Knowledge of cervical cancer pathology of high school students in San Carlos, Costa Rica.

In Costa Rica, cervical cancer is the second most common female cancer, despite accessibility of screening through the universal health care system. There is little understanding of knowledge levels of the adolescent population on cervical cancer, although this population is the most exposed to risk factors. This study sought to learn about male and female adolescent knowledge of preventative methods, infection acquisition, clinical manifestations and medical services. A total of 533 students from grades 7-12 from five public high schools in the rural San Carlos region participated in the study from March through April 2012. Students were found to lack knowledge, as only 30.8% of students stated that they knew what cervical cancer is. Additionally, a connection was lacking between cervical cancer concepts, as for example 75.2% of students had heard of Human Papiloma Virus, but only 33.9% of those students knew that HPV is related to cervical cancer. Age had a positive relationship with knowledge of main concepts (p < 0.001). More women than men had heard of cervical cancer and the Papanicolaou (p = 0.025, p < 0.0001), but otherwise no significant difference in mean response between genders was found. Students were found to have a limited awareness of the educational cervical cancer campaign (7.7% of the student population) and the ability to go alone to the doctor to receive medical attention (30.6% of students). Additionally, the public education system does not require cervical cancer to be included in the present curriculum. Hence, as students lack education on prevention and risk factors, the majority of prevention responsibility falls only on the universal health care system to regularly perform Papanicolaou exams to detect pre-cancerous or cancerous changes. The findings indicated the importance of including cervical cancer in the sexual education curriculum of the public education system in Costa Rica to educate the at-risk population of preventative methods, infection development, clinical manifestations and medical services in order to lower the presence of cervical cancer.

Resident Outcomes and Perspectives Over 2 Years of a New Scholarship Curriculum.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Scholarship is recognized as a challenge in many family medicine residency programs. Among evaluations of scholarship curricula, few describe resident experiences of such interventions. To bridge this gap in knowledge, we measured resident confidence, satisfaction, and participation before and after implementing a new scholarship curriculum. METHODS: The redesigned curriculum included a structured project timeline, resident research in progress meetings, faculty mentorship, scholarly skills workshops, and mentored journal clubs. We conducted a curriculum evaluation via surveys of residents prior to implementation and after years 1 and 2, measuring satisfaction with the scholarly environment and opportunities, and confidence and participation in specific scholarly activities using Likert scales from 1 (least confidence) to 5. RESULTS: Compared to baseline (n=28), after 2 years (n=27) of the curriculum, residents reported increased mean confidence in critical appraisal of scientific articles (2.6±1.1 to 3.3±0.7, P=.007), carrying out a scholarly project (2.5±0.8 to 3.4±1.0, P=.005), and writing an abstract (3.0±0.8 to 3.8±0.7, P=.002). As compared to the first year, more residents in the second year participated in quality improvement projects (7.1% vs 29.6%, P=.031) and wrote conference abstracts (10.7% vs 37.0%, P=.022). Over the same period, those very satisfied with the scholarly environment increased from 0 (0%) to 8 (29.6%, P=.017). The June 2020 survey identified increased interest in scholarship because of the antiracism movement (51.9%) and COVID-19 pandemic (40.7%). CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of a redesigned scholarship curriculum was associated with increases in family medicine resident scholarship confidence and satisfaction.

Children's neural responses to a novel mathematics concept.

BACKGROUND: Functional MRI studies have suggested a 'frontoparietal shift' over the course of development, whereby children tend to engage prefrontal neural regions to a greater extent than adults when completing mathematics tasks. Although this literature hints that lateral prefrontal regions may be involved in acquiring mathematics knowledge, a key limitation of existing studies is that they have included mathematics content that children already are familiar with as opposed to examining the dynamic learning process. We aimed to address this gap by examining children's neural responses when exposed to a new, unfamiliar mathematics concept. METHOD: Eighteen 8-11 year old children viewed blocked demonstrations of base-2/binary (unfamiliar) and base-10/decimal (familiar) number systems while undergoing functional MRI (fMRI). Children's behavioral understanding of binary numbers was measured between fMRI runs. RESULTS: Counter to hypotheses, there were no overall differences in prefrontal activity for binary relative to decimal blocks. However, children with higher levels of behavioral understanding of the novel, binary concept showed enhanced neural activity in the left rostral middle frontal gyrus specifically during binary concept exposure. They also showed enhanced connectivity between this region and pre-and post-central gyri and left parahippocampal regions. CONCLUSIONS: Individual differences in children's behavioral grasp of a new mathematics concept correlate with prefrontal activity and functional connectivity during exposure to the concept, suggesting that rostral prefrontal cortex may play a role in mathematics learning.

Knowledge of cervical cancer pathology of high school students in San Carlos, Costa Rica / Conocimiento sobre cáncer de cérvix entre colegiales de San Carlos, Costa Rica

In Costa Rica, cervical cancer is the second most common female cancer, despite accessibility of screening through the universal health care system. There is little understanding of knowledge levels of the adolescent population on cervical cancer, although this population is the most exposed to risk factors. This study sought to learn about male and female adolescent knowledge of preventative methods, infection acquisition, clinical manifestations and medical services. A total of 533 students from grades 7-12 from five public high schools in the rural San Carlos region participated in the study from March through April 2012. Students were found to lack knowledge, as only 30.8% of students stated that they knew what cervical cancer is. Additionally, a connection was lacking between cervical cancer concepts, as for example 75.2% of students had heard of Human Papiloma Virus, but only 33.9% of those students knew that HPV is related to cervical cancer. Age had a positive relationship with knowledge of main concepts (p≤0.001). More women than men had heard of cervical cancer and the Papanicolaou (p=0.025, p≤0.0001), but otherwise no significant difference in mean response between genders was found. Students were found to have a limited awareness of the educational cervical cancer campaign (7.7% of the student population) and the ability to go alone to the doctor to receive medical attention (30.6% of students). Additionally, the public education system does not require cervical cancer to be included in the present curriculum. Hence, as students lack education on prevention and risk factors, the majority of prevention responsibility falls only on the universal health care system to regularly perform Papanicolaou exams to detect pre-cancerous or cancerous changes. The findings indicated the importance of including cervical cancer in the sexual education curriculum of the public education system in Costa Rica to educate the at-risk population of preventative methods, infection development, clinical manifestations and medical services in order to lower the presence of cervical cancer. Rev. Biol. Trop. 62 (3): 877-886. Epub 2014 September 01.

En Costa Rica, el cáncer de cérvix es el segundo tipo de cáncer femenino más común, a pesar de la accesibilidad del Papanicolaou gracias al sistema de salud universal. No se ha evaluado el nivel de conocimiento de la población adolescente sobre el cáncer de cérvix, aunque este grupo es el más expuesto a los factores de riesgo. Este estudio investigó cuánto sabe el adolescente sobre métodos de prevención, riesgo de infección, manifestaciones clínicas y servicios médicos. En total, 533 estudiantes de séptimo a doceavo año de cinco colegios públicos de la zona rural de San Carlos participaron en esta investigación durante marzo y abril 2012. Se observó que los estudiantes carecen de información, ya que solamente el 30.8% sabían qué es el cáncer de cérvix. Nuestros resultados indican que es importante incluir el cáncer de cérvix en los programas de educación sexual del sistema de educación pública de Costa Rica, para educar a la población en riesgo acerca de los métodos de prevención, desarrollo de la infección y servicios médicos.