Michigan Tech held the second annual Medical Careers Week

Medical Careers Week, Jan. 19-22
by Career Services

Michigan Tech’s Career Fest presents four days of events designed to highlight careers in the medical field. Open to all students, faculty and the community, Medical Careers Week will be held Jan. 19 to 22. Events will take place in the MUB Ballroom. Here are some highlights of the week’s activities.

• Jan. 19 — Medical Informatics Day: Learn more about one of the fastest growing parts of the medical field. Medical Informatics applies to a variety of majors including IT, Computer Science, Computer Network System Administration, Health Sciences and Engineering. Lunch-N-Learn Keynote speaker: James Ryan, DO.

• Jan. 20 — Medical Device Day: Meet representatives from biomedical companies to see how your major can make a difference. Lunch-N-Learn keynote speaker: Jim Belmonte, Cardiovascular Systems Inc. (St. Paul)

• Jan. 21 — Medical Careers/Medical Laboratory Science Day: Learn how to attend medical school through the entire application process. Hear first hand from medical students, physicians assistants and laboratory specialists on how to shape your career path in the medical field. Lunch-N-Learn keynote speaker: William Short, MD and medical students from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.

• Jan. 22 — Allied Health Day: Allied Health comprises nearly 60 percent of the healthcare workforce. Lunch-N-Learn keynote speaker: Petio Kotov, MD, Pathology – UP Health System.

For a complete schedule of all activities and events visit the Career Services website.

Medical Careers Week_2016_Michigan Tech

Steve Elmer’s team was featured in both local media and in a Michigan Tech News release for their continued research with wheelchair users.  Steve has a unique group of students involved in this research; they include undergraduate students from the Velovations Enterprise and students from Central Michigan University’s physical therapy doctorate program at Michigan Tech.  The article and news video below highlight’s the research progress featuring one of the many research subjects, Sam Schroth.

Research With Heart: Making Wheelchair Exercise Equipment More Accessible and Adjustable, by Allison Mills

Upper Michigans Source video, RENEW-U exercise machine develeoped at Mighigan Tech, by Aaron Boehm

Christopher Schwartz joins the Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology as a lecturer. Before coming to Michigan Tech, Schwartz was a lecturer at University of Iowa. Schwartz earned a PhD in Biological Sciences and Bachelor’s degrees in Exercise Science and Biological Sciences (pre-professional) from Michigan Tech.

He was a postdoctoral research fellow at New York Medical College. He is also a member of the American Physiological Society and has been USA Triathlon Level I Certified Coach.

Read more at Tech Today.

Congratulations to Andrew Chapp for receiving a Predoctoral Fellowship from the American Heart Association. Andrew is a Biological Sciences PhD student working in Dr. Qinghui Chen’s electrophisyiology lab.  Andrew will continue to work in Dr. Chen’s lab focusing on a project titled, “Acetate as an Active Metabolite of Ethanol: Neural and Cardiovascular Implications.”

Andrew recently published a portion of his ethanol research in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology and has given several oral presentations pertaining to the effects of acetate on neuronal excitability.  The project Andrew has proposed is expected to have a positive impact on providing insight into the neuronal mechanisms of an alcohol associated hypertension and stroke. Additionally, this proposed study will provide not only a known cellular mechanism for pharmacological intervention of alcohol induced hypertension, but also broader implications to future studies in the alcohol research community related to acetate on learning/memory, motor control, and addiction/depression.

Several faculty and KIP students attended the 2015 Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago last week.

Dr. Tejin Yoon and graduate student Andrea Lee were among the group that attended.  Andrea presented on “Muscle Fatigability from Repeated Lengthening Contractions in Young Men and Women”.

Dr. Kevin Trewartha presented a research project aimed at elucidating the role of working memory resources, supported by dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), in motor learning. This research used a sensorimotor adaptation task in which participants learned to adapt to mechanical perturbations imposed by a robotic device. To test whether dlPFC contributes to our ability to learn this novel skill I used a “virtual lesion” method called continuous theta-burst stimulation which temporarily disrupts targeted brain areas prior to performance of the task. The results demonstrated that learning was impaired following dlPFC stimulation, indicating that working memory resources are important during the acquisition of novel motor skills.

The conference brings together scientists and clinicians from all over the world, and from a broad range of disciplines, who are generally interested in the function of the nervous system. As such, the conference was an excellent opportunity to present these findings to the neuroscience community and receive feedback from other experts in the field.