Physics/GP 108b: Physics in Modern
Medicine
Poster Session Information: (updated March 20, 2006)
A "poster" is just what it sounds like: a presentation
employing text, images, graphics of all sorts and even physical objects to
explain your chosen topic. It may remind you of what you've seen for high
school science fairs, but professional scientists use posters to communicate
their ideas at major professional meetings. You get a space on a standing
display area for your "poster", which should fit into a space approximately
4 feet wide and 6 feet high. The week before our poster session, you will
be able to see posters from our organic chemistry class on display. Now, obviously,
these posters will be at a different level than the ones you will do since
the type of course is different. However, the format and look of the posters
will give you good idea of possible poster formats and looks.
We provide the free-standing foamcore posterboards. They
will be up on Sunday evening, April 16, the day before the first poster presentation.
(See below for more dates.) You provide the content of your poster, which
can be displayed on standard bond paper, on poster boards, or any other format
you like. You can use color, photos, drawings or other images, or any other
presentation materials your topic demands and you see fit. (Please attach
your poster to the posterboards using masking tape to avoid permanent damage,
though. Please do not use permanent tape or pushpins.)
POSTER PRESENTATION DATES:
You will stand by your poster in our session in the Zubrow Commons, KINSC, during class time on Monday and Wednesday,
April 17 ant 19th, so your attendance on those days is mandatory. Half of
the class will present their posters in each half of the class time, so you
can then browse the other posters the other half of the time. You will be
assigned two half-class periods to present your posters closer to the time,
once I know what the groups look like. You will present your poster by explaining
it to other class members, me and whoever else drops by to check them out.
Format and how to do it:
You may do your poster individually or in teams of two
students. Working in pairs is really the ideal, though. Don't feel obliged to
work individually unless you really want to. If you work together, I require
you to give me a sheet of paper indicating what each person contributed (with
percent efforts if you divided up the work on particular aspects).
Here is the format: Use a very large type face (40 point
or larger) for your title and a slightly smaller one for your names. Include
a short paragraph abstract that summarizes your poster. Then, employ a combination
of brief written explanations and graphics to make your points. You should
include a bibliography at the end, just as you would with a paper on the same
topic. Grading will be upon the usual points of quality of presentation, analysis,
but also include points for creativity in displaying your ideas in this format,
quality of graphics and quality of personal presentation.
Additional issues about using other sources: You should
footnote or otherwise cite any sources that you use in doing your poster presentation,
just as you would in a paper. It is better to avoid copying entire blocks
of text from another source, but if you must do so you must cite the source
and make it clear that you are using a quotation by enclosing the quote in
quotation marks or indented paragraphs.
You will present your poster by explaining it to other
class members, me and who drops by to check them out. Keep this in mind in
crafting your poster. It should stand alone so people can read it when you
aren't there, but it's not just a paper stuck on a wall. You can check out
examples of scientific posters of various sorts throughout the KINSC,
especially in the first floor Link, Sharpless and the
2nd and 3rd floors of the East Wing.
Suggested topics are below, but you may propose topics not
on the list. Be sure to clear your ideas with me to make sure you are on
target!
Outside my door I have been posting articles from the
New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer about topics relevant to our
course. You are welcome to browse these, and even to borrow them briefly to
copy them. Do put them back for others after you are done!
Some books which address the broader historical
and social context of the topics covered in our course includet:
Naked to the Bone (a history
of medical imaging)
Baby’s First Picture (an
assessment of the societal consequences of ultrasound imaging in pregnancy)
The Visible Woman (covers
a variety of topics regarding imaging and medicine)
Who Goes First? (Histories
of how various medical procedures were first tested out on humans)
What topics wouldn’t work so well?
- Drug
development and usage without reference to our specific course material
- Purely
disease-related topics without reference to our specific course material
- Most
topics in alternative medicine (unless you can make a good case they are
really related to physics in medicine--the National Institutes of Health
website for the National Center for
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is a good place to
research this.)
Some Possible Topics:
- The
Strange History of the Visible Man project (How do you get the body of an
adult man, recently deceased and entirely free from organic disease or
trauma to any of the organs?)
- The social structure and
economics of medical imaging: a recent Philadelphia Inquirer article
pointed out serious shortages of healthcare workers who perform these
techniques. You could focus on radiology, allied health professions (the
technicians who do this work, etc.) or general economic issues involved in
healthcare access.
- Combining various imaging
technologies in cancer therapy planning, surgery planning, etc.
- The effectiveness of
mammography
- Meta-analysis in
epidemiology: how many studies can have their results combined to present
a broader picture of the science, and the problems inherent in this
approach.
- Epidemiology as it has been
used to assess any of the technologies covered in the course, or related
topics.
- Ethical issues involved in
epidemiology (informed consent, study design, etc.) Be sure to get
detailed approval on this topic, since you will need to clearly define it
and make sure you have good sources!
- Ultrasound surgery
- Access to various screening
technologies (colonoscopy, mammography, etc.) and how that varies
according to race, socioeconomic class, etc.
- Uses
of various screening technologies, surgical techniques and therapies to
treat specific diseases (breast cancer, prostate cancer, etc.) and their
effectiveness in diagnosing disease and improving outcomes
- Sports
medicine applications of various technologies (ultrasound, MRI,
arthroscopic surgery, etc.)
- International
implementation of the use of these technologies—how do traditional/lower
tech methods compare to high tech ones world-wide?
- Electrophysiology: EKG and EEG (measurements of the
electrical signals from the heart and brain and their uses in medicine)
- Cardiac
pacemakers and defibrillators
- MEEG: imaging of brain activity using the
magnetic fields generated by its nerve activity
- Prosthetic
devices: artificial limbs, joints,
cochlear implants (to allow sound detection)
- Ultrasound
imaging used for pre-birth gender selection via selective
abortion—international issues in its implementation
- How
ultrasound imaging during pregnancy affects the parents’ perceptions of
the pregnancy and fetus
- How
medical devices are regulated--maybe use detailed history of how the FDA
has viewed a particular medical device.
- Public
policy issues involving any topic in the course: who funds their development? How are they approved, produced and
marketed? How is their quality
monitored?
- Ethical
issues involved in the use of any method covered in the course
- Safety
of any topic in the course—how it’s assessed and established in practice
- History
of the development of any technologies
- Osteoporosis
screening using x-ray methods
- Use of
antibodies to position contrast agents
- Development
of chemical contrast agents
- Virtual
reality in medicine
- Battlefield
medicine (telemedicine & robotics, etc. to care for injured soldiers)
- Use of
robotics and telemedicine in emergency medical care
- Use of
telemedicine to extend the reach of medicine treatment to remote areas of
the world
- Safety
of irradiated foods (status of legislation on this topic)
- Radiation
safety and the history of this subject:
the Chernobyl nuclear accident (and
what was learned from that event) the atomic bombings of Japan
during WWII, etc.
- The
use of various techniques (brain imaging, electrical recordings, etc.) to
study topics such as whether one can detect lying and deception; find gender-based differences in brain
function; understand various forms
of dementia; find brain-function correlates of mental processes (language
and speech processing, religious feelings, fear, emotion, etc.)