International nurses day

International Nurses’ Day is celebrated annually on 12 May to mark the contributions nurses make to society, in addition International Nurses’ week (IND) is also celebrated around the world in early May of each year. The International Council of Nurses (ICN) has celebrated this day since 1965. In 1953 Dorothy Sutherland, an official with the US. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, proposed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaim a “Nurses’ Day”; he did not approve it.In January 1974, 12 May was chosen to celebrate the day as it is the anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, who is widely considered the founder of modern nursing. Each year, ICN prepares and distributes the International Nurses’ Day Kit.

The kit contains educational and public information materials, for use by nurses everywhere.In 1999 the British public sector union UNISON voted to ask the ICN to transfer this day to another date, saying Nightingale does not represent modern nursing. As of 1998, 8 May was designated as annual National Student Nurses’ Day. As of 2003, the Wednesday within National Nurses Week, between 6 and 12 May, is National School Nurse Day. Each year a service is held in Westminster Abbey in London. During the Service, a symbolic lamp is taken from the Nurses’ Chapel in the Abbey and handed from one nurse to another, thence to the Dean, who places it on the High Altar. This signifies the passing of knowledge from one nurse to another. At St Margaret’s Church at East Wellow in Hampshire, where Florence Nightingale is buried, a service is also held on the Sunday after her birthday.

ME/CFS Fibromyalgia International awareness day

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/Chronic fatigue syndrome and Fibromyalgia International Awareness Day takes place annually on May 12. The purpose of ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia International Awareness Day is to educate the public and healthcare professionals concerning the symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of ME/CFS, as well as the need for a better understanding of this complex illness. This date was chosen because it is the birthday of Florence Nightingale, who had a disease with an infection-associated onset that could have been a neuroimmune disease such as ME/CF

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)/ myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), is a medical condition characterized by long-term fatigue and other persistent symptoms that limit a person’s ability to carry out ordinary daily activities. Although the cause is not understood, causes may include biological, genetic, infectious, and psychological. Diagnosis is based on a person’s symptoms because there is no confirmed diagnostic test. The fatigue in CFS is not due to strenuous ongoing exertion, is not much relieved by rest and is not due to a previous medical condition. Fatigue is a common symptom in many illnesses, but the unexplained fatigue and severity of functional impairment in CFS is comparatively rare. The symptoms of CFS may include:

• Reduced ability to participate in activities that were routine before the onset of the condition,
• Increased Difficulty with Physical or mental activity
• Sleep problems
• Difficulty with thinking and remembering
• Difficulty standing or sitting
• Muscle pain, joint pain, and headache
• Tender lymph nodes in the neck or armpits
• Sore throat
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Night sweats
• Sensitivities to foods, odors, chemicals, or noise.

The functional capacity of individuals with CFS varies greatly. Some persons with CFS lead relatively normal lives; others are totally bed-ridden and unable to care for themselves, work, school, and family activities can be significantly reduced for extended periods of time with many people experiencing strongly disabling chronic pain leading to critical reductions in levels of physical activities. Symptoms are comparable to other fatiguing medical conditions including late-stage AIDS, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and end-stage kidney disease. CFS may also affect a person’s functional status and well-being more than major medical conditions such as multiple sclerosis, congestive heart failure, or type II diabetes mellitus. Often, People may feel better for a period and may overextend their activities, and the result can be a worsening of their symptoms with a relapse of the illness. People with CFS have decreased quality of life, with regard to vitality, physical functioning, general health, physical role and social functioning. Mental agility, Memory, reactions and cognitive functions may also be effected.

There is no cure, with treatment being symptomatic. No medications or procedures have been approved in the United States. Evidence suggests that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and a gradual increase in activity suited to individual capacity can be beneficial in some cases. In a systematic review of exercise therapy, no evidence of serious adverse effects was found, however data was insufficient to form a conclusion Some patient support groups have criticized the use of CBT and graded exercise therapy (GET). Tentative evidence supports the use of the medication rintatolimod. This evidence, however, was deemed insufficient to approve sales for CFS treatment in the United States. CFS has a negative effect on health, happiness and productivity, but there is also controversy over many aspects of the disorder. Physicians, researchers and patient advocates promote different names and diagnostic criteria, while evidence for proposed causes and treatments is often contradictory or of low quality.

