Blogger: Wenche Malmedal, Associate Professor at Department of Public Health and Nursing 

Elder abuse can take many forms and can be describes as physical, psychological, financial, sexual or neglect. According to The World Health Organization, at least 3-5% of the population 65+ are exposed to one or more types of abuse. This is a major treat to the public health. Still elder abuse is a hidden and under researched problem.

Det er forsket lite på vold og overgrep i sykehjem. (illustrasjonsfoto: iStock)

Nursing homes are identified as one arena where elder abuse takes place. Research on nursing home abuse is very limited. The aim of this project is to reduce abuse and neglect in nursing homes, through developing new knowledge on the extent and nature of abuse, and to identify mechanisms at individual, organizational and structural level leading to abuse and neglect in nursing homes.

The research is organized in three sub-studies. The first comprises a national survey on abuse of nursing home patients among the staff to estimate the occurrence and causes of abuse and neglect. The second sub-study takes into account that leadership is important in building a culture of patient safety. The study explores the role of leadership to promote patient safety in nursing homes. This is done through document studies of deficiency reports in combination with interviews with nursing home leaders. The third sub-study explores relatives’ experiences of abuse and neglect of nursing home patients. Data will be gathered through focus group discussions.

The unique contribution of the current study is a broad approach, including a specter of methods, and investigating several factors associated with abuse. Dissemination of results includes informing local and national health authorities.

Blogger: Ann-Katrin Stensdotter, Professor at Dept. of Neuromedicine and Movement Science

When did time start and where does the universe end? Those were the kind of questions I would, as a child, pester my mother with. I was also greatly concerned with life on the planet. Did you know that if you succeed to crack a gingerbread snap in three, you get three wishes? Mine were: stop pollution, end wars, and stop cruelty against animals. I am still whishing. When I was 6, I tried to build a mini water cleaning plant in a shoe box. The interest for astrophysics and the universe made me devour the entire Dune series by Frank Herbert, many of the stories by Isaac Asimov and even Robert Heinlein. Eugen Semitjov’s “There will be a day…” is still somewhere in my book case, accompanied by several books by Richard Dawkins, Roger Penrose, and of course, Stephen Hawking. And I still regret missing a talk by Carl Sagan in San Francisco in the 1980s. Not to mention the excitement waiting for Hubble to be launched, and the disappointment over its’ nearsightedness.

My interests and concerns have made me wish for a group of people, an organization or a quest, by clever and honest individuals who understand that our planet is a limited place in space, who on evidence based knowledge would burn with dedication to assess the matters of the survival of this planet. And there was STARMUS.

STARMUS is not a strange gathering for very special interests. STARMUS is a mission to reach out to everyone to create awareness; Life is about us and the world we live in – Universe points to the fact that we live on a planet in it. Science is a prerequisite to solve the issues threatening life. A broad range of perspectives were covered during this amazing festival.
Are these issues concerns for health science? Yes, it certainly is! Without a healthy world, no individual health can exist.

NASA Astronaut Sandra Magnus (Photo: Thor Nielsen/NTNU)

Thank you, Sandra Magnus, for putting emotion into science. Planet Earth is our home, an island in a vast universe. There will be no rescue boat saving us as in “Lord of the flies” after we have set our world on fire. And yes, Neil deGrasse Tyson, if we can Terra-form Mars, why not Earth?

There was with a lot of reminiscing, listening to the moon-walkers, and I can still hear it in my head – ….and we have lift off…… Imagine what was accomplished with the technology available then! And what we should be able to do now!

Astrophysics is extremely abstract and the quantum world does not lend itself to be effectively described in words, but rather mathematics, which would leave most of us way behind. Sounds and graphics by Brian Greene were however illustrating, showing that even the most distant science can be presented in a comprehensible manner.

