Pamela Q. Fernandes's Blog, page 19

Join The Catholic Medical Association

Last Sunday, I spent all morning and afternoon at St Dominic’s Hall where the Catholic Medical Association organizes its monthly meetings. The New York Metropolitan Chapter meets every month for a morning of Catholic fellowship. It’s open to all members of the medical fraternity, doctors, nurses, researchers, allied health professionals of all kinds.

What is the Catholic Medical Association?

The Catholic Medical Association is a national, physician-led community of over 2,200 healthcare professionals. It consists of 104 local guilds. CMA’s mission is to inform, organize, and inspire its members, in steadfast fidelity to the teachings of the Catholic Church, to uphold the principles of the Catholic faith in the science and practice of medicine.

New York Chapter

The New York Chapter is closely associated with the Dominican ministry. I’ve attended mass at St. Catherine of Siena Church several times and even try to attend their OLPS novenas on Wednesdays. The priests here dedicate themselves to the healing ministry serving MSK and all the hospitals in the area. The mission of the Order of Preachers or the Dominican Order is to share with others the truth about the God whom we contemplate in our hearts. They have confessions here daily at 4:45 pm and if you’re looking for simple spiritual direction, this is a good place. Sunday Mass is at 10 am followed by the meeting at St. Dominic’s Hall on the 2nd Floor. Last week’s mass had the beautiful message of my favorite Latin verse, Duc in altum- which means Put out into the Deep. It’s from Luke 5:1-11, where Jesus calls Peter. The phrase was a favorite of Pope St. John Paul 2. Check out our podcast on John Paul 2.

Agenda of the CMA

Last week we discussed the new Reproductive Act that came out in NYC and we had a lecture on Physician Burnout. Dr. Nolte (OB) and Dr. Greg( IM), our President and VP took the time to listen to questions and share their feedback with all of us. We were able to share ideas and what we wanted to see the CMA do in the future over coffee and doughnuts!

Free Download: Never Forget

Happy Hearts Day everyone!

THREE QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE LENT

Lent can become a new adventure every year. Vinita Hampton Wright

Vinita Hampton Wright

Vinita Hampton Wright is a Loyola Press editor and writer of many books, including Days of Deepening Friendship and Acts of Moving Forward. She has been practicing Ignatian spirituality for a decade and writing about it for nearly as long. She lives in Chicago, IL, with her husband, two dogs, and two cats.

THREE QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE LENT

In this episode, I talk to Vinita Hampton Wright about preparing before lent.
She explains:
-Ask, what does my soul need?
-What do I truly desire?
-What about my life makes you happy Lord?

Vinita has a unique way of looking at Lent. Chalk it down to her Ignatian spirituality or her own experience with this season, she has a different perspective. Her insight into Lent resonated with me, as I was struggling with my own preparation for the upcoming Lenten season.

As someone who’s been mentored for the last decade by the Jesuits, I can personally suggest that you give Ignatian spirituality, a try. My own discernment retreat last November, 2018 at the Jesuit Center, Morristown, New Jersey was instrumental in directing my ministry. It also helped me make my final decision about my vocation.

I love how she uses the above 3 questions to make us think about Lent as an adventure. She explains how God might be trying to drawing our attention to an issue we must deal with first. Vinita also says it’s important to document what we’ve learned every Lent and revisit our reflections from time to time.

Personally, I wasn’t looking forward to Lent in 2019. After a retreat with tough decisions last year, an Advent that was equally tough spiritually, I’ve been trying to ease off the discipline.

Comedy writer Dave Cohen teaches how to add humor to your writing

Who doesn’t want to make their stories funny? Or add jokes or humor? I personally like to laugh and can laugh at anything.

Cover Reveal: NEVER FORGET

I’m so excited to reveal the cover of NEVER FORGET. I wanted to share how this book came about.

NEVER FORGET

This is the first book in the “NEVER” series. Never Forget releases on Valentine’s Day and I’ll be offering it FREE for all my subscribers.

Guest Post: Questions to Ask Before Choosing An E-book Conversion Company

Today’s guest post is from Ebookifi. They’re an E-book conversion company and they want authors to ask these questions before choosing one.

What is Ebookifi.com exactly?

The digitization of the reading culture gives every author the chance to offer his book worldwide. You only need the right know-how to quickly create an ebook for sale. So, if you want to write and publish your book, nothing should stand in your way to be successful with publication!

After completing your manuscript, working with eBook formatting is very tricky. It requires skills to meet the guidelines various platforms. You cannot automate this process because there are many variables that depend on the characteristics of each book. If you’re not sure about it, and want to create your eBook properly, you might prefer to seek professional help. Ebookifi.com will be glad to help you with the eBook creation.

What are the services Ebookifi offers?

There are some free websites, however, they offer no guarantee that your file will be accepted in stores. Ebookifi ensures the quality and safety of the service. Their core services are, Kindle Conversion, Epub Conversion, Smashwords Conversion, Createspace formatting, Book Scanning, Cover Design and Ebook Promotion.

