IntroductionThe number of primary care physicians in the United States continues to lag behind the number of uninsured people. There has been a growing demand for medical students to improve their self-efficacy, comfortableness, attitude, and interest in working with the underserved and in primary care. This study aims to discern whether volunteering at a student-run, free healthcare clinic has a positive impact on these five variables of interest or not.MethodsA 95-item survey was distributed through Qualtrics Survey Software (Qualtrics, Provo, UT, USA) to medical students from the Class of 2018 and Class of 2019 at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. They were recruited via emails, Facebook, and in-classroom announcements. Mean responses on a Likert-like scale to different survey items were collected and compared between two study cohorts: Keeping Neighbors In Good Health Through Service (KNIGHTS) Clinic volunteers and non-volunteers.ResultsResults from 128 students showed no significant differences in the means between the two cohorts (p-values were not significant). When volunteers were asked the survey item, “KNIGHTS Clinic positively influenced my attitude towards working with underserved patients,” 62% strongly agreed, 26% agreed, 10% were neutral, and 2% disagreed.DiscussionBased on the results, volunteering at KNIGHTS Clinic may not have a positive impact on the five variables of interest. However, the lack of significance may also be due to certain limitations of this study addressed elsewhere in this paper. With the majority of KNIGHTS Clinic volunteers agreeing that “KNIGHTS Clinic positively influenced […their] attitude towards working with underserved patients,” there may be a positive impact of volunteering on volunteers’ attitude towards working with the underserved.

It is increasingly evident that patient health outcomes are improved when they are treated by an effective interdisciplinary healthcare team. Many also endorse that learning to function collaboratively in interdisciplinary settings should start at the onset of one’s medical education. Student-run free clinics, such as the University of Central Florida College of Medicine’s (UCF COM) KNIGHTS (Keeping Neighbors In Good Health Through Service) Clinic, provide opportunities for students to work in concert with other healthcare professionals. This study aimed to discern whether volunteering in this setting had a positive impact on medical students’ perception of working within an interdisciplinary team. A single survey was distributed via Qualtrics to all first and second-year medical students (N = 248) at the UCF COM. The items of interest examined in this study were part of a larger study described elsewhere. The mean responses on a 5-point Likert-like scale to these survey items were recorded and compared between two cohorts: KNIGHTS volunteers and non-volunteers. One hundred twenty-three (49.6%) students responded to the survey and most items showed no statistically significant difference between the two groups (p-value > 0.05). However, there were a few items of interest that did show a significant difference. These included KNIGHTS volunteers being much more likely to have worked with other healthcare professionals (p < 0.001) as well as believing themselves to have a better understanding of the role of medicine within an interprofessional team (p = 0.016). Additionally, KNIGHTS volunteers were more likely to feel like they understood the role of patient education (p = 0.031) and pharmacy (p = 0.040) within an interprofessional team. Interestingly, KNIGHTS volunteers were also more likely to believe that problem-solving skills should be learned with students within their own discipline (p = 0.009) as well as that there is little overlap between the roles of medical students and students from other healthcare disciplines (p = 0.044). Still, overall results showed that both volunteers and non-volunteers had an overall positive perception of interdisciplinary teams and working with other healthcare professionals.

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Melanoma is third most common cancer to metastasize to the leptomeningeal space and confers a dismal prognosis. We retrospectively identified 87 cases of melanoma related leptomeningeal disease (M-LMD) diagnosed between 2011-2020 at Moffitt Cancer Center. The average age at diagnosis was 54 years (range 28-93 years) with a male predominance (50 men vs 36 women). There was a significant increase in median overall survival (OS) for patients with BRAF V600E mutation, but only if they were treated with combined BRAF/MEK inhibitors after diagnosis of LMD (5.54 months vs 1.39 months; p &lt; 0.01). Immune checkpoint inhibitors also associated with a small but significant increase in OS when given after diagnosis of M-LMD (2.73 months vs 1.38mths; p &lt; 0.01). There was no association between OS and gender (p &gt; 0.05). The current data supports use of BRAF/MEK inhibitors for treatment of BRAF V600E mutated M-LMD. More work is needed to improve OS for these patients and patients without a targetable mutation and M-LMD.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Smartphones have become an essential part of our life, serving multiple functions like messages, calls and navigation. Smartphone users will increase up to 7.5 billion by 2026. Overuse of smartphones not only causes time wastage and health hazards but also have effects on physical activity and academics. Evaluation of these effects was the need of time, so this study was conducted to assess duration of smartphone usage in undergraduate medical students, and their association with physical activity and academic performance was determined. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional survey among 384 undergraduates was conducted from April to August 2019 in Islamabad Medical and Dental College, Islamabad. Convenient sampling technique was done. Structured questionnaire containing socio-demographic information along with a smartphone addiction scale was used. IPAQ long form was also used to determine physical activity among the participants. Academic performance was determined through marks percentage obtained in Annual Professional examination. Data was collected and analyzed by using SPSS 21. Frequencies and percentages were calculated and tests of significance were applied. RESULTS: It was observed that smartphone addiction was more pronounced in male participants 112(64.4%) than in females 109(51.9%). Thus, more male participants were found overweight (16.6%) than females (13.8%). Excessive smartphone usage was found to be significantly associated with physical activity (p-value 0.03). However, excessive smartphone usage had insignificant association with academic performance (p-value=0.250). CONCLUSION: A strong association between excess smartphone usage with reduced physical activity was found. However, smartphone usage had no association with the academic performance of students.