Lupus day

Lupus Day takes place annually on 10 May. Lupus is an Autoimmune disease which effects the body’s immune system and mistakenly attacks healthy tissue in many parts of the body. The purpose of Lupus Day is educate people concerning the symptoms, effects and Treatments for Lupus. Symptoms vary between people and may be mild to severe. Common symptoms include painful and swollen joints, fever, chest pain, hair loss, mouth ulcers, swollen lymph nodes, feeling tired, and a red rash which is most commonly on the face. Often there are periods of illness, called flares, and periods of remission during which there are few symptoms.

The cause of SLE is not clear. It is thought to involve genetics together with environmental factors. Among identical twins, if one is affected there is a 24% chance the other one will be as well.Female sex hormones, sunlight, smoking, vitamin D deficiency, and certain infections, are also believed to increase the risk. The mechanism involves an immune response by autoantibodies against a person’s own tissues. These are most commonly anti-nuclear antibodies and they result in inflammation.Diagnosis can be difficult and is based on a combination of symptoms and laboratory tests. There are a number of other kinds of lupus erythematosus including discoid lupus erythematosus, neonatal lupus, and subacute cutaneous lupus erythematosus.

There is no cure for SLE. Treatments may include NSAIDs, corticosteroids, immunosuppressants, hydroxychloroquine, and methotrexate. Alternative medicine has not been shown to affect the disease. Life expectancy is lower among people with SLE. SLE significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease with this being the most common cause of death. With modern treatment about 80% of those affected survive more than 15 years. Women with lupus have pregnancies that are higher risk but are mostly successful.

The Rate of SLE varies between countries from 20 to 70 per 100,000. Women of childbearing age are affected about nine times more often than men. While it most commonly begins between the ages of 15 and 45, a wide range of ages can be affected. Those of African, Caribbean, and Chinese descent are at higher risk than white people. Rates of disease in the developing world are unclear.Lupus is Latin for “wolf”: the disease was so-named in the 13th century as the rash was thought to appear like a wolf’s bite.

SLE is one of several diseases known as “the great imitator” because it often mimics or is mistaken for other illnesses. SLE is a classical item in differential diagnosis,because SLE symptoms vary widely and come and go unpredictably. Diagnosis can be difficult. Common initial and chronic complaints include fever, malaise, joint pains, muscle pains, and fatigue. However these symptoms are so often seen in association with other diseases, and may indicate other things. While SLE can occur in both males and females, it is found far more often in women, and the symptoms associated with each sex are different. Females tend to have a greater number of relapses, a low white blood cell count, more arthritis, Raynaud’s phenomenon, and psychiatric symptoms. Males tend to have more seizures, kidney disease, serositis (inflammation of tissues lining the lungs and heart), skin problems, and peripheral neuropathy.

As many as 70% of people with lupus have some skin symptoms. The three main categories of lesions are chronic cutaneous (discoid) lupus, subacute cutaneous lupus, and acute cutaneous lupus. People with discoid lupus may exhibit thick, red scaly patches on the skin. Similarly, subacute cutaneous lupus manifests as red, scaly patches of skin but with distinct edges. Acute cutaneous lupus manifests as a rash. Some have the classic malar rash (or butterfly rash) associated with the disease.This rash occurs in 30 to 60% of people with SLE. Hair loss, mouth and nasal ulcers, and lesions on the skin are other possible manifestations.

Lucy Willis LRCP

leading English hematologist and physician researcher Lucy Wills, LRCP was born May 10 1888 in Sutton Coldfield. Generations of the Wills family had been living in or near Birmingham, England, Her paternal great-grandfather, William Wills, had been a prosperous Birmingham attorney from a Nonconformist Unitarian family (see Church of the Messiah, Birmingham). One of his sons, Alfred Wills, followed him into the law and became notable both as a judge and a mountaineer. Another son, Lucy’s grandfather, bought an edge-tool business in Nechells, AW Wills & Son, which manufactured such implements as scythes and sickles. Lucy’s father continued to manage the business and the family was comfortably well off.

