23 mai 2020
A început licitația pentru reabilitarea Observatorului Astronomic din Iași! Proprietarul, Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, a obținut un milion euro pentru refacerea clădirii istorice
Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” – UAIC din Iași a obținut un milion euro pentru refacerea clădirii istorice Observatorul Astronomic din Copou. Deja, licitația a demarat pentru a începe lucrările. Fondurile sunt obținute de la Compania Națională de Investiții – CNI. După finalizarea acesteia și soluționarea eventualelor contestații, lucrările efective ar putea demara chiar în toamna acestui an.
Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” (UAIC) din Iași derulează, în această perioadă, licitația pentru desemnarea firmei câștigătoare care să refacă Observatorul Astronomic din Copou. Lucrările efective ar putea demara chiar în toamna acestui an. Firma care va câștiga licitația va primi un milion euro pentru refacerea clădirii istorice.
Iașul ar putea avea, chiar de anul viitor, unul dintre cele mai frumoase și moderne puncte de observație astronomică din România
Iașul ar putea avea, chiar de anul viitor, unul dintre cele mai frumoase și moderne puncte de observație astronomică din România. Informația este prezentată de rectorul Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași, prof. univ. dr. Tudorel Toader. Totul este legat tocmai de reabilitarea și modernizarea Observatorului Astronomic din Copou, aflat în proprietatea celei mai vechi instituții de învățământ superior a României.
„Investiția se face prin intermediul Companiei Naționale de Investiții, aceasta fiind cea mai bună formulă pentru noi. Deja, a fost dat drumul la licitație și avem firme înscrise pentru a câștiga proiectul de reabilitare la Observator. După aceea mergem cu pași mari spre a trece efectiv la lucrări”, a declarat profesorul Toader.
Investiție de peste un milion euro în Observatorul Astronomic ridicat între anii 1912-1913
Valoarea exactă a investiției este de 4.996.676 lei, respectiv 1.093.125 euro. Observatorul, ridicat între anii 1912-1913, l-a avut ca fondator pe Constantin Popovici, șef al catedrei de Astronomie, Geodezie și Mecanică a marii Universități din Iași. De asemenea, cadrul didactic a fost și primul director al Observatorului, în perioada 1913 și 1937. Din păcate, în timpul celui de-Al Doilea Război Mondial, în mare parte, aparatura de aici a dispărut. De precizat că din 1966, la Observator a existat atelier de mecanică fină și un laborator electronic. După 1989, Observatorul a fost inclus pe lista obiectivelor aflate în Patrimoniul Național al Monumentelor.
Mai mult, telescopul existent aici datează din 1960 și a fost realizat tocmai în Germania. De reamintit că, pe lângă această clădire istorică pe care o are în proprietate UAIC, unitatea de învățământ a demarat deja lucrări de reabilitare la alte două imobile de patrimoniu. Este voba despre fosta Casă Canano, din zona Fundație și cunoscută drept Corpul E. Aceasta va avea destinație didactică. Pe de altă parte, în plin proces de reabilitare este și Casa Universitarilor Iași de pe bulevardul Carol I, fosta Casă Canta. Aici se vor organiza manifestări și evenimente academice, dar și momente de loisir pentru comunitatea academică cuzistă.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Candidaţi la admiterea 2020. Universitatea București oferă facilități viitorilor studenţi şi masteranzi
În vederea respectării măsurilor de distanţare socială recomandate de autorităţi în contextul epidemiei de coronavirus, mai multe facultăți de la Universitatea din București au luat decizia de a oferi viitorilor studenţi şi masteranzi un proces online de preînscriere, înscriere şi admitere.
