Depth of knowledge + public health campaigns

Question 1

Tell us about a recent public health campaign

Answer 1

Better Health Campaign

2/3rd of adults are overweight

More likely to be admitted to intensive care if have covid.

Places pressure of vital organs - harder to fight cancer, infect, HD

Campaign provides a webpage to provide tools to help those manage their weight loss:
 checking BMI
 12 week weight loss plan on app - EBM
 Ban TV/online adverts
 show calories
 stop BOGOF
 weight watchers and slimming world discounts

Yet, marginalises poorest in society + anorexia + not everyone accesses internet

Question 2

What is your opinion on the role of public health campaigns in medicine

Answer 2

Important to prevent disease

Reduce money NHS spends in the long run from obesity related diseases

Question 3

Have you done any extracurricular projects that demonstrate your interest in medicine

Answer 3

YSA – working with other YSA teams across the country to educate school children on HIV/AIDS – we will then deliver this to schools as HIV isn’t compulsory on the curriculum and commonly from talking to teachers, they feel they do not know enough to be able to deliver it accurately, specifically the questions that may arise e.g. why it disproportionately affects different groups. Also getting a charter marker organised to make students feel more comfortable when they apply and they know they feel supported

Loved the teamwork aspect and science too

Question 4

How important in EBM

Answer 4

this is applying the best available evidence from scientific methods to best guide clinical decision making

e.g. Herceptin - humanised IgG1 monoclonal AB to treat HER2 positive cancer, overexpressed in 25% of breast cancer. HER2 is an epidermal GF receptor. HER2 is constantly in a conformation to stimulate dimerisation

80% in remission after 5 years. Yet CVD implications

Involves the binding of HER2 to Herceptin, which itself binds to a secondary antibody attached to Alexa594. IHC ranked 0 to +3. FISH measures if +2 to determine gene copy number - 20,000 copies to 2 million per cell

1. medicine is constantly evolving
2. takes into account different range of patients e.g. young - more aggressive
3. risk to patient if not followed

Yet…

1. depends on quality of research
2. bias
3. conflict of interest
4. lag in research - not up to date

Question 5

Describe the Immortal life of HeLa and what you learnt

Answer 5

HeLa passed away in 1951 due to cervical cancer. At the time they were trying to develop the first immortal cell line as no human cells had previously survived outside the body. HeLa cells taken without consent and managed to do so. Led to many medical advances e.g. IVF, COVID to develop vaccines, AIDs research

1. Need to put self in shoes of family too
2. Doctors should be open and honest and act with integrity - they were very angry as they were not told their mothers cells were taken or why - they believed they had cancer too or they had blown up their mothers cells
3. Consent - Important to present info in clear understandable way - just given text book
   Cells taken without consent
4. Inequality in race - no compensation - less funding for research into sickle cell anaemia which effect blacks exclusively
5. Class - saw taking cells as payment - put off going to hospital as ‘foreign’