Wills’ father, William Leonard Wills (1858–1911), was a science graduate of Owens College (later part of the Victoria University of Manchester, now part of the University of Manchester). Her mother, Gertrude Annie Wills née Johnston (1855–1939), was the only daughter (with six brothers) of a well-known Birmingham doctor, Dr. James Johnston. The family had a strong interest in scientific matters. Lucy’s great-grandfather, William Wills, had been involved with the British Association for the Advancement of Science and wrote papers on meteorology and other scientific observations. Her father was particularly interested in botany, zoology, geology, and natural sciences generally, as well as in the developing science of photography. Her brother, Leonard Johnston Wills, carried this interest in geology and natural sciences into his own career with great success. Wills was brought up in the country near Birmingham, initially in Sutton Coldfield, and then from 1892 in Barnt Green to the south of the city. She went at first to a local school called Tanglewood, kept by a Miss Ashe, formerly a governess to the Chamberlain family of Birmingham.

At the time she was born English girls had few opportunities for education and entry into the professions until towards the end of the nineteenth century. Wills was able to attend Cheltenham Ladies’ College, Newnham College Cambridge, and the London School of Medicine for Women In September 1903 Lucy Wills went to the Cheltenham Ladies’ College, which had been founded in 1854 by Dorothea Beale. Wills’s elder sister Edith was in the same house, Glenlee. She passed the ‘Oxford Local Senior, Division I’ exam in 1905; the ‘University of London, Matriculation, Division II’ in 1906; and ‘Part I, Class III and Paley, exempt from Part II and additional subjects by matriculation (London), Newnham entrance’ in 1907.

In 1907, Wills began her studies at Newnham College, Cambridge, a women’s college. Wills was strongly influenced by the botanist Albert Charles Seward and by the paleobiologist Herbert Henry Thomas who worked on carboniferous paleobotany. Wills finished her course in 1911 and obtained a Class 2 in Part 1 of the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1910 and Class 2 in Part 2 (Botany) in 1911, however she was ineligible as a woman to receive a Cambridge degree.

Sadly in February 1911, Wills’s father tragically died at the age of 53 then In 1913, her elder sister Edith also died at the age of 26. In 1913 Wills and her mother traveled to Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. A friend from Newnham, Margaret (Margot) Hume, was lecturing in botany at the South African College, then part of the University of the Cape of Good Hope. She and Wills were both interested in Sigmund Freud’s theories. Upon the outbreak of World war One in August 1914, Gordon enlisted in the Transvaal Scottish Regiment. Wills spent some weeks doing voluntary nursing in a hospital in Cape Town, before she and Margot Hume returned to England, arriving in Plymouth in December. In1915, Wills enrolled at the London (Royal Free Hospital) School of Medicine for Women. Which had a number of students from India, including Jerusha Jhirad, who became the first Indian woman to qualify with a degree in obstetrics and gynecology in 1919.

Wills was awarded the licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians London in May 1920 (LRCP Lond 1920), and was also awarded the University of London degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery awarded in December 1920 (MB BS Lond), at age 32 becoming a legally qualified medical practitioner and decided to research and teach in the Department of Pregnant Pathology at the Royal Free. There she worked with Christine Pillman (who later married Ulysses Williams OBE),

Wills left for India in 1928 and began research work on macrocytic anemia in pregnancy. This was prevalent in a severe form among poorer women with dietary deficiencies, particularly those in the textile industry. Dr Margaret Balfour of the Indian Medical Service had asked her to join the Maternal Mortality Inquiry sponsored by the Indian Research Fund Association at the Haffkine Institute in Bombay, now Mumbai. In 1929, she moved her work to the Pasteur Institute of India in Coonoor (where Sir Robert McCarrison was Director of Nutrition Research). In early 1931 she was working at the Caste and Gosha Hospital in Madras, now the Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital for Women and Children of Chennai. During the summers of 1930-32 she returned to England and continued her work in the pathology laboratories at the Royal Free.By 1933 she was back at the Royal Free full-time.