Așadar, pentru studiile universitare de licenţă se pot distinge cinci forme de admitere, stabilite de consiliile celor 19 facultăţi ale UB şi aprobate în Senatul Universităţii:
* admitere pe baza mediei/ a notelor de la Bacalaureat în cazul Facultăţii de Administraţie şi Afaceri, al Facultăţii de Chimie, al Facultăţii de Fizică, Facultăţii de Geologie şi Geofizică, Facultăţii de Litere, Facultăţii de Limbi şi Literaturi Străine (Neogreacă, Maghiară, Italiană, Portugheză, Rusă, Limbile Slave (Croată, Sârbă, Slovacă), Rromani, Filologie Clasică, Limbi Moderne Aplicate, Studii Iudaice), precum şi al Facultăţii de Psihologie şi Ştiinţele Educaţiei;
* admitere pe baza mediei de la Bacalaureat şi a unui eseu motivaţional în cazul Facultăţii de Biologie, Facultăţii de Filosofie (eseu motivaţional – scrisoare de intenţie), Facultăţii de Geografie, Facultăţii de Istorie, Facultăţii de Sociologie şi Asistenţă Socială, precum şi al Facultăţii de Ştiinţe Politice;
* admitere pe baza unei formule mixte în cazul Facultăţii de Administraţie şi Afaceri (Business Administration), al Facultăţii de Limbi şi Literaturi Străine (Traducere şi Interpretare, Engleză, Germană (avansaţi şi începători), Neerlandeză, Franceză, Spaniolă, Arabă, Chineză, Japoneză, Turcă şi Studii Americane), al Facultăţii de Jurnalism şi Ştiinţele Comunicării (Jurnalism, Publicitate, Comunicare şi Relaţii Publice: 40% eseu motivaţional/ 20% media generală a examenului de Bacalaureat/ 20% nota la proba scrisă la Limba şi literatura română de la examenul de Bacalaureat/ 20% media obţinută la prima limbă străină pe parcursul anilor de studiu liceal), al Facultăţii de Matematică şi Informatică, al Facultăţii de Teologie Baptistă, precum şi al Facultăţii de Teologie Romano-Catolică;
* admitere pe baza unui interviu motivaţional în cazul Facultăţii de Teologie Ortodoxă „Justinian Patriarhul”;
* admitere pe bază de examen în cazul Facultăţii de Drept.
În ceea ce priveşte programele de master oferite de cele 19 facultăţi ale UB, modalităţile de admitere pentru sesiunea iulie-septembrie 2020 pot fi accesate pe adresa http://admitere.unibuc.ro/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Modalitati-admitere-UB-2020_MASTER.pdf.
De asemenea, Universitatea București asigură mai multe facilități: „Pentru a veni în sprijinul candidaţilor din acest an, Universitatea din Bucureşti oferă posibilitatea depunerii online a actelor necesare înscrierii pentru toate facultăţile Universităţii din Bucureşti, precum şi posibilitatea achitării online a taxei de înscriere, prin completarea formularului disponibil la adresa www.po.unibuc.ro. Candidaţii care se vor înscrie online la concursul de admitere la una dintre cele 19 facultăţi ale Universităţii din Bucureşti vor beneficia de o reducere de 25% din taxa de înscriere”
Universitatea din Bucureşti va comunica în mod constant informaţii cu privire la admiterea din această sesiune pe website-ul dedicat admiterii: www.admitere.unibuc.ro şi pe conturile de Facebook, Instagram şi YouTube.
În plus, candidaţii sunt sfătuiţi, ca, în funcţie de opţiuni, să urmărească şi website-urile sau paginile de pe conturile de socializare ale facultăţii/facultăţilor care îi interesează, pentru a fi la curent cu informaţiile utile privitoare la admitere.
Peste 19.000 de locuri sunt propuse de cele 19 facultăţi ale UB pentru studii de licenţă şi master candidaţilor la admiterea 2020, potrivit agerpres.ro
Publicație : Evenimentul Zilei
Coronavirus : à Paris-I, la justice entérine la neutralisation des notes inférieures à 10
La ministre de l’enseignement supérieur encourage les enseignants de l’université Panthéon-Sorbonne à se pourvoir en cassation devant le Conseil d’Etat.
La bataille sur les examens se poursuit à l’université Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne. Le tribunal administratif de Paris a rejeté, mercredi 20 mai, la requête de treize enseignants mettant en cause les modalités de passation des examens adoptées en commission de la formation et de la vie universitaire (CFVU). Dans deux délibérations, les 16 avril et 5 mai, la commission a permis de neutraliser les notes inférieures à 10/20 ainsi que certains examens dans les disciplines où les cours n’ont pu être donnés dans des conditions correctes depuis la fermeture des universités. Le président de l’université, Georges Haddad, s’est aussitôt opposé à ce cadrage, y voyant une atteinte à la valeur des diplômes.
