Out of date: genetics, history and the British novel of the 1990s.

This article examines the representation of human genomics in the British historical novel of the 1990s. A form which meditates on the past and its relationship to the present, the historical novel readily lends itself to the exploration of genealogy, heredity and inheritance. Forwarding an understanding of human history, and particularly of family history, as a direct and causal function of the genes, the neo-Darwinian explanation of the genome popular in the 1990s similarly advanced its own teleological relationship between past and present. Reading Jenny Diski's Monkey's Uncle (1994), A S Byatt's Babel Tower (1996) and Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000), this essay argues that the historical novel provides a unique form with which to critique the deterministic view of heredity promoted by neo-Darwinism. Focusing on moments of textual anachronism, asynchronicity and repetition in these family sagas, it shows how-at its most transgressive-the historical novel imagines temporal disruptions that bring the present into contact with the past in ways that defamiliarise conventions of linearity, order and progress. Refusing the idea of human history as a single, legible line that underpins neo-Darwinian ideas of genetic inheritance, Diski, Byatt and Smith's novels are able to interrogate both the temporal logics and cultural capital of 1990s genetic science. While the decade was shaped and defined by popular science speculation and large-scale genetic research projects, such as the Human Genome Project (1990-2003), the novels addressed in this essay ultimately suggest the lively and seductive genocentrism of the 1990s to be inadequate to the task of explaining the complexity and meaning of the lived genome. As Diski, Byatt and Smith's novels anticipate, the question of the uses, meanings and value of the human genome sequence continue to be of relevance within our current, postgenomic era.

Oral health curricula in physician assistant programs: a survey of physician assistant program directors.

PURPOSE: a review of the medical literature indicates that physician assistants (PAs) are not educationally prepared for oral health issues. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the status of oral health curricula and the knowledge and skills taught within PA curricula. METHODS: a survey examining oral health curricula in PA education was distributed electronically to the directors of all 142 accredited PA programs in the United States. The survey focused on aspects of oral health that programs currently teach and aspects that merit future inclusion. The survey data were analyzed using SPSS version 17. RESULTS: eighty-three of the 142 PA program directors (58.4%) responded to the survey. Over 74% believed that dental disease prevention should be addressed in PA education, yet only 21% of programs actually did so. Most respondents (94.7%) also agreed that PAs should routinely assess and screen for early signs of dental disease and counsel patients on preventing dental problems. Currently, over half of PA programs teach examination of children's teeth for cavities (55.6%), dedicating on average 3.6 hours toward oral health education. Most respondents (more than 90%) expressed a desire to implement an oral health module in their programs. On average, program directors felt that 5.3 hours should be dedicated to oral health. CONCLUSION: many PA program directors believe that PA programs are responsible for educating students about oral health; however, most PA program directors report a lack of oral health education within their curricula.