Month: May 2018

As a reviewer, I feel that the job was very personal. The work that was submitted to me showed that a lot of effort was given to create it, which intrinsically drove me to do a good job in submitting my thoughts. It makes sense why journals may take months to review and publish a single piece of work, the work has to be very exact and extensively thought out. I think reviewing the work has helped me to be more detail orientated while working on my own work. Knowing that someone is going to take a lot of time reviewing it, reading each sentence multiple times, pushes me to review my own writing sentence by sentence. I think I personally have to work on routing my writing back to my thesis and bringing ideas together. I have really enjoyed reading and reviewing other students’ works.

The peer review process is simple but very labor intensive. The authors  decide on a journal that they would like their work published in once they have a complete manuscript contain all necessary data of their work. They will submit their manuscript to a journal editor who will initally work with the journal publisher to decide if the work is a good fit for the journal.  If rejected, the authors may attempt to publsh their work in a different journal. If approved, the work is then sent to 2-4 peer reviewers who are knowledgeable in the specific field of work of the submitted manuscript. They will create a letter to editor which contains their insights on the techiniques used to collect data, the interpretation of the results,  the merit of the results and editing recommendations. This letter will contain a final recommendation whether the work is appropriate for the journal or not. The authors will receive the editing recommendations and will resubmit their work after revising in hopes of it being accepted for publishing. This can occur multiple times until the work is published or rejected. The process allows work that has been reviewed by professional peers to only be published.  This decreases the chance that inappropriate work is  published. The process however, is very labor intensive and may take months until the original manuscript is published. The editors do not always receive all the data results which may effect the way that they view the presented materials. This may negatively impact the credibility of the final work.

The first thing that came to mind is the use of antibacterial hand soap and hand sanitizer. We increase its use when we want to decrease bacterial exposure and transmission such as when there is a sickness in the home or there is a newborn baby. We also regularly bathe and shower which decreases the microbes that cause body odor. We brush and floss our teeth to decrease the microbes that cause smelly breath, cavities, and mouth diseases. Some individuals add bleach to their dish soap to kill the bacteria. The use of face masks decrease exposure to airborne microbes. Some parents will restrict their children to indoor play to avoid bacterial exposure.

For the final review paper, I think I will focus my topic on antibiotic resistance and the effect that it has on the research of new drugs. I am interested to know the extent of antibiotic resistance and how scientists and healthcare providers are working to lessen the effect. Are scientists racing to find cures to pathogens that have developed a resistance? Are providers seeing a rise in the number of patients that present with recurring infections that had already been “treated” with antibiotics? Which antibiotics caused the most resistance? And, which infections are most prone to mutations? These are just a few questions that I immediately think of when reflecting on antibiotic resistance. I expect the questions to narrow in focus as research into antibiotic resistance continues. I think I will find a  peer-reviewed article that involves antibiotic resistance to help me focus on a more specific topic within the realm of antibiotic resistance. Once I narrow the topic, I think it will be easier to direct the paper appropriately.

Potential factors that could influence the microbial community in a newborn infant include the mother’s diet and her environment. As the mother eats food, the nutrients are passed onto the baby through the umbilical cord. The food itself does not necessary enter the baby’s stomach, which may mean that the diet itself does not actually influence the new up and coming microbial community. The mother’s environment may contain bacteria or viruses that have the capability to influence the mother’s own microbial community, which may in part then influence the microbial community of the unborn baby. This influence is most likely negative, where as a mother’s diet can be both positive and negative.

I generally tend to be a healthy individual and have only taken antibiotics a handful of times in my life.  I developed strep throat a few years ago and was given an antibiotic drug treatment. This type of infection is best treated by antibiotics which are safe, inexpensive, and work well on this type of bacteria when taken correctly (1). The treatment was about two weeks long and I remember experiencing relief only a couple days after beginning it. In a case like this, and in similar cases, I would advise in favor of antibiotics use to treat the infection. Studying antibiotics in other classes has led me to discover that generally, antibiotics are safe and effective when taken correctly. It is necessary to complete treatment, even when the infection seems to have subsided in order to eliminate all the infectious organisms which can develop immunity to the antibiotic. This would make it extremely difficult to treat a recurring infection. I currently work in a medical setting and have first hand experience working with patients. I know that discussions held during an office visit are very often forgotten later in time. Because of this, I would be very conservative when considering this treatment and would emphasize the importance of completing treatment when advising on this medication.

 

1)

https://www.webmd.com/oral-health/understanding-strep-throat-treatment#1

There are many choice that we make in terms of food, nutrition, product use, and consumption that influence our microbial communities.  Some of these choices are intentional, and others, unintentional. One intentionally purchases anti-microbial soap to better sanitize hands, or anti-dandruff shampoo to better maintain a healthy scalp, or intentionally consumes foods with active live cultures to improve gut function. We make these choices to intentionally improve our health and/or to take care of our bodies. On the other hand, one does not intentionally consume expired food, which negatively impacts our gut microbial balance, or use beauty products that negatively impact the “good” bacteria living on our skin. Although these choices are made with good intentions, they have the capacity to be detrimental to our body and/or health. These “bad” decision are made due to a lack of knowledge, possibly regarding the “freshness” of food or the possible effects from every ingredient in beauty products. It is our responsibility as consumers to be informed of the possible risks with everything that we consume or place on our bodies. We house many foreign bacteria that are necessary for our health; we must care for them as they care for us.