Between 1937 and 1938 she visited the Haffkine Institute Travelling by an Imperial Airways Short ‘C’ Class Empire flying boat Called the Calypso. Herjourney began at Southampton landing on water for refuelling at Marseilles, Bracciano near Rome, Brindisi, Athens, Alexandria, Tiberias, Habbaniyah to the west of Baghdad, Basra, Bahrain, Dubai, Gwadar and Karachi, with overnight stops at Rome, Alexandria, Basra and Sharjah (just outside Dubai). The five-day flight was the first Imperial Airways flight to go beyond Alexandria. In Bombay Wills was on dining terms with the governors and their wives at Government House – Sir Leslie Wilson in 1928 and Sir Frederick Sykes in 1929. In 1929 she visited Mysuru and met Sir Charles Todhunter, the Governor of Madras and secretary to the Maharaja of Mysuru. Here Wills observed a correlation between the dietary habits of different classes of Bombay women and the likelihood of their becoming anemic during pregnancy. Poor Muslim women were the ones with both the most deficient diets and the greatest susceptibility to anemia (pernicious anemia of pregnancy). However, it differed from true pernicious anemia, as the patients did not have achlorhydria, an inability to produce gastric acid and did not respond to the ‘pure’ liver extracts (vitamin B12) which had been shown to treat true pernicious anemia. It was named Mycrocytic Anaemia and was characterized by enlarged red blood cells which is life-threatening. She postulated another nutritional factor was responsible for this macrocytic anemia other than vitamin B12 deficiency. This was later discovered to be folate, of which the synthetic form is folic acid.

Wills investigated possible nutritional treatments for Anaemia by studying the effects of dietary manipulation on a macrocytic anemia in albino rats at the Nutritional Research Laboratories at the Pasteur Institute of India in Coonoor. Which involved Rats being fed the same diet as Bombay Muslim women. The rat anemia was prevented by the addition of yeast to synthetic diets which had no vitamin B. This work was later duplicated using rhesus monkeys. Back in Bombay, Wills conducted clinical trials on patients with macrocytic anemia and discovered that it could be both prevented and cured by yeast extracts, of which the cheapest source was Marmite. Wills returned to the Royal Free Hospital in London from 1938 until her retirement in 1947. During the Second World War she was a full-time pathologist in the Emergency Medical Service. Work in the pathology department was disrupted for a few days in July 1944 (and a number of people were killed) when the hospital suffered a direct hit from a V1 flying bomb. By the end of the war, she was in charge of pathology at the Royal Free Hospital and had established the first hematology department there. After her retirement, Wills traveled extensively, including to Jamaica, Fiji and South Africa, continuing her observations on nutrition and anemia. Until she sadly passed away in April 16 1964)

international day of the midwife

International Day of the Midwife takes place annually on 5 May. It was first celebrated In 1991, and has since been observed in over 50 nations around the world. The idea of having a day to recognize and honor midwives came out of the 1987 International Confederation of Midwives conference in the Netherlands. In 2014 it was celebrated in Iran and New Zealand among many other places.

A midwife is a professional in midwifery, specializing in pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, women’s sexual and reproductive health (including annual gynecological exams, family planning, menopausal care and others), and newborn care. They are also educated and trained to recognise the variations of normal progress of labor, and how to deal with deviations from normal to discern what, and may intervene in high risk situations, such as breech births, twin births and births where the baby is in a posterior position, using non-invasive techniques. When a pregnant woman requires care beyond the midwife’s scope of practice, they refer women to obstetricians or perinatologists who are medical specialists in complications related to pregnancy and birth, including surgical and instrumental deliveries. In many parts of the world, these professions work in tandem to provide care to childbearing women. In others, only the midwife is available to provide care, and in yet other countries many women elect to utilize obstetricians primarily over midwives.

Many developing countries are investing money and training for midwives as these services are needed all over the world. Some primary care services are currently lacking due to the shortage of money being funded for these resources. A study performed by Melissa Cheyney and colleagues followed approximately 17,000 planned home births with the assistance of midwives. 93.6% of these families had a normal physiological birth and only 5% were Cesarean sections. In 2013, the rate of Cesarean sections in hospitals in the United States was 32.7%, which is double the rate that World Health Organization recommends.