What input files are accepted for E-book conversion?

Don’t worry about the format of the input file, Ebookifi takes care of converting the book into ebook format, so that it can be easily published on the main online stores, so authors can get in touch with more readers around the world! They help authors choose the best format for their digital book and make sure that the ebook complies with all the publication requirements of each store.

What’s the turnaround time to complete the file?

The criteria of turnaround times for conversion depends on the difficulty and structure of the book. In this regard, we’ve identified four types of books. Simple & Standard Books take almost 48 hours. Difficult & Special Books are completed within 72 hours at the most.

Do you accept complex type file formats for E-book conversion?

Yes, off course. Ebookifi will take care of the input file, what ever the format is, and also ensure that the ebook is compatible with the main devices (iPad, Kobo, Bookeen, Kindle) as well as applications with Android system.

Do you retain the ebook format as it is?

We are well aware of the format requirements that an ebook must have in order to be read correctly.

Is there any promo code available for conversion?

Promotional codes are very important marketing tools for any brand. Therefore, we provide excellent offers (50% off for first time authors) for our clients. Enter this code before confirmation of your order. There is a field where authors can type the code “PROMOTION CODE.” Terms & Conditions apply. Please visit – https://www.ebookifi.com/offers/

Do you use an ebook conversion company? If yes, tell us which one and why.

The post Guest Post: Questions to Ask Before Choosing An E-book Conversion Company appeared first on PAMELA Q. FERNANDES.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN MEDICINE-Yay or Nay

I had this question in my inbox for a while. “What do you think about artificial intelligence in medicine?” Well, a month ago I would have scoffed at the idea. Then I interviewed Dr Richard Do, prominent radiologist at MSKCC for Radiology Today. He said something that completely shifted my mindset.

“It’s all about data,” he said. “A single pathology slide has far more data than an entire CT. The more data you have the better that machines can work with it.” He’s right. Most medicine is data. What we do is take data we know and extrapolate it to current conditions. That’s what clinical trials are and that’s exactly what we can train artificial intelligence to do.

More of us need to start thinking like him. In many areas today, research has stalled at the genetic level. At present, it’s very difficult to treat at this level even if we make astonishing discoveries. Most of our macro level issues are patient compliance, longer wait times, the dearth of doctors, having untrained people prescribe and administer healthcare. Just yesterday, The Daily Mail reported that pharmacists were going to dispense medication due to the unavailability of staff in the NHS. We know how pharmacies operate and in the end it’s going to end up being about the money.

So Artificial Intelligence seems to be a good option at the moment.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN RADIOLOGY

Radiology is already considering it’s next generation tools in AI. Whethere that’s patterned learning through texture or radiomics, they’re now trying to study virtual biopsies. How? In the area of cancer research, AI can study each pixel of tumors and then determine the malignancy potential through a series of mathematical calculations and algorithms. There’s already been some success with this in colorectal and breast cancer.

Machine learning and deep learning can help diagnose and dictate canacer treatments. This is going to get better with increasing datasets i.e more CT’s, MRI’s, mammograms and ultrasounds. Although, with neural networks, data shows that with multiple images the networks can sometimes “hallucinate.” This can be dangerous and requires a lot more work before application. I’d love to explain all this but I’m not a radiologist. So if you want to know more about radiomics, you’ll have to check this out.

Similarly, a research scholar from the University of Washington won the Paul Baran Young Scholar Award for 2018. She used smartphones to detect life-threatening symptoms. The idea came from bats who use sonar to detect in the dark. Using the very same principles of acoustics, movement and respiration can also be tracked via smartphones. AI in radiology looks promising. Every year there are plenty of new ideas coming to the fore. And with not a lot capital required, radiologists have warmed to the idea themselves. In fact, smaller tasks like measuring changes of lung nodules or size of multiple sclerosis lesions may be automated in the future.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN OB/GYN

In OB/GYN big data has already positively impacted to breast and ovarian cancer. However, artificial intelligence for detecting preterm uterine activity successfully and accurately identified spontaneous preterm labor. Doctors used electrohysterography signals to detect preterm births, as they provide a strong basis for objective prediction and diagnosis of preterm birth. They used three different machine learning algorithms to identify women with premature births in the records. The results revealed that the Random Forest Algorithm performed the best of sensitivity 97 and specificity of 85%. Area under the Receiver Operator curve (AUROC) of 94% and mean square error rate of 14%.