Les requérants, parmi lesquels le directeur de l’école de droit de la Sorbonne, François-Guy Trébulle, ont saisi le juge des référés le 7 mai, lui demandant la suspension de l’exécution de ces délibérations, au motif qu’elles méconnaîtraient le principe d’indépendance des jurys et leur souveraineté, ainsi que la valeur constitutionnelle d’indépendance des enseignants-chercheurs et le principe d’égalité entre les étudiants.
Les syndicats enseignants Snesup-FSU et CGT, l’association de la Communauté juridique des étudiants de la Sorbonne (CJES), l’Association générale des étudiants (AGE-UNEF) ainsi que des enseignants s’exprimant à titre individuel ont de leur côté défendu les délibérations adoptées, la CFVU étant l’instance décisionnaire pour fixer les modalités d’examen. « L’université est accréditée pour délivrer des diplômes sur le contenu de sa formation et non sur ses modalités de contrôle et sur le déroulement de ses partiels », font valoir Emmanuel Charrier et Soraya Guenifi, professeurs de langues, Emmanuèle Costard-Gautier (géographie), François Giligny (archéologie) ainsi qu’Antoine Scotto d’Abusco, le gestionnaire administratif de l’école doctorale d’histoire de l’art.
« Atteinte à la qualité des diplômes »
Dans sa décision, le président du tribunal souligne que les circonstances liées à la pandémie ne permettent pas l’organisation d’examens à distance dès lors que « seuls 73 % des étudiants disposent d’un équipement informatique personnel et que 40 % ne s’estiment pas en mesure de subir des épreuves à distance en un temps réduit ».
Dans un communiqué publié mercredi 20 mai dans la soirée, la ministre de l’enseignement supérieur, Frédérique Vidal, « prend acte » de la décision du tribunal administratif et annonce qu’elle « appuiera les enseignants-chercheurs qui souhaiteront se pourvoir en cassation devant le Conseil d’Etat ». A ses yeux, la délibération de la CFVU « renon[ce] à l’évaluation rigoureuse des connaissances des étudiants dans le cadre de leurs examens » et « méprise l’engagement exceptionnel des enseignants au service de la continuité pédagogique ». Le cadrage adopté « porte une atteinte directe à la qualité des diplômes délivrés par l’université et, ce faisant, à l’avenir de ses étudiants qui souhaitent préserver la valeur de leur formation », ajoute la ministre.
Publicație : Le Monde
Logement étudiant : quand des jeunes paient les erreurs des administrations
A la suite d’une erreur administrative, des étudiants parisiens ont dû avancer auprès de leur Crous, pendant plusieurs mois, l’aide au logement qu’ils auraient dû toucher de la part de la CAF.
Quand, en octobre 2019, Quentin, Sarah, Dorian et plusieurs dizaines d’étudiants passent les portes des élégantes résidences universitaires du boulevard Diderot à Paris, ils sont aux anges. Ils ont obtenu un logement flambant neuf du centre régional des œuvres universitaires et scolaires de Paris (Crous). « C’était génial, se souvient Gaëtan Delalande, 22 ans, en troisième année de licence en arts appliqués, un appart de 19 m², superfonctionnel, proche du métro et des commerces. » Le tout pour à peine 400 euros. Mis à part l’accès à Internet qui demeure aléatoire, les locataires sont sous le charme.
Mais une première épreuve s’annonce : obtenir une aide personnalisée au logement (APL), une allocation à laquelle ces étudiants désargentés ont droit et qui leur permet de réduire le montant du loyer. Pendant des mois, ils vont devoir se battre pour obtenir ces aides contre des administrations inaccessibles – leur bailleur et la Caisse d’allocations familiales (CAF).