Starmus (Photo: Frode Jørum/NTNU)

Physics and neuroscience are extremely enchanting, but the talk that went straight to the heart was in economics. Jeffrey Sachs hit my solar plexus with his talk, and it hurt. It was the most emotional and sad rendering of the state of the world today and seemed to bring tears to the eyes of the famous film maker Oliver Stone. We have the money and the means to save the planet, but we are not using them. Why? Katherine Hayhoe was asking the same question and concluded that more information, even using animation and cartoons, won’t do it. Social science is needed to find a way not only to make people understand, but to care, and most important of all, to act. Science needs to create action to make a better world.

Science for a better world is the slogan for NTNU. Having hosted STARMUS commits NTNU to follow up. Garik Israelian, founder of STARMUS, gave his complements to Norway as an exemplary nation, which commits Norway to live up to expectations. So, who is Norway? It is not just the government – Norway is us, YOU and I, which means that it is up to us as individuals to care and act. Please, do the best YOU can to the best of YOUR ability for a better world. Thank YOU!

Blogger: Signe Åsberg,
PhD student at CEMIR

In December last year an outbreak of measles started when a family that was not vaccinated visited Disneyland California. I’m currently a visiting graduate student here in Los Angeles and I’d planned to go to Disneyland to get some of that Christmas magic-feeling that the decorated palm trees couldn’t convey.

I never went though. Before I even knew it Christmas had passed, January gone and nearly a hundred persons had been infected with measles after the outbreak that started in Disneyland.

… people who choose not to vaccinate their kids for religious or “personal reasons”

Measles are effectively prevented by vaccination and there is no cost involved (Photo: iStock)

In the following months the disease spread and 2015 is expected to be a record year in the number of cases since measles was declared eradicated in the US in 2000. What I find especially aggravating is that measles are effectively prevented by vaccination and there is no cost involved. The vaccine is part of the vaccination program, as it is in Norway, yet there are several schools and kindergartens in California where dangerously few children are vaccinated. Their parents are mainly wealthy and well educated people who choose not to vaccinate their kids for religious or “personal reasons”. Parents need only a signature from a doctor or other type of health care provider to exempt their kid from vaccination and it seems like this signature is given out too easily.

The debate following the outbreak has to a large extent focused on parents right to choose and there is a strong tradition for valuing freedom of choice in the US. But when it comes to diseases such as measles, polio and whopping cough the parents that «feel vaccination is not for them» are putting more vulnerable individuals at risk. For herd immunity to be efficient against measles at least 95-97% of the population needs to be vaccinated. This is enough to prevent an outbreak and protect those who can’t be vaccinated due to health reasons, such as the very young or old, cancer patients or people with reduced immune function.

When I started working at a major private hospital in Beverly Hills/West-Hollywood I was strongly encouraged to take the flu vaccine. After doing so I was given a green card to hang beside my employee ID card, that must be worn visibly at all time. The green card says “2014-2015» and signals to everyone that I’m vaccinated. I’m almost proud of it, feeling «approved» for the coming year. Everyday I see those green cards hanging along my colleagues IDs and anyone without it is not allowed to work with patients. That is how important vaccination is: it allows us to save millions of lives with a small pinch of a needle.

Approved for 2014-2015

After this experience I was surprised to find that there is a significant anti-vaccination movement in California with people who continue to believe in well-debunked myths about vaccination and measles. The anti-vaccine movement even receives support from some celebrities with the recent Hollywood premiere of an anti-vaccination documentary.

As has been clarified so many times: the measles vaccine does not cause autism. And measles is not a minor child disease. It is extremely contagious and has a long incubation period during which it is still contagious. The WHO estimates that the measles vaccine has saved 15.6 millions lives. But there is no antiviral treatment for those who get sick and for every 1000 child with measles one will die.

The adversity of the measles outbreak has lead parents and doctors to urge «social responsibility» i.e. «get your kids vaccinated!». NPR featured an interview the a father of Rhett, a 6 year old boy now recovering from leukemia. Due to his cancer treatment Rhett is at a higher risk for infectious diseases than his classmates. Unfortunately he lives in one of the counties with highest rate of personal belief exemptions and Rhett’s school has an exempt rate of 7 %, compared to statewide average of 2.5 %.