According to the definition of the International Confederation of Midwives, which has also been adopted by the World Health Organization and the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, A midwife is a person who has successfully completed a midwifery education programme that is recognised in the country where it is located and that is based on the ICM Essential Competencies for Basic Midwifery Practice. and the framework of the ICM Global Standards for Midwifery Education; who has acquired the requisite qualifications to be registered and/or legally licensed to practice midwifery and use the title ‘midwife’; and who demonstrates competency in the practice of midwifery. The word derives from Old English mid, “with” and wif, “woman”, and thus originally meant “with-woman”, that is, the woman who is with the mother at childbirth. The word is used to refer to both male and female midwives.

The midwife is recognised as a responsible and accountable professional who works in partnership with women to give the necessary support, care and advice during pregnancy, labour and the postpartum period, to conduct births on the midwife’s own responsibility and to provide care for the newborn and the infant. This care includes preventative measures, the promotion of normal birth, the detection of complications in mother and child, the accessing of medical care or other appropriate assistance and the carrying out of emergency measures.

The midwife has an important task in health counselling and education, not only for the woman, but also within the family and the community. This work should involve antenatal education and preparation for parenthood and may extend to women’s health, sexual or reproductive health and child care. A midwife may practise in any setting including the home, community, hospitals, clinics or health units.

National DNA Day🧬🧬🧬

National DNA Day takes place annually on April 25 to commemorate the publication of papers concerning the structure of DNA On 25 April 1953 by James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin. DNA Day was first celebrated In the United States on April 25, 2003 by proclamation of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. However, they only declared a one-time celebration, not an annual holiday. Every year from 2003 onward, annual DNA Day celebrations have been organized by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), starting as early as April 23 in 2010, April 15 in 2011 and April 20 in 2012. April 25 has since been declared “International DNA Day” and “World DNA Day” by several groups. 

DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) is a thread-like chain of nucleotides carrying the genetic instructions used in the growth, development, functioning and reproduction of all known living organisms and many viruses. DNA and ribonucleic acid (RNA) are nucleic acids; alongside proteins, lipids and complex carbohydrates (polysaccharides), they are one of the four major types of macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life. Most DNA molecules consist of two biopolymer strands coiled around each other to form a double helix.

The two DNA strands are called polynucleotides since they are composed of simpler monomer units called nucleotides. Each nucleotide is composed of one of four nitrogen-containing nucleobases (cytosine [C], guanine [G], adenine [A] or thymine [T]), a sugar called deoxyribose, and a phosphate group. The nucleotides are joined to one another in a chain by covalent bonds between the sugar of one nucleotide and the phosphate of the next, resulting in an alternating sugar-phosphate backbone. The nitrogenous bases of the two separate polynucleotide strands are bound together, according to base pairing rules (A with T and C with G), with hydrogen bonds to make double-stranded DNA. The complementary nitrogenous bases are divided into two groups, pyrimidines and purines. In a DNA molecule, the pyrimidines are thymine and cytosine, the purines are adenine and guanine.

DNA stores biological information. The DNA backbone is resistant to cleavage, and both strands of the double-stranded structure store the same biological information. This information is replicated as and when the two strands separate. A large part of DNA (more than 98% for humans) is non-coding, meaning that these sections do not serve as patterns for protein sequences. The two strands of DNA run in opposite directions to each other and are thus antiparallel. Attached to each sugar is one of four types of nucleobases (informally, bases). It is the sequence of these four nucleobases along the backbone that encodes biological information. RNA strands are created using DNA strands as a template in a process called transcription. Under the genetic code, these RNA strands are translated to specify the sequence of amino acids within proteins in a process called translation.

Within eukaryotic cells DNA is organized into long structures called chromosomes. During cell division these chromosomes are duplicated in the process of DNA replication, providing each cell its own complete set of chromosomes. Eukaryotic organisms (animals, plants, fungi and protists) store most of their DNA inside the cell nucleus and some of their DNA in organelles, such as mitochondria or chloroplasts. In contrast prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) store their DNA only in the cytoplasm. Within the eukaryotic chromosomes, chromatin proteins such as histones compact and organize DNA. These compact structures guide the interactions between DNA and other proteins, helping control which parts of the DNA are transcribed.