L’opération est pourtant simple. Les étudiants remplissent un formulaire sur le site Internet de la CAF. Parmi les informations qu’ils doivent saisir : un « code bailleur » que le Crous leur donne. Ces chiffres permettent d’identifier vers quel compte bancaire les sommes seront dirigées. Pour les étudiants, il devrait s’agir du compte du Crous. Le site renvoie un message automatique rassurant, le dossier est complet et il sera traité « prochainement ».
Quatre à huit semaines, c’est le temps nécessaire qu’indique la CAF pour traiter les dossiers. Aussi, lorsque vient l’hiver, des premiers étudiants s’inquiètent : le Crous leur demande le paiement total de leur loyer, alors qu’il devrait être amputé de la part d’aide au logement. Au début, Dorian Niel-Ollier, 22 ans, en master 2 de sciences sociales à l’Université de Paris, temporise : « Nous savions qu’avec la CAF les délais peuvent être très longs. » C’est quand le Crous devient menaçant que l’inquiétude se cristallise.
Des mails qui restent sans réponse
« Début février, je reçois un appel, témoigne Quentin Merli, 22 ans, en master 2 de droit des médias. Les premiers mots sont : “Vous devez de l’argent.” L’employée du Crous me dit que j’ai une dette de plus de 600 euros à leur égard. C’était la somme exacte du montant de l’APL. J’explique que c’est à la CAF de régler ce solde. On me répond que non, que moi, étudiant boursier, je dois avancer l’argent et me faire rembourser ultérieurement. »
Un mail envoyé par le Crous de Paris à l’étudiant ne laisse aucun doute. « Vous avez une dette de 656 euros qu’il faut régler au plus vite. Nous faisons appel à Visale », menace l’employée du Crous. Visale ? Un système de caution pour les étudiants, habilité à mener des procédures de contentieux contre les « mauvais payeurs ».
La situation de Quentin Merli n’est pas une exception. Selon notre décompte, au moins une vingtaine d’autres étudiants des résidences Reuilly et Cîteaux se sont vus contraints d’avancer au Crous leur propre aide au logement. Les nombreux mails envoyés aux deux administrations restent le plus souvent sans réponse. Les appels téléphoniques à la CAF ne sont pas plus efficaces selon Sarah, 20 ans, étudiante en deuxième année de licence en arts plastiques :
« Il existe un numéro surtaxé par lequel vous tombez sur un robot qui vous demande de taper mot de passe et numéro d’allocataire, un tunnel de codes de plusieurs minutes pour entendre le plus souvent que toutes les lignes sont occupées et raccrocher. Pour payer, j’ai dû demander de l’argent à ma mère. C’est gênant. »
Mais où sont donc passés les APL ? Pour Sarah, la réponse apparaît sur son dossier numérique de la CAF en février. Il est noté que les 660 euros d’APL auxquels elle avait droit ont été bien versés…. Sauf qu’ils n’ont pas été virés sur le compte du Crous, mais sur celui d’un autre bailleur social : Paris Habitat. Une erreur d’aiguillage de l’administration.
Contacté par Le Monde, Paris Habitat reconnaît la fausse route des APL. Comment les sommes sont-elles arrivées sur le compte d’un autre bailleur ? « Les éléments d’identification que nous avons transmis aux étudiants et qu’ils ont indiqués lors leur demande d’APL n’étaient pas les bons, reconnaît une porte-parole du Crous. L’adresse de la résidence Reuilly mentionnée sur la convention a été changée au moment de l’ouverture de la résidence, en octobre 2019. Elle correspond à une location de Paris Habitat. »
Des étudiants ballottés entre les administrations
Seulement, « la situation a été identifiée et la CAF alertée dès novembre 2019 », affirme Sébastien Deslandes, chargé de communication de Paris Habitat. Or, six mois plus tard, des étudiants boursiers sont toujours en attente d’une régularisation et d’autres ont dû abandonner leur logement étudiant, sous la menace d’un contentieux, et sans possibilité de payer l’intégralité du loyer durant la période de confinement.
Marcelline Guiffan, responsable de la communication du Crous de Paris, assure que c’est « début février », à la suite de nombreuses alertes des étudiants, que son administration découvre le dysfonctionnement. « Les étudiants concernés en ