Oakland University Research Articles

Rare Presentation of Left‐sided Thyroglossal Duct: A Case Report on Embryological Persistence

Thyroglossal duct (TGD) plays an important role in guiding the embryonic development and migration of the thyroid gland down the midline of the trachea. By the tenth week of gestation, TGD is completely obliterated with the thyroid gland in its proper position. In about 7% of the population, TGD persists and forms a thyroglossal duct cyst (TGDC) within the midline of the pretracheal neck region and often presents as the most common congenital midline neck mass. A rare finding of TGD from posterior base of the tongue to left‐lateral pyramidal lobe, outside its normal midline pathway, was observed in a 92‐year‐old male during routine cadaver dissection of first year medical student’s curriculum at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. Upon further inspection of the thyroid, there was no evidence of hyperplasia or lesion in the thyroid or the thyroglossal duct itself. The thyroid and associated structures were studied by first year medical students during dissection in 25 formalin fixed cadavers (13 male, 12 female, average age of 76‐years‐old). Four of the 25 cadavers did not present with a thyroid due to previous thyroidectomy. The pyramidal lobe was observed in four of the 25 cadavers (19.05%), and a thyroglossal duct was observed in 3 of the 4 cadavers in the pyramidal lobe subgroup. Within this subgroup, only one cadaver displayed a left‐sided thyroglossal duct. Currently, clinical literature suggest findings of TGDCs in four general regions of intralingual, suprahyoid, thyrohyoid, and suprasternal, but all within the midline pathway of TGD. This case finding reinforces the importance of CT scanning when treating patients with TGDC by surgical removal.

Horseshoe Kidney with Surplus Renal Arteries, Veins, and Roots of the Ureters

We report the anatomical findings of a kidney discovered in a 92‐year‐old male during a routine dissection of the abdominal viscera performed by medical students at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. The lower poles of the kidney are fused together, forming an isthmus anterior to the aorta and inferior vena cava at the L3‐L4 vertebral level. The right and left kidneys ascend past the isthmus, forming a “U” shape, the defining feature of a horseshoe kidney. The left kidney stops prematurely, approximately 3.2 cm below the inferior mesenteric artery at the level of the left inferior renal artery. The right kidney drains into superior, inferior, and middle renal arteries which have three, two, and one branches respectively. Due to the size and position of the hilum, five separate roots extend outside the kidney into the right ureter. The left side is supplied by a superior and inferior renal artery, each dividing into two branches. The left inferior renal artery branches off the ventral face of the descending aorta. The left renal vein notably has three prominent tributaries from the kidney and an additional branch of the left adrenal vein. Six roots extend from the left hilum and drain into the left ureter. In total, the kidney has nine veins, six arteries, and eleven ureteric branches draining into the left and right ureters. These findings will be useful in regard to research and surgery on other horseshoe kidneys.

Pathology Encountered During Cadaver Dissection Provides an Opportunity for Case‐based Learning

Dissection based anatomy education engages medical students in building several skills, including professionalism, problem solving, and critical thinking. During the first semester of medical school at Oakland University William Beaumont (OUWB) School of Medicine, students spend a significant amount of time dissecting and learning anatomy regionally. In addition to viewing typical structures throughout the body, cadaveric dissection also allows for the opportunity to discover and learn from pathology that may be encountered. In this case, students observed a malignant tumor (adenocarcinoma) in the right lung, accompanied by severe fibrosis of the right diaphragmatic parietal pleura. The superior, middle, and inferior lobes of the right lung were significantly reduced in size within the thoracic cavity compared with the left lung. Additionally, several gross malformations in the pulmonary tissue and cavity were observed, likely due to the malignancy. As part of this analysis, histopathology and radiology for the malignant lung tumor will be compared and reviewed against normal lung tissue and mechanisms for adenocarcinoma will be discussed. These will be used to develop a case study to facilitate peer teaching. This case provides a valuable opportunity for medical students at OUWB to connect basic anatomy to clinical presentation and develop a deeper understanding of pathophysiology of disease prior to clinical rotations.

