The Pursuit of the Public Interest: Social and Ideological Factors Influencing Career Choice of First-Year Law Students

In US, the political leadership draws disproportionately from lawyers, thus it is important to understand the political perspectives of students attending law schools across the nation. This study examines these variations in and across race and ethnicity. We ask, “How are student aspirations for careers in public interest law and government and political positions related to race, ethnicity, and social and political ideology?” Data for the study were collected in 2004 from 6,100 law students attending 64 US law schools. Results reveal significant differences in social and political ideologies by race and ethnicity and further demonstrate the correlation between race and ethnicity, political ideology, and career choice. We argue for greater representation of racial/ethnic minorities and individuals with a broad range of social-political ideologies in the nation’s public interest sector and political leadership class, and further, more studies examining the career path of lawyers and law students.     

Are we throwing histology out with the microscope? A look at histology from the physician's perspective

A trend in medical schools across the United States is the refurbishing of histology laboratories with digital microscopy systems. Although such systems may reduce curricular time, they do not teach basic microscope skills, and students who learn solely with these systems may be less prepared for their practices or specialties, particularly in rural areas that may not be equipped with digital microscope technology. At the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM), students are trained to practice in a wide variety of environments, especially rural areas. A research survey was conducted to gather information for evidence‐based decisions about histology education at WVSOM. The survey asked a range of questions concerning histology knowledge, tissue preparation, and microscopy. Responses did not differ significantly between physicians in urban versus rural practices. Ninety percent of physicians do not utilize digitized images, and only 50% have microscopes readily available. Regardless of the technology available, 90% feel that students must have microscope training and 88% of physicians feel that histology is important to the medical curriculum and use their histology knowledge often (weekly or daily) (66%). These results demonstrate that histology education should move toward a blending of traditional microscope and glass slides with computer‐based instructional technologies. Anat Sci Educ 2:205–209, 2009. © 2009 American Association of Anatomists.     

Automatic indexing of pathology data.

A procedure for automated indexing of pathology diagnostic reports at the National Institutes of Health is described. Diagnostic statements in medical English are encoded by computer into the Systematized Nomenclature of Pathology (SNOP). SNOP is a structured indexing language constructed by pathologists for manual indexing. It is of interest that effective automatic encoding can be based upon an existing vocabulary and code designed for manual methods. Morphosyntactic analysis, a simple syntax analysis, matching of dictionary entries consisting of several words, and synonym substitutions are techniques utilized.     

Orthographic and Phonological Processes in Reading

Investigations of reading have focussed largely on two component processes, phonological processing and orthographic processing. However, a number of unresolved issues have hampered progress in the investigation of these abilities. Three such issues that formed the focus of the present study were (1) the extent to which tasks used to operationalise orthographic processing measure the same construct, (2) the extent to which tasks from a range of phonological processing domains measure the same construct, and (3) the degree to which orthographic processing tasks reflect orthographic processes independent of extraneous phonological operations, and conversely, phonological processing tasks measure phonological processes independent of orthographic processes. To address these questions, a variety of tasks used to evaluate orthographic processing (orthographic verification, homophone verification, nonlexical choice, irregular word reading, irregular word spelling), phonological processing (phoneme deletion, phonological choice, nonword reading, nonword spelling) and related domains (e.g., word identification, IQ) were administered to 177 children from Grades 3, 4 and 5. Factor analysis conducted using accuracy data revealed that orthographic processing tasks congregate along a single factor, while phonological processing tasks congregate along another, separate factor, viewed as evidence for the construct validity of orthographic processing and phonological processing, respectively. When response-time data were analysed, these same tasks did not differentiate on the basis of their orthographic and phonological demands, but rather in terms of their more general task demands. Additionally, results reveal that some phonological processing and orthographic processing tasks measure their respective construct with a greater degree of purity than do others. It is recommended that these tasks be used in future research.