Cases such at Rhett’s lead to an interesting discussion on liability: if someone dies from measles, can you be held responsible for infecting them if you are not vaccinated?

The answer might be yes.

And can you be ordered into quarantine or «banned» from schools or your doctors office?

Definitely yes, several schools have ordered unvaccinated children home. These children had been exposed to measles and were told to stay at home for as long as the incubation period of the disease. Some doctors are also refusing to see unvaccinated patients as they will not risk the health of other patients. The outbreak seem to have reminded people of the importance of vaccination and opened an opportunity to restrict exemptions to only medical reasons.

In the midst of these discussion my Twitter feed was one night overrun with the hashtag #Iamtheherd: to support vaccination, to discuss vaccination and to remember a time when it wasn’t an option.

I am the herd, for myself and for you and for anyone who can’t be vaccinated.

References:

• Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
• WHO: “Measles”

Blogger: Signe Åsberg
PhD student at CEMIR

This blog post was originally posted on Åsberg’s science blog Furby in the lab. 

Let me give you a list of all the aspects of my job as a PhD student that I love. It really is a great ride but also incredibly difficult and I find myself easily sucked into the dark thoughts of how this will never work out, I’m the worst scientist in history and my project is not worth doing. I think it is time to will myself out of the dark places and focus on what I enjoy:

– First of all I get to think. A lot. Almost all the time, every day. I think, ponder, question, wonder. It’s a privilege.

– I get to look closely at microscopic organisms. I love looking at things. There’s just nothing better than looking at something amazing with your own eyes. I get to see cells, bacteria and even proteins. Or I get to see the light that the fluorophores I attached to those proteins emit when I excite them.

– This brings me to attaching fluorophores to proteins. I’m excited about that. I get to glue molecules together!

– I get to manipulate cells. Imagine where they came from. These guys were born inside the bone of a mouse from a dividing stem cell. They were taken out and put in petri dishes along with signaling molecules that tell them to grow up, differentiate, and become a very specialized kind of cell. When they are fully differentiated I put them in new dishes and give them various things to eat, such as bacteria or fungal particles. Then I investigate what proteins they use to take up and process the «edibles» I give them.

– I get to write. I love writing and I wish I could do more of it. My university encourages science communication and I get to write both scientific and popular science texts. It is undoubtedly the best part of my job.

Let’s talk about vaccination!

– I get to talk about science. I get to go to conferences and talk to the awesome scientists there. I get to go to lab meetings and discuss my own work and that of others with my amazing colleagues. And I get to attend science communication events and talk to kids, teenagers and all kinds of people about science. When I go to get my hair done I talk about science, as my hairdresser is extremely curious about research. In general there is a lot of science talk in my everyday life and I enjoy it!

– I get to travel. Conferences in California and courses in Germany. As I’m writing this I’m sitting in a small room, only me and a microscope, at a lab in Los Angeles. I’ve been here for three months and I’ve three more to go. I know it’s almost 25C outside and I’m considering if I can manage to finish early. Or better, take a day to work from home next week – and do my reading by the pool.

– I manage my own time. This is an important one. I decide when I work. So I can take that day and catch up on reading from home, which is so much quieter than the office. But being my own manager usually results in me working too much, from which we can conclude that I’m a bad manager (of myself) and need to do a better job 

– I get to do basic research. This is very important to me. I know it might seem more exciting to be closer to practical use, either in medicine, technology or whatever you’re most interested in. That’s not the case for me. With this type research I feel like I’m increasing our basic understanding of a small part of the organism we are. Years from now, someone else might take this to the hospital or somewhere else exciting. That’s okay. I want to be here, at the edge of what we know about our own cells, trying to get another tiny step ahead, trying to gain some more knowledge.

– I get to feel that my work matters. I know that my research increases our basic understanding of a specific cell type by a tiny bit. Someone is going to build on that and it might someday have practical significance for society. And even if it never matters in a practical way to anyone, knowledge is still valuable in it’s own right.

