Evaluating the Impact of a Pilot Nationwide Webinar Series on National Med-Peds Residents' Association Membership.

BACKGROUND: As the COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduced the ability of medical students to travel and interact directly with combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics (Med-Peds) residency programs, medical students desiring appropriate guidance and information about Med-Peds residency training needed a national forum for information during an unprecedented virtual recruitment year. OBJECTIVE: To develop a nationally coordinated webinar series for medical students and student advisors to learn about the Med-Peds specialty for residency training to keep applicant numbers and applicant interest from significantly falling. METHODS: A national webinar series focusing on general Med-Peds information, career interests, and tailored advising was created amongst the three national Med-Peds organizations over a three-month period in Spring 2020. RESULTS: There was a 221% increase in medical student membership to the National Med-Peds Residents' Association (NMPRA) compared to the same months in 2017, 2018, and 2019 and no significant reduction in the Electronic Residency Application Service® applications to Med-Peds programs over that same time period. CONCLUSIONS: A national forum for medical students inquiring about the combined Med-Peds specialty can be effective in recruiting members to NMPRA and keeping interest high in Med-Peds.

S4S8-RPA phosphorylation as an indicator of cancer progression in oral squamous cell carcinomas.

Oral cancers are easily accessible compared to many other cancers. Nevertheless, oral cancer is often diagnosed late, resulting in a poor prognosis. Most oral cancers are squamous cell carcinomas that predominantly develop from cell hyperplasias and dysplasias. DNA damage is induced in these tissues directly or indirectly in response to oncogene-induced deregulation of cellular proliferation. Consequently, a DNA Damage response (DDR) and a cell cycle checkpoint is activated. As dysplasia transitions to cancer, proteins involved in DNA damage and checkpoint signaling are mutated or silenced decreasing cell death while increasing genomic instability and allowing continued tumor progression. Hyperphosphorylation of Replication Protein A (RPA), including phosphorylation of Ser4 and Ser8 of RPA2, is a well-known indicator of DNA damage and checkpoint activation. In this study, we utilize S4S8-RPA phosphorylation as a marker for cancer development and progression in oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC). S4S8-RPA phosphorylation was observed to be low in normal cells, high in dysplasias, moderate in early grade tumors, and low in late stage tumors, essentially supporting the model of the DDR as an early barrier to tumorigenesis in certain types of cancers. In contrast, overall RPA expression was not correlative to DDR activation or tumor progression. Utilizing S4S8-RPA phosphorylation to indicate competent DDR activation in the future may have clinical significance in OSCC treatment decisions, by predicting the susceptibility of cancer cells to first-line platinum-based therapies for locally advanced, metastatic and recurrent OSCC.