DNA was first isolated by Friedrich Miescher in 1869. Its molecular structure was first identified by James Watson and Francis Crick at the Cavendish Laboratory within the University of Cambridge in 1953, whose model-building efforts were guided by X-ray diffraction data acquired by Raymond Gosling, who was a post-graduate student of Rosalind Franklin. DNA is used by researchers as a molecular tool to explore physical laws and theories, such as the ergodic theorem and the theory of elasticity. The unique material properties of DNA have made it an attractive molecule for material scientists and engineers interested in micro- and nano-fabrication. Among notable advances in this field are DNA origami and DNA-based hybrid materials. In 2003 it was declared that the Human Genome Project was very close to complete, and “the remaining tiny gaps were considered too costly to fill.

World Haemophilia day

World Haemophilia Day takes place annually on April 17. It was established by the WFH as an awareness day for hemophilia and other bleeding disorders, which also serves to raise funds and attract volunteers for the WFH. It was started in 1989; April 17 was chosen in honor of Frank Schnabel’s birthday.

The word Haemophilia, (hemophilia) is derived from the Greek haima αἷμα meaning blood and philia φιλία meaning love. Haemophilia is a mostly inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body’s ability to make blood clots, a process needed to stop bleeding. This results in people bleeding longer after an injury, easy bruising, and an increased risk of bleeding inside joints or the brain. Those with a mild case of the disease may have symptoms only after an accident or during surgery. Bleeding into a joint can result in permanent damage while bleeding in the brain can result in long term headaches, seizures, or a decreased level of consciousness.

There are two main types of haemophilia: haemophilia A, which occurs due to not enough clotting factor VIII, and haemophilia B, which occurs due to not enough clotting factor IX. The differences between haemophilia A and B were discovered in 1952. They are typically inherited from one’s parents through an X chromosome with a nonfunctional gene. A new mutation may occur during early development or haemophilia may develop later in life due to antibodies forming against a clotting factor. Other types include haemophilia C, which occurs due to not enough factor XI, and parahaemophilia, which occurs due to not enough factor V. Acquired haemophilia is associated with cancers, autoimmune disorders, and pregnancy. Diagnosis is by testing the blood for its ability to clot and its levels of clotting factors.

Haemophilia can be prevented by removing an egg, fertilizing it, and testing the embryo before transferring it to the uterus. Treatment is by replacing the missing blood clotting factors. This may be done on a regular basis or during bleeding episodes. Replacement may take place at home or in hospital. The clotting factors are made either from human blood or by recombinant methods. Up to 20% of people develop antibodies to the clotting factors which makes treatment more difficult. The medication desmopressin may be used in those with mild haemophilia A.

Haemophilia A affects about 1 in 5,000–10,000, while haemophilia B affects about 1 in 40,000, males at birth. As haemophilia A and B are both X-linked recessive disorders, females are rarely severely affected. Some females with a nonfunctional gene on one of the X chromosomes may be mildly symptomatic. Haemophilia C occurs equally in both sexes and is mostly found in Ashkenazi Jews. During the 1800s haemophilia was common within the royal families of Europe.

Pathologists Assistant Day

Pathologists’ Assistant Day takes place annually on 14 April. Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word pathology also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of bioscience research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatment, the term is often used in a more narrow fashion to refer to processes and tests which fall within the contemporary medical field of “general pathology”, an area which includes a number of distinct but inter-related medical specialties that diagnose disease, mostly through analysis of tissue, cell, and body fluid samples. Idiomatically, “a pathology” may also refer to the predicted or actual progression of particular diseases (as in the statement “the many different forms of cancer have diverse pathologies”), and the affix pathy is sometimes used to indicate a state of disease in cases of both physical ailment (as in cardiomyopathy) and psychological conditions (such as psychopathy). A physician practicing pathology is called a pathologist.

As a field of general inquiry and research, pathology addresses four components of disease: cause, mechanisms of development (pathogenesis), structural alterations of cells (morphologic changes), and the consequences of changes (clinical manifestations).In common medical practice, general pathology is mostly concerned with analyzing known clinical abnormalities that are markers or precursors for both infectious and non-infectious disease and is conducted by experts in one of two major specialties, anatomical pathology and clinical pathology. Further divisions in specialty exist on the basis of the involved sample types (comparing, for example, cytopathology, hematopathology, and histopathology), organs (as in renal pathology), and physiological systems (oral pathology), as well as on the basis of the focus of the examination (as with forensic pathology).