– I get to understand and appreciate my body and mind and the world around me. During my first year as a biology student I was required to take a course in taxonomy, learning the names and traits of all the most common animals, plants and insects in Norway. It was horrible. Then came the field courses and I fell completely for taxonomy. It thought me to really see the world around me. The next years of my education thought me a lot about how we, our organs and cells function. And a lot about how plants, fungi and microorganisms function. Through my education and my work I get to really see and appreciate life on earth. I only wish I had the same level of knowledge in physics, geology and astronomy.

Imagine being able to see and appreciate everything around you! 

Blogger: Elisabeth Darj
professor in Global Health

Last week, the conference Appropriate Health Technology for Low Resource Settings, was held in London. Access to healthcare through technology, development and research was discussed. How to promote health in rural areas, where no doctors, few health workers and no appropriate equipment are available?

WHO has a vision “Universal Health Coverage” to increase worldwide access of qualitative and effective healthcare. Good health technology has existed for more than 100 years, but is still not accessible to all.

There is now a revolutionary game change in process. The infrastructure in many locations is poor and the supply chain unreliable. Subsequently health managements are omitting investments in expensive stationary instruments, which need skilled professionals, knowledge and tools for maintenance, as new options are developed.

Low-cost sensors in devices are connected to smartphones, which processes signals, transfer data to a specialist, on a distance, with the capacity to analyse, interpret, and give quick feed-back and advice for relevant treatment.

The conference involved health workers and engineers, and focused quite a lot on mobile telephones. Examples of new projects are:

• Taking a picture directly from the microscope, of a slide of blood, transfer it, which makes the diagnosis of malaria or anaemia possible, in a hospital far away.
• Tapping directly on the telephone display to count respiratory rate of a child with suspected pneumonia. This method is more accurate and quick, compared to subjective counting for one minute. The tapping pattern is sent and analysed. This used in a flow chart, together with body temperature (also directly measured by a device into the telephone) makes it possible to advice on antibiotic treatment or not.
• A new stethoscope connected to a telephone, can transfer sounds of heart murmurs of children with suspected rheumatic fever affecting the heart, directly to a cardiologist.
• Further ECG, X-ray-images, direct feed-back during training sessions of how to use ventilation bulbs, assessing depression from the activity of the mobile phone, screening for sleep apnoea, blood pressure measurement, automatic evaluation of the colours on urine tests strip, to mention a few.

Discussions also included the involvement of leadership, marketing process, knowledge and motivation to adapt to new technology.

NTNU’s vision is “Knowledge for a better world” and The Faculty of Medicine’s vision is “Health for a better world”. Our values are to be creative, constructive, critical, respectful and considerate in all the things we do. This gives us, at NTNU with our expertise within in technology, a particular responsibility to be a part of the innovation development for the future. The challenge is, to develop health technology that is inexpensive, simple and easy to use.

We are looking forward to the new international Master program in Global Health, which will start in 2015, .

A part of the program will be Innovation in Global Health, with collaboration between Gløshaugen and DMF. If you have ideas or are want more information, please do not hesitate to contact any of us, who participated in the conference; elisabeth.darj@ntnu.no, erik.solligard@stolav.no, karin.tommeras@ntnu.no

You are all welcome to join the Global Health Day 21 October. Read more about the speakers. Here you can register for the seminar.

Blogger: Stig A. Slørdahl
Dean at The Faculty og Medicine, NTNU

Last week, the four medical faculties organised a leadership summer school. This was a pilot project to explore whether it can work as a supplement to the teaching we provide for all our students. It was also an experiment to determine the content of a possible summer school.

The summer school took place at the Inter University Centre (IUC) in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The IUC is an international study centre, and an independent institution with 167 member universities in 46 countries. All the Norwegian universities with medical faculties are members.

IUC has the facilities to organise international conferences, but also to organise smaller events like our summer school. It can also provide accommodation for 56 people, and additional rooms can be rented in the nearby monastery. Several Norwegian professors from the universities in Oslo and Bergen hold leading positions in the organisation.

