F. tularensis microagglutination titers in one exposed person indicated recent infection.

Laboratory analysis of tularemia in wild-trapped, commercially traded prairie dogs, Texas, 2002.

Oropharyngeal tularemia was identified as the cause of a die-off in captured wild prairie dogs at a commercial exotic animal facility in Texas. From this point source, Francisella tularensis-infected prairie dogs were traced to animals distributed to the Czech Republic and to a Texas pet shop. F.

Risk of bacterial meningitis in children with cochlear implants.

Background: In June 2002, the Food and Drug Administration received reports of bacterial meningitis in patients with cochlear implants for treatment of hearing loss. Implants that included a positioner (a wedge inserted next to the implanted electrode to facilitate transmission of the electrical signal by pushing the electrode against the medial wall of the cochlea) were voluntarily recalled in the United States in July 2002.

Methods: We identified patients with meningitis and conducted a cohort study and a nested case-control investigation involving 4264 children who had received cochlear implants in the United States between January 1, 1997, and August 6, 2002, and who were less than six years of age when they received the implants.