Dear Colleagues,
I'd greatly appreciate your input to help with a novel biochemistry course at Amherst College that I'm co-teaching this fall, and for which we integrate the ACE Study. This is a new non-lab upper level biochemistry course that has a clinical/public health component to complement the classic biochemistry. Last fall, when we taught it for the first time, Chemistry Prof. Patricia O'Hara and I decided that we would devote the clinical component of the class (a weekly two-hour discussion) to the effects of stress on human health, with the goal being to connect the classic biochemistry to real-life applications. We started with the ACE Study and continued to refer back the study throughout the class. The students passionately resonated with this; many said it was a highlight of their Amherst education because it made the "theory" come alive. For example, research suggests a link between the toxic stress of adverse childhood experiences and severe disruption of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which results in a chronic uncontrolled release of cortisol (glucocorticoid), which in turn damages the body in many ways and can have long-term adverse consequences on health throughout life and on to the next generation. The implications are profound on the primary importance of preventing ACEs and promoting healing from them early on.
So here's where I would greatly appreciate your input. We'd like to improve on the course this year by giving the students clinical case studies that illustrate all of this. I'm looking for real examples of patients (obviously totally anonymous) that we can present to the students: history, exam, etc., and then challenge them to come up with a "diagnosis" (I use diagnosis broadly and holistically) and "treatment", all the while drawing associations to the underlying mechanisms at the molecular level.
So if any of you could help, I'd greatly appreciate it. Please either post here, or send me an e-mail:
raaronson69@amherst.edu
Many thanks.
Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH
Assistant Deant of Students/Health Professions Advisor
Amherst College
413 542 2265
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