I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in the last part of the summer school, as a representative for the Deans at the four medical faculties. It was very useful to meet the students and lecturers to help me form an opinion on whether we should continue developing this concept. This year, 18 medical students from Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø and Trondheim participated, and the lecturers came from all four faculties and health regions.

Professor Tor Ingebrigtsen, general manager at the University Hospital in Northern Norway / The Arctic University of Norway (UiT), was the course leader. The four faculties had developed the programme’s content together. Several teaching elements stemmed from the education given to top health care leaders. A significant part of the teaching was also based on relevant “cases” from the lecturers’ daily jobs.

The participating students were this autumn’s fifth and sixth year students, who during their studies have already had different leadership tasks in student organisations and as student representatives, among other things. Many of them also have an extensive academic background from previous studies and various stays abroad. I think many of them could already envision possible careers as health leaders.

The feedback from students and lecturers was very positive. Students and lecturers spending entire days together provides a fruitful learning environment, especially as the lecturers attend each other’s lectures to give comments and feedback.

It is also important to give leadership a bigger role in the education of future doctors, which is why the educational elements concerning leadership have increased in recent years. The University of Oslo has, among other things, developed the subject KLoK (Knowledge management, leadership and quality improvement) with the intention of letting the students acquire “knowledge, skills and competence in knowledge based practice, leadership and quality improvement, enabling you to exercise the medical profession in a professional way, as a specialist and as a participant in multidisciplinary groups and teams”.

I do not believe that there is an incompatibility between an increased emphasis on leadership in basic courses and a summer school for those who are particularly interested. The health services need to recruit a large number of leaders in the years to come, and to spark leadership interest, competence and perspective in the early stages of the education can prove to be important to make more doctors view leadership as an attractive and important career.

What remains is of course to evaluate whether this is a programme that should continue, and which changes it might benefit from. The first decision to be made is whether we should include students from other health related studies, and whether the programme should be made international.

I am looking forward to reading the evaluations and continuing the discussion about the continued existence of the summer school and possible changes to the programme. I am confident that we can develop the concept if all the faculties agree to pursue it. A positive side effect is that collective programmes like this promote closer relationships between students and employees across faculties. This results in useful contributions regarding how we conduct our basic educations.

This blog post was published in Norwegian at forskning.no 22.08.2014

Blogger: Bjørn Gustafsson
Dean of Research, The Faculty of Medicine, NTNU

Last week one of our research groups, led by Professor Duan Chen, published a comprehensive scientific study showing promising results in treating gastric cancer, by blocking the tumor nerve supply. The article was published in the prestigious journal Science Translational Medicine.

From left: The Knowledge Center, Chun-Mei Zhao, Gøran T. Andersen (in the background), Duan Chen bottom right (Photo: Helsebygg/Geir Mogen)

The term “translational medicine” involves transferring new knowledge from basic research on for instance cell culture or animal models to practical use in patient care; also coined with the term “from bench-to-bedside”.

New knowledge from basic research and animal studies are of no value if it cannot be tested in clinical trials, which means the patients. Knowledge is also transferred the other way around, experiences from patient care is used to improve the basic research in the laboratory “from bench-to-bedside, and back again”. Good research questions from those who work with patient care are essential for the research conducted in the laboratories to be relevant. This interaction is key for progress in modern medical research.

From exciting results are shown in basic research, it often takes up to 15 years before it reaches patients. In addition, only a fraction of the findings in the laboratory will be put into clinical use. The fact that a treatment is effective in cell experiments or in an animal model that uses genetically identical mice is not a guarantee that it will be effective in the treatment of patients with large individual differences.

Extensive testing is also necessary to be sure that the treatment is safe before it can be used in patient care. For translational research to not be too time-consuming the interaction between researchers and clinicians should be close. Our new St. Olav’s Hospital is built as an integrated hospital, which means the University’s research laboratories are located in the same buildings as where patient care takes place. Researchers and health professionals work side by side. The integration of university and hospitals at Campus Øya provides optimum conditions for efficient translational research where new discoveries can quickly be tested and hopefully provide the patients with new and improved diagnostics or treatment.