Needs Assessment of Essential Anatomy ‐ A Perspective from Primary Care Residents

Introduction. Curricular development begins with identifying a problem, followed by a need assessment of the curricular components. Changes in pedagogical approaches and reductions in curricular time for gross anatomy have been identified as a problem. The objective of this study was to conduct a needs assessment of the most essential anatomy from the perspective of primary care residents.Methods. Primary care residents in Family Medicine (FamMed) and General Internal Medicine (IntMed) at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine were recruited for the study. A survey assessed the clinical importance of 907 specific anatomical structures from all anatomical regions on a 1‐4 Likert‐scale (1= “not important and 4 = “essential”). The structures were selected from the bold terms in Gray’s Anatomy for Students, Clinically Oriented Anatomy, and Grant’s Dissector. In the analyses, all 3 and 4 ratings for each structure were summed and divided by the total number of respondents. A structure rated as a 3 or 4 by ≥75.0% of respondents was classified as “essential”, 50.0‐74.9% “more important”, 25.0‐49.9% “less important”, and 0.0‐24.9% “not important”. Kruskal‐Wallis analyses were conducted to assess differences between the two residency groups for each region.Results. Fifty adult primary care residents in FamMed and IntMed completed the survey. In total, 16.7% of structures were classified as essential, 58.9% more important, 24.3% less important, and 0.7% not important. FamMed rated structures categorized as skeleton, nerves, fasciae, anatomical spaces, blood vessels, lymphatics and surface anatomy (p<0.0001), and muscles (p=0.002) significantly higher than IntMed, but there was no significant difference in organs (p=0.012). It was notable that 100.0% of cranial nerves were classified as essential, and 94.5% of surface anatomy structures were classified as essential or more important. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups of residents for any of the anatomical regions.Conclusion. Conducting a needs assessment is a crucial early step in curricular development. This is the first study to conduct a needs assessment of anatomy curricular content solely from the perspective of primary care clinicians. Surface anatomy was an area with nearly all structures rated as essential or more important, which reinforces the importance of including surface anatomy in pre‐clinical gross anatomy education.Significance. The data from this study provides insight into how clinicians rated specific anatomical structures. Due to the broad variation in medical curricula, the authors suggest that the classifications of importance by these clinicians can serve as a curricular roadmap by anatomy educators for the evaluation, revision, or development of curricula with regard to gross anatomy education in the context of reduced contact hours, new pedagogies, and vertical integration.

High-Intensity Interval Training in the Oncology Population

1Physical Therapist, Allegheny Health Network, Pittsburgh, PA 2Associate Professor, Oakland University Physical Therapy Program, Rochester, MI Correspondence: Andrew Chongaway, PT, DPT, Allegheny Health Network, 1307 Federal St, Pittsburgh, PA 15212 ([email protected]). The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Online Publication date: March 15, 2022

In a Word, and: Flashlight, and: Absence, and: Embrace

In a Word, and: Flashlight, and: Absence, and: Embrace Dunya Mikhail (bio) In a Word When my students misspell Arabic,they discover how letterscan change fates.Amal (hope) can makean anagram of alam (pain),an exercise I'd hesitate to dissuade,and shafa (healing) will meansome shaqa (suffering)I can't spare them,but when they learn bahr,letting them express a desireto go to sea, I ensure they don'tspell harb, before they end upin a war they never intended.Even a kiss (qubla) could explodeif they wrote qunbla (bomb),but I can't keeptheir best teacher (life)from giving themall the lessons they need. [End Page 11] Flashlight They all know the little boyfrom the flashlighthe carries—not from a fearof the dark in Tahrir Squarebut to shine it as he searchesfor his father, among the facespainted on the tunnel wall.Every day the protestersdraw new facesand when he haloes themwith his flashlight, another deathilluminates their firmament.When one day,the little boy didn't arrive,his face was painted on the wall,beside a dimmed flashlight. Absence The tree too,gets memory loss.She forgets the birdsand their nests on the branchestenderly encircling the eggs,the breath of their flapping wingsteaching her leaves to fly.She forgets the birdsongs,as if she didn't hear them seasonafter season, just as she doesn't waitfor them to return after the storm. [End Page 12] When a bullet tumbles one birdfrom its perch, seed fallingfrom its beak—she will forgetthat, too, but she will knowsomething is missing,leaving a scar in the placewhere a strange silence abides. Embrace Deep inside the beach,moss grows around a rock:a soft embrace.When the water washes it away,it trembles like the gestureswe make waving from balconiesfor our loved onesin the time of pandemic. [End Page 13] Dunya Mikhail Dunya Mikhail was born in Iraq in 1965 and came to the United States in 1996. Her books include In Her Feminine Sign, selected as the Wild Card Choice (UK) and chosen by the New York Public Library as one of the ten best poetry books of 2019; The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq, a finalist for the pen/John Kenneth Galbraith Award and long-listed for the National Book Award; The Iraqi Nights, which received POETRY magazine's Translation Award; Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea, which won the Arab American Book Award; and The War Works Hard, shortlisted for the Griffon Poetry Prize and named one of the New York Public Library's Twenty-Five Books to Remember from 2005. She edited a pamphlet titled 15 Iraqi Poets. She currently works as an Arabic special lecturer at Oakland University in Michigan. Copyright © 2022 University of Nebraska Press