Pathologists Assistants work under the indirect or direct supervision of a board certified anatomical pathologist, who ultimately renders a diagnosis based on the PA’s detailed gross examination and/or tissue submission for microscopic evaluation. Requirements to become a pathologists’ assistant include graduation from a National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NAACLS) accredited education program and successfully passing the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) certification exam, which is not legally required in most states. The credentialing is a certification from the ASCP. Some states such as Nevada and New York require a license. All pathologists’ assistants are allied health workers who need to be CLIA 88 compliant to perform these high complexity tasks with indirect/direct supervision. With ongoing changes in health care, a growing elderly population, and a decreasing number of pathology residents, the PA is in high demand due to their high level of training and contribution to the overall efficiency of the pathology laboratory. A pathologists’ assistant may also perform the following tasks:

* Frozen sectioning for intraoperative consultation
* Preparing tissue samples for flow cytometry, immunohistochemical (IHC) stains, genetic testing, microbiology culturing, and for various other laboratory evaluations
* Gross specimen photography
* Training PA fellows, pathology residents, and other pathology lab personnel (as needed)
* Fulfilling roles in managerial duties, instructional positions, and supervisory roles
* Researching

While many PAs are employed in hospitals, they may also gain employment in private pathology laboratories/groups, medical examiner’s offices, morgues, government or reference laboratories, or universities, and may be self-employed and provide contract work. According to a study published in Autonomic Pathology, PAs perform gross examinations on 56.5% of the total number of specimens submitted industry-wide, with a majority being biopsies.

World Parkinson day

World Parkinson Day takes place annually on 11 April to mark the birth of English surgeon apothecary, geologist, paleontologist, and political activist James Parkinson FGS who was born 11 April 1755 in Shoreditch, London, England. He was the son of John Parkinson, an apothecary and surgeon practising in Hoxton Square in London. In 1784 Parkinson was approved by the City of London Corporation as a surgeon. On 21 May 1783, he married Mary Dale, with whom he subsequently had eight children; two did not survive past childhood. Soon after he was married, Parkinson succeeded his father in his practice in 1 Hoxton Square.

In addition to his medical practice, Parkinson had an avid interest in geology and palaeontology, as well as the politics of the day. He was also a strong advocate for the under-privileged, and an outspoken critic of the Pitt government. He became involved in a variety of social and revolutionary causes, and some historians think it most likely that he was a strong proponent for the French Revolution. He published nearly twenty political pamphlets in the post-French Revolution period, while Britain was in political chaos. Writing under his own name and his pseudonym “Old Hubert”, he called for radical social reforms and universal suffrage.

Parkinson called for representation of the people in the House of Commons, the institution of annual parliaments, and universal suffrage. He was a member of several secret political societies, including the London Corresponding Society and the Society of Constitutional Information.In 1794 his membership in the organisation led to his being examined under oath before William Pitt and the Privy Council to give evidence about a trumped-up plot to assassinate King George III. He refused to testify regarding his part in the popgun plot, until he was certain he would not be forced to incriminate himself. The plan was to use a poisoned dart fired from a pop-gun to bring the king’s reign to a premature conclusion. No charges were ever brought against Parkinson but several of his friends languished in prison for many months before being acquitted.

Parkinson was also interested in improving the general health and well-being of the population. He wrote several medical doctrines that exposed a similar zeal for the health and welfare of the people that was expressed by his political activism. He was a crusader for legal protection for the mentally ill, as well as their doctors and families. Between 1799 and 1807 Parkinson published several medical works, including a work on gout in 1805. He was also responsible for early writings on ruptured appendix in English medical literature. In 1812 Parkinson also assisted his son with the first described case of appendicitis in English, and the first instance in which perforation was shown to be the cause of death.

.In 1817 he wrote, An Essay on the Shaking Palsy in which he was the first to describe “paralysis agitans”, a condition that would later be renamed Parkinson’s disease by Jean-Martin Charcot. Parkinson was the first person to systematically describe six individuals with symptoms of the disease that bears his name. In his “An Essay on the Shaking Palsy”, he reported on three of his own patients and three persons who he saw in the street. He referred to the disease that would later bear his name as paralysis agitans, or shaking palsy. He distinguished between resting tremors and the tremors with motion. Jean-Martin Charcot coined the term “Parkinson’s disease” some 60 years later. Although Parkinson erroneously predicted that the tremors in these patients were due to lesions in the cervical spinal cord.