The research conducted by Duan Chen’s group is based on collaboration with renowned international research groups from Columbia University, MIT, German and Japanese researchers as well as colleagues at St Olav’s Hospital. In an impressive series of advanced experiments they have been able to show that the development of stomach cancer is dependent on the tumor getting nerve impulses. To ensure that this is really true, experiments have been conducted in three separate mouse models where the nerve supply has been broken with surgery, drugs, or Botox® injections. All three models gave the same answer: if you remove the nerve supply it inhibits cancer development. They also found that cancer generally does not occur in patients in parts of the stomach where the nerve supply has been previously cut with so-called vagotomy. When further examining tumors from patients who had undergone surgery due to cancer in the stomach, they found activated nerve signaling and that the most malignant tumors were those with the most pronounced nerve supply.

At St Olav Hospital we have extensive experience of using Botox® injections in patients with a condition with muscular spasm in the esophagus, called achalasia. The treatment is safe, easily performed during gastroscopy, and takes no more than 10 minutes.

Now Duan Chen in collaboration with doctors at St Olav’s Hospital is launching a Botox® study on patients with gastric cancer. If the treatment proves effective, other types of cancer will also be studied. This is a brilliant example of good translational research in the integrated university hospital.

This study was supported by grants from the Liaison Committee between the Central Norway Regional Health Authority and NTNU (Samarbeidsorganet), The Norwegian Research Council and National Institute of Health (US).

The NTNU Barophysiology Group aims to promote safety and minimize the acute and long-term harmful effects of diving and other extreme environmental exposures. Our work covers the topics of both basic and applied research. Through a translational approach, we study animal models to provide novel and comprehensive knowledge of pathophysiological mechanisms. We also use human field and laboratory studies to obtain physiologically relevant data.

This week we arrange a course, “Enjoy the Cold – Health, Protection and Survival in the Cold – Adaptation and risk assessment of human activities in cold environments” in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard. This course aims at giving people who are working and participating in activities related to cold environments proper training and insights on different equipment that exists which can be used to manage the different challenges one faces in the cold environment. Through a combination of lectures, discussions, practical work and use of equipment, the participants will gain an intimate knowledge on how to handle work situations as well as accidents.

Measuring oxygen consumption during field work

The Arctic areas have become regions of global importance because of their enormous natural resources and their strategic position. These northern areas are cold, harsh and hostile to man. Working in them is difficult, expensive and demands high levels of technical, scientific, and physiological expertise. Cold weather exposure can cause immediate health problems. For people with ailments, cold exposure can lead to new symptoms, or aggravate those existing. Cold exposure may also cause pain and disease in healthy subjects.

A number of climatic factors are known to increase challenges related to work in the northern areas, such as temperature, wind, icing, the polar low, uncertain weather forecasts and polar night. In addition to climatic factors, regulation of body temperature is affected by activity, technical protective actions/systems and clothing. The climatic problems connected with activity in the arctic areas are not only limited to equipment and equipment function. Cold is one of the most dangerous environmental risk factors for man. Not only does the cold challenge day to day function in those prepared for such an environment, but if conditions become more extreme, then it may also challenge survival. Although the human body has a physiological control mechanism, homeostasis, to maintain a stable and optimal internal environment independent of a changing external environment, this mechanism is not protection enough in the sub-arctic areas. Man is totally dependent on personal protective equipment, established working procedures and training to perform the work within specified safety and efficiency limits.

 Man is totally dependent on personal protective equipment, established working procedures and training

Increasing development and human activity in the Arctic environment calls for increased research focus on the appropriate applied human physiology in order to increase our knowledge on how the organism adapts to extreme environments.

It is well recognized that cold environments have negative health effects on the human body, but an important question is are there any increased health risks due to the physiological stress and decreased performance associated with survival requirements, for example having to wear heavy protective clothing constantly?