Symposium on the Lives and Work of Armand Mauss and O. Kendall White

On October 24, 2020, the Mormon Social Science Association convened to pay tribute to Armand L. Mauss and O. Kendall White, both of whom passed away in 2020. Mauss and White were influential members of the MSSA and leaders in the social scientific study of Mormonism. This tribute is a symposium comprised of three essays on the life and work of these scholars. In the first essay, Daryl White (emeritus, Spelman College) pays tribute to his late brother, noting how O. Kendall White’s biography and scholarship were intertwined, and chronicling Ken’s influence on the nascent sociological study of Mormonism. In the second essay, Gary Shepherd (Oakland University) and Gordon Shepherd (University of Central Arkansas) recount their four-decade association with Armand L. Mauss and describe the profound impact Armand has had on Mormon studies generally, and the social scientific study of Mormonism in particular. Finally, David Knowlton (Utah Valley University) considers the lives and influence of Mauss and White collectively, reflecting on how their work served as a foundation for the maturing field of Mormon social science.

Minutes of the Annual Meeting: Friday, 29 January 2021, 4:30 pm EST, Virtual Presentation via Convene

Minutes of the Annual Meeting: Friday, 29 January 2021, 4:30 pm EST, Virtual Presentation via Convene

Millennial Medical Students' Educational Expectations of Anesthesia Clerkships.

The unique characteristics of the millennial generation has promulgated changes in the workplace and in academia. A lack of national standards necessitates that anesthesia faculty create educational content for anesthesia clerkships. Assessing expectations before an anesthesia rotation would provide data to accommodate millennial medical students' needs and preferences for learning. A 16-question survey using Qualtrics software was created, with input from millennial medical students, to query preclinical medical students at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine on their educational expectations of an anesthesia clerkship. Seventy-four surveys were completed, with 34 (46%) of 74 from first-year and 40 (54%) of 74 from second-year medical students. Daily feedback (44 [59%] of 74) and written exams (43 [58%] of 74) were preferred methods of evaluation. No lectures, observing in an operating room, and performing procedures on real patients were the preferred format for instruction. Two (23 [31%] or 74) to 3 (33 [45%] of 74) weeks was the preferred duration of an anesthesia rotation. This study demonstrates that millennial medical students have preconceived educational expectations of an anesthesia clerkship, and identifies learning preferences that differ from the implemented anesthesia curriculum currently described in the literature.

Naomi A. Weiss, The Music of Tragedy. Performance and Imagination in Euripidean Theater, Oakland (University of California Press) 2018, XII, 284 S., ISBN 978-0-520-29590-2 (geb.), $ 95,–

Article Naomi A. Weiss, The Music of Tragedy. Performance and Imagination in Euripidean Theater, Oakland (University of California Press) 2018, XII, 284 S., ISBN 978-0-520-29590-2 (geb.), $ 95,– was published on November 30, 2021 in the journal Klio (volume 103, issue 2).

Editorial introductions.

Editorial introductions.

