Knowledge of head and neck cancer among medical students in the UK.

Head and neck cancer (HNC) refers to malignancies found in mucosal surfaces anywhere from the paranasal sinuses to the larynx, including the various glands and cavities. Between the years 2016 and 2018, there were about 3900 new cases every year in women and 8600 in men, making it the thirteenth most common cancer in women and fourth most common in men. The aim of our study was to evaluate the amount and type of teaching United Kingdom (UK) medical students receive on HNC, and to assess their current knowledge of these cancers. An online survey distributed via university representatives was responded to by 311 final year medical students from 25 medical schools across the UK. Regarding HNC teaching, 72 students (23.2%) reported receiving no teaching at their medical school. Of the 239 who reported receiving teaching, 169 (54.3%) received it in the format of a non-interactive, large group lecture. A total of 271 respondents (87.1%) believed that medical students at their university would benefit from more teaching on HNC. Based on our sample, there appears to be an overall dissatisfaction and lack of confidence surrounding HNC in the undergraduate curriculum. With its increasing prevalence in the UK, it is vital that red-flag symptoms and referral criteria are understood by the future medical workforce.

Homelessness: Understanding unmet needs and identifying resources.

BACKGROUND: Graduate occupational therapy students collaborated with an Area Health Education Center (AHEC) to address occupational therapy's role in intervening for individuals who are homeless. OBJECTIVE: The purpose was to provide educational resources on specific needs related to health and wellbeing to individuals who are homeless. METHODS: A variety of methods were used to gather information on common needs of the homeless population related to health and wellbeing, community integration, and development of routines. Initial data was collected through the use of a needs assessment for nine participants with thirteen questions followed with a weekly visit to a homeless shelter. The weekly visits allowed the students to build rapport and trust with the residents to gain an understanding of individual perspectives and barriers to occupation. RESULTS: The students worked with residents how to best access community based resources and services related to occupational needs. Specific needs were identified, and further resources were provided to support community integration, independent living, and self-management. CONCLUSIONS: Preliminary findings provided a basic understanding of the foundational needs of individuals to be used to support future research linking occupational therapy to the homeless population to achieve individual goals, improve health and wellbeing, and enhance life skills management.

A spin-down clock for cool stars from observations of a 2.5-billion-year-old cluster.

The ages of the most common stars--low-mass (cool) stars like the Sun, and smaller--are difficult to derive because traditional dating methods use stellar properties that either change little as the stars age or are hard to measure. The rotation rates of all cool stars decrease substantially with time as the stars steadily lose their angular momenta. If properly calibrated, rotation therefore can act as a reliable determinant of their ages based on the method of gyrochronology. To calibrate gyrochronology, the relationship between rotation period and age must be determined for cool stars of different masses, which is best accomplished with rotation period measurements for stars in clusters with well-known ages. Hitherto, such measurements have been possible only in clusters with ages of less than about one billion years, and gyrochronology ages for older stars have been inferred from model predictions. Here we report rotation period measurements for 30 cool stars in the 2.5-billion-year-old cluster NGC 6819. The periods reveal a well-defined relationship between rotation period and stellar mass at the cluster age, suggesting that ages with a precision of order 10 per cent can be derived for large numbers of cool Galactic field stars.

The same frequency of planets inside and outside open clusters of stars.

Most stars and their planets form in open clusters. Over 95 per cent of such clusters have stellar densities too low (less than a hundred stars per cubic parsec) to withstand internal and external dynamical stresses and fall apart within a few hundred million years. Older open clusters have survived by virtue of being richer and denser in stars (1,000 to 10,000 per cubic parsec) when they formed. Such clusters represent a stellar environment very different from the birthplace of the Sun and other planet-hosting field stars. So far more than 800 planets have been found around Sun-like stars in the field. The field planets are usually the size of Neptune or smaller. In contrast, only four planets have been found orbiting stars in open clusters, all with masses similar to or greater than that of Jupiter. Here we report observations of the transits of two Sun-like stars by planets smaller than Neptune in the billion-year-old open cluster NGC6811. This demonstrates that small planets can form and survive in a dense cluster environment, and implies that the frequency and properties of planets in open clusters are consistent with those of planets around field stars in the Galaxy.