The course participants gets to experience field testing of immersion suits

As diving is likely to be an important activity in these regions, the long-term health effects for divers who undertake the majority of their work in cold water should also be considered. More knowledge is needed to understand which processes come into play when the body’s ability to adaptation is exceeded, why one human reacts differently to another when exposed to the same environments and stressors, and how we can prepare ourselves to be protected against adverse health effects of exposures to extreme environments both in the short and long term.

In 1990 the course “Health, Protection and Survival in the Cold” was arranged at Svea, and this was the first course in a series of courses that have been held throughout the years since then. All in all, some 250 persons have participated the course since its beginning in 1990, to get a better understanding of the different elements one meets in extreme environments and how they influence our own physiology.

With the increasing activity in the arctic regions, research within the human physiology and its response in the cold environment is necessary and give bases for our course.

In connection with the International Women’s Day last Saturday, PhD candidate Signe Åsberg has taken a look at women in science – how far we’ve come over the last century, but also how far we have left to go.

In the 1920’s Barbara McClintock and Harriet Creighton proved that genes for physical traits are carried on chromosomes. By collecting data from fields of carefully bread maize, they had for the first time physical proof that exchanging chromosomal parts are involved in causing variation between organisms. During the 1940’s McClintock continued her ground-breaking work in genetics and in 1951 at a Cold Spring Harbor Symposium summarized her discovery of the transposons, genetic elements that «jump around» on the chromosomes.

Barbara McClintock studied genetics, but was hampered by her own chromosomes – being female.

The importance of McClintock’s work was however not recognized until the late 1960’s when transposable elements were discovered in bacteria. By that time she had already been fighting for her scientific career for 30 years.

Despite of her scientific reputation, honorary degrees and being the recipient of numerous prestigious fellowships, McClintock faced decades of discrimination. She was denied faculty positions at Cornell University and University of Missouri due to discrimination against women scientists. While being expected to recommend male colleagues to universities like Yale and Harvard, she could not find a research related position herself.

The hostility she experienced as a female scientist was further increased by the disrespect members of the upcoming field of molecular biology showed towards biochemists, bacterial experts and geneticists. She was even described as «just an old bag who’d been hanging around Cold Spring Harbor for years» by a leading molecular biologist. A story by James Watson stand as an awkward symbol of this disrespect: The molecular biologists softball games that took place next to McClintock’s maize fields «all too often» ended in the fields – thereby risking harm to the plants and years of work.

Despite these exceptionally difficult circumstances (by today’s standard) McClintock never left science. When she tried to do so, her network of family and friends worked hard to find her research positions and support her. Eventually at the age of 81 she won the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for her work in genetics. Her work was described as «one of two great discoveries of our time in genetics» by the Nobel Committee.

The Nobel Prize and the publicity that followed became a burden for McClintock, but as Sharon B. McGrayne thoughtfully remarks in her book Nobel Prize Women in Science: «Despite the Nobel, McClintock continued her research». She continued her «encyclopaedic» reading and to her death in 1992 remained passionate about all aspects of biology.

Even among the many amazing women in science Barbara McClintock stands out to me as exceptional. Her stamina, her fierceness and love for science and biology is inspirational. Her persistence despite the lack of recognition and difficulty in publishing can be a source of motivation for any PhD student or Post Doc – or even a master’s student.

But, and this is an important but: McClintock dedicated every aspect of herself to her work. She worked twelve-hour days and only scaled down to eight- or nine-hour days in her nineties. Although she maintained selected hobbies there can be no question that science came first in her life. She was an amazing scientist – no doubt – but she is not necessarily a good role model for women in science today.

Women in science are no longer a small group of heroines that work twelve-hour days well beyond retirement. But this does not mean you are any less dedicated – or talented – at your work. Women in science are as diverse as humans anywhere and the loss of women between PhD to PI level (often called the «leaky pipeline») means that academia is missing out on a substantial portion of talented scientists.

As a scientist at an early stage of my career, this came as a surprise to me. No one ever informs undergrads that although women often constitute half, or in some cases the majority, of PhDs they constitute 30% or less of higher ranking positions in universities throughout Europe and the US. I find it surprising that reaching the 30% is considered an accomplishment by most institutions. However compared to the situation a few decades ago it is in fact a major achievement!