Editorial introductions

Editorial introductions

Output Temperature Predictions of the Geothermal Heat Pump System Using an Improved Grey Prediction Model

This paper presents the Improved Grey Prediction Model, also called IGM (1,1) model, to increase the prediction accuracy of the Grey Prediction Model (GM) model that performs the GHPS output temperature prediction. This was based on correcting the current predicted value by subtracting the error between the previous predicted value and the previous immediate mean of the measured value. Subsequently, the IGM (1,1) model was applied to predict the output temperature of the GHPSs at Oklahoma University, the University Politècnica de València, and Oakland University, respectively. For each GHPS, the model uses a small dataset of 24 data points (i.e., 24 h) for training to predict the output temperature eight hours in advance. The proposed model was verified using three different output temperature datasets; these datasets were also used to validate the power efficiency of the proposed model. In addition, the empirical results show that the proposed IGM (1,1) model significantly improves the simulation (in-sample) and the prediction (out-of-sample) of the output temperature of the GHPS through error reduction, thereby enhancing the GM (1,1) model’s overall accuracy. As a result, the prediction accuracies were compared, and the improved model was found to be more accurate than the GM (1,1) model in both simulation and prediction results for all datasets used.

The Superior Laryngeal Nerve and Its Vulnerability in Surgeries of the Neck.

Anatomical considerations of the superior laryngeal nerve (SLN), a branch of the vagus, provides information to minimize the potential for iatrogenic intraoperative injury, thereby preventing motor and sensory dysfunctions of the larynx. The present study aims to assess the variation of the SLN and its relationship to the superior thyroid artery (STA) and superior laryngeal artery (SLA). The study was done on 35 formalin-fixed cadavers at Oakland University in 2018–2019. In our study, we found that out of 21 cadavers, 52.4% of the external laryngeal branches (ebSLN) are related posteromedial to the STA, while 47.6% are related anteromedial to it. Out of 14 cadavers, 64.3% of the internal laryngeal branches (ibSLN) are related superoposterior to the SLA, while 35.7% are inferoposterior to it. In most cases, the SLA crosses above the ebSLN while traveling to pierce the thyrohyoid membrane to reach the larynx. The data demonstrate that both the ebSLN and ibSLN display variation in their relationship with the STA and the SLA, respectively. Awareness of these variable relationships is critical for identification and isolation of these structures in order to prevent consequences of nerve injury, primarily a reduction in the highest attainable frequency of the voice and aspiration pneumonia.

Dyspnea: Assessment Options Beyond M1400.

Sara Arena, PT, MS, DScPT, is an Associate Professor, Physical Therapy Program, School of Health Science, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan. The author declares no conflicts of interest. Address for correspondence: Sara Arena, PT, MS, DScPT, Physical Therapy Program, School of Health Sciences, Oakland University, Human Health Bldg., 433 Meadowbrook Road, Rochester, MI 48309-4401 ([email protected]).

OCR: Student's remediation plan not discriminatory

Case name: Letter to: Oakland University, No. 15‐18‐2083 (OCR 04/30/20).

On Student-Centered Design at Oakland University

No abstract available.

OCR: Student's remediation plan not discriminatory

Case name: Letter to: Oakland University, No. 15‐18‐2083 (OCR 04/30/20).

Evaluating the Risk of Pathologic Fracture in Metastatic Bone Disease

1Physical Therapy Oncology Resident, Beaumont Hospital, Troy, MI 2Board Certified Geriatric Clinical Specialist; Assistant Professor, Oakland University, Rochester, MI; and Oncology Residency Director, Beaumont Hospital, Troy, MI Correspondence: Scott Grumeretz, PT, DPT, Beaumont Hospital, 44201 Dequindre Rd, Troy, MI 48085 (scottgrumer[email protected]). The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Online Publication date: May 3, 2021

Learning from Hispanic Mentees: A Reflection on Cultural and Socioeconomic Differences

Oakland University William Beaumont - Hispanic Newcomer Outreach mentoring program offers medical students the opportunity to mentor local Hispanic teenagers. Here, we describe the experience of two medical students in the program with their mentees. Through the weekly phone calls and weekend activities, their relationships strengthened and the mentors learned invaluable lessons about the effects of socioeconomic status, gender roles, and culture that could not be learned from a classroom. This program helped shape their ever-evolving cultural humility, which highlights the importance of long-term, meaningful experiences with people from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds in medical education.