Parkinson was also interested in geology, and palaeontology. He began collecting specimens and drawings of fossils in the latter part of the eighteenth century. He took his children and friends on excursions to collect and observe fossil plants and animals. His attempts to learn more about fossil identification and interpretation were frustrated by a lack of available literature in English, and so he took the decision to improve matters by writing his own introduction to the study of fossils.In 1804, he published the first volume of his book Organic Remains of a Former World. A second volume was also published in 1808, and a third in 1811. In 1822 Parkinson published the shorter “Outlines of Oryctology: an Introduction to the Study of Fossil Organic Remains, especially of those found in British Strata”. Parkinson also contributed several papers to William Nicholson’s “A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts”, and in the first, second, and fifth volumes of the “Geological Society’s Transactions”. He also wrote ‘Outlines of Orytology’ in 1822. In 1807, Parkinson accompanied Sir Humphry Davy, Arthur Aikin and George Bellas Greenough and other distinguished gentlemen at the Freemasons’ Tavern in London for the first meeting of the Geological Society of London.Several fossils were also named after him.

Parkinson sadly died on 21 December 1824 after a stroke that interfered with his speech, his houses inLangthorne went to his sons and wife and his apothecary’s shop to his son, John. He was buried at St. Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch. Parkinson’s life is commemorated with a stone tablet inside the church of St Leonard’s, Shoreditch. A blue plaque at 1 Hoxton Square, also marks the site of his home

world health day

World Health Day is observed annually on April 7 by All Member States of the World Health Organization. It was started In 7 April 1948, to mark the day when the World Health Organisation was established and the First World Health Assembly took place, with effect from 1950. The World Health Day is held to mark The founding of the World Health Organisation and is seen as an opportunity by the organization to draw worldwide attention to a subject of major importance to global health each year. To mark the occasion The WHO organizes many international, regional and local events on the Day related to a particular theme. The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHO is a member of the United Nations Development Group. Its predecessor, the Health Organization, was an agency of the League of Nations.

The constitution of the World Health Organization had been signed by 61 countries on 7 April 1948, with the first meeting of the World Health Assembly finishing on 24 July 1948. It incorporated the Office International d’Hygiène Publique and the League of Nations Health Organization. Since its creation, it has played a leading role in the eradication of smallpox. Its current priorities include communicable diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS, Ebola, malaria and tuberculosis; the mitigation of the effects of non-communicable diseases; sexual and reproductive health, development, and ageing; nutrition, food security and healthy eating; occupational health; substance abuse; and driving the development of reporting, publications, and networking. The WHO is responsible for the World Health Report, the worldwide World Health Survey, and World Health Day. The Director-General of WHO is Tedros Adhanom who started his five-year term on 1 July 2017.

The constitution of the World Health Organization had been signed by 61 countries on 22 July 1946, with the first meeting of the World Health Assembly finishing on 24 July 1948. It incorporated the Office international d’hygiène publique and the League of Nations Health Organization. Since its creation, it has played a leading role in the eradication of smallpox. Its current priorities include communicable diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS, Ebola, malaria and tuberculosis; the mitigation of the effects of non-communicable diseases; sexual and reproductive health, development, and aging; nutrition, food security and healthy eating; occupational health; substance abuse; and driving the development of reporting, publications, and networking. The WHO is also responsible for the World Health Report, a leading international publication on health, the worldwide World Health Survey, and World Health Day (7 April of every year). The current head of WHO is Margaret Chan.

World Health Day is acknowledged by various governments and non-governmental organizations with interests in public health issues, and various activities take place to highlight their support in media reports, such as through press releases issued in recent years by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Global Health Council. World Health Day is one of eight official global public health campaigns marked by The World Health Organisation, along with World Tuberculosis Day, World Immunization Week, World Malaria Day, World No Tobacco Day, World Blood Donor Day, World Hepatitis Day, and World AIDS Day.