Green for PHEKSA
With an emphasis on faculty awareness, sole presidential candidate for Physical and Health Education and Kinesiology Student Association (PHEKSA) Ty Greene said that he hopes to bring the society to the forefront of the University.
Greene, PheKin ’13, said his experience within the society helped him formulate the ideas he hopes to implement, if elected.
The faculty society is known for its social events, and so Greene said he plans to focus on academics.
“One of the main reasons I wanted to run for president is that I believe in a new look for PHEKSA with a concentration on the academic changes that will be facing our students in the year,” he said, adding that he hopes to build on the close-knit community aspect of the faculty to instill involvement.
Greene’s election platform is based on three focal points; increasing awareness within the physical education and kinesiology (PheKin) community, improving relations between the different years and improving PHEKSA’s position at the University as a whole.
One way to do this is by improving orientation week he said, adding that working as orientation week’s logistics coordinator last year provided him with the experience in working with students in the faculty.
“I feel like in first-year, students coming in don’t know what PHEKSA does and how it affects them.” He said he also hopes to increase student attendance at the society assembly, by providing students with monthly email updates about the on goings of PHEKSA and encouraging them to get involved.
“People aren’t aware when and where they are happening, and they don’t know that they have the ability to have their voice heard,” he said. Voting for the presidential candidate will occur online from March 17 to 18.
— Labiba Haque
Medical misdiagnosis
Maha Othman, a Queen’s professor in the department of anatomy and cell biology, recently discovered that a rare bleeding disorder that can lead to death is misdiagnosed in 15 per cent of patients.
Othman led a three-year research project on the von Willebrand disease (VWD), which is the rarer platelet type of the disease.
Those with VWD are often prescribed drugs that can cause more bleeding in patients with the rarer platelet form of the disease. If a patient is misdiagnosed they are potentially more prone to life-threatening bleeding in cases such as pregnancy and surgeries.
Both forms of VWD are genetic and share diagnostic features, but the defect is in two different genes, and doctors can only make an accurate diagnosis which can only be made by examining each gene to see where the defect is.
Othman’s findings, which were published in the March issue of the Thrombosis and Haemostasis Journal, are part of the first large study to investigate the occurrence of the two types of VWD worldwide and to evaluate DNA analysis as a diagnostic tool. She has also formed an online registry to find how frequent this rare form of VWD is and collect more data about it. VWD occurs in one per cent of the population.
— Jessica Fishbein
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