I consider myself privileged to be working at CEMIR. On a daily basis I’m surrounded by amazing scientists and a large portion of them are women. To an early stage PhD they are a source of inspiration and motivation but most importantly invaluable mentors in how to do science. With this short note I want to wish everyone at CEMIR, and scientists everywhere, a productive year.

Happy belated Women’s day!

The Faculty of Medicine at NTNU is delighted to welcome four doctors/researchers from Nepal to Trondheim between January 15th and 17th. The visiting delegates are members of an international collaboration of researchers investigating strategies to improve antenatal care for pregnant women experiencing domestic violence in Nepal and Sri Lanka. This research team is led by Professor Berit Schei of The Department of Public Health and General Practice and funded by the Research Council of Norway under its GLOBVAC programme.

Domestic violence is a profound global health problem.

At the Obstetrics & Gynaecology Department at St. Olavs Hospital. From left to right, the people are: Dr. Rajendra Koju, Dr. Sunil Kumar Joshi, Dr. Chanda Karki, Dr. Meena Thapa. (Photo: Jennifer Infanti)

The guests from Nepal include Dr. Chanda Karki, Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Principal (Dean) of Kathmandu Medical College and Teaching Hospital (KMC); Dr. Meena Thapa, Associate Professor of Obstretics and Gynaecology at KMC; Dr. Sunil Kumar Joshi, Associate Professor in the Medical Education Department at KMC; and Dr. Rajendra Koju, medical doctor at Dhulikhel Hospital and Associate Dean of the Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences.

Domestic violence is a profound global health problem, posing significant risks for the physical, sexual and psychological health and well-being of women and children in particular. Domestic violence crosses all geographic, economic and cultural barriers and borders. Despite the significant risks of domestic violence for poor health, rigorously conducted research on the interventions, services and policies that work best to prevent and respond to domestic violence is limited.

The four guests from Nepal are standing or sitting from left to right as follows: Dr. Sunil Kumar Joshi (standing), Dr. Chanda Karki, Dr. Rajendra Koju, Dr. Meena Thapa. (Photo: Jennifer Infanti).

In addition, addressing such a widespread public health challenge requires cooperative actions and solutions which bridge many sectors of society – for example, governments, non-profit organisations, researchers, and health care. Professor Schei’s project strengthens the formal partnership of NTNU and Kathmandu University to advance such a cross-cultural exchange of skills, knowledge and experiences to tackle domestic violence.

The visiting doctors/researchers from Nepal will have the opportunity to meet with some of Trondheim’s service providers for victims of domestic violence during their stay, including the Sexual Assault Care Centre team at St. Olavs Hospital, staff at the Trondheim Crisis Centre, and victim support officers and investigators at the police station. In addition, they will be sharing their experiences in obstetrics and public health in Nepal at various meetings and seminars at St. Olavs hospital and NTNU.

Dr. Chanda Karki is speaking at the podium. (Photo: Jennifer Infanri)

Importantly for the research project, the visit will allow time to further develop two PhD proposals – the funding from the Norwegian Research Council for this project will allow two students from Nepal to complete PhD degrees at NTNU over the next three years. The doctoral projects aim to develop culturally and contextually sensitive screening tools to identify pregnant women experiencing domestic violence in antenatal care settings in the Kathmandu area of Nepal. In addition, the PhD students will each develop training and education interventions to support health care professionals in their work with victims of domestic violence. The goal of the interventions is to improve the safety of pregnant women by either reducing the recurrence of abuse or mitigating its impact and consequences.

Professor Schei’s study aligns with the strategic efforts of the Faculty of Medicine at NTNU and St. Olavs Hospital to build competency in the field of global health. The Faculty will benefit from the skills and knowledge of health care practitioners from other countries. With Norway’s population becoming increasingly multicultural, this will help us prepare for patients coming to the hospitals from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, contributing to a more culturally responsive health care system.