Similarly, advanced AI-powered EFM with push-button reporting can notify clinicians about patients when conditions are worsening. Early-warning systems, like them are highly effective as they continuously analyze fetal heart rate, contractions, and labor progression, and maternal vital sign alerts. A study showed that with the Maternal Early Warning Trigger (MEWT) tool reduced maternal mortality. Particularly, in these 4 most common areas of maternal morbidity: sepsis, cardiopulmonary dysfunction, preeclampsia-hypertension, and hemorrhage.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN PATHOLOGY

There was an article a couple of years ago about Pathology and AI becoming frenemies. In the end, it concluded that AI and Pathology were natural co-operators. No one is talking about replacing pathologists. But in the last few years, it’s been clear that AI can improve the productivity of pathologists. Google’s LYNA algorithm proved it could increase speeds in analyzing stained lymph node slides and sensitivity of micrometastases detection in recent studies. Pathology is rich in datasets.

In another project, Dr. Lundin, associate professor for biomedical informatics and research director at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) makes the diagnosis directly from an image for risk prediction. No pathologist was needed. They trained a classifier, as in cancer, with images of tissue and used patient outcome as an endpoint in the AI training process. The algorithm machine simply learns the patterns of images, but outperforms experienced pathologists in predicting patient outcome. How cool is that?

43 Pope John Paul II won a war with the love of God

“That he could bring down that Iron curtain without firing a single bullet and forgive the man who tried to kill him, just by showing the love of God and respecting the human person, he changed world history.” – Charles Johnston on John Paul II

Charles Johnston is a father and husband in Phoenix, Arizona. His conversion journey has taken years, as he felt God pulling him toward His Church but he resisted until he couldn’t take it anymore. He gave in and fell in love with His Church.  He blogs for ‘Now that I’m catholic.wordpress.com’

In this episode, Charles talks about St. John Paul II.
He explains:
-How the Pope was the right man for the job at the right time
-His role in bringing down the Iron Curtain
-Why he insisted on preserving human dignity
-What we can learn from his prayer life, his devotion to Mary and his ability to forgive.

Pope St. John Paul II on Marriage and Family

John Paul II is almost everybody’s favorite Pope. His encyclicals like Familiaris Consortio speaks about building a domestic church.

Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family – a domestic church.

John Paul II

Charles readily agreed to talk about John Paul II when I listed him. He’s one of the contemporary saints whose spiritual achievements are vast and words sound almost prophetic to me. We laughed about several things in this episode, but quite frankly the reality is not as funny. Whether that is the breakdown of society or of the family. There’s plenty to learn from his life, his focus on prayer, his spirtual contemporaries in Mother Teresa, Joseph Ratzinger and others, and his love for the rosary and the chaplet of the Divine Mercy.

He was a man quite ahead of his time with his eye on the horizon. Like him, you can also tell that our focus is back on the Eucharist, it’s something we’re all so passionate about. This month has been about marriage and there’s nothing better than reading one of Pope John Paul’s documents on marriage and human sexuality.

Pope John Paul II and the New Evangelization

Well, you saw the new law that the state of New York has passed. Read it word for word, so you know how grave the situation is. In our parish, there’s already talk of how to change our prayers to reflect the needs of the hour. Charles mentioned Ireland and quite frankly I agree when he says, imagine what 1.2 billion praying Catholics can achieve.

I would even go so far and add, imagine if all Christians added to the mix prayed for one cause, be it the pro-life movement or for families, we could do so much. God tells Ezekiel in 22:30 (NRSV), “And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.”

Tweet: Imagine what 1.2 billion praying Catholics can achieve. Charles Johnston

The new evangelization that Pope John Paul II spoke about was going back to the already evangelized areas. Wherever you are serving in whatever ministry, no matter how bleak it may seem, put out into the deep. Take courage from John Paul II’s own words.

Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence.

John Paul II

Charles also recommended reading The President, the Pope, And the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World.

ENJOYED THIS PODCAST?

We hope you enjoyed this podcast. Check out our podcasts on Building a Good Marriage and Fellowship. If you liked this podcast, like us, leave us a comment and share our episodes on social media with those who may benefit from it. If there is a particular saint that you would like to hear about us, tell us and we’ll add him or her to our future episodes.

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Anniversary Giveaway

As mentioned, for our 50th episode anniversary in May we’re giving away a free Christian Book Bundle. So particpate and share this giveaway. Every episode, I’ll announce a new book that will be given away as part of the Christian Book Bundle.

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The post 43 Pope John Paul II won a war with the love of God appeared first on PAMELA Q. FERNANDES.

Pictures From Prague

I promised pictures from Prague. For people who take tons of pictures on a holiday, I’m sure you understand how long it takes. Download from source(camera/phone), upload to photostream, organize, label and then upload. And they said technology would make our lives easier.

My Interview on The Author Show!

I’m ecstatic to share my interview on THE AUTHORS SHOW PODCAST. Don McCauly interviews me about Painting Kuwait Violet. I mean this interview took all of 15 minutes but the prep and the behind the scenes is a lot more. For some reason I was super nervous about doing this podcast.

At one point, I had to simply restart, I’d forgotten what I wanted to say. Now I know what my guests feel sometimes when they’re talking on my own show. I mean I used the word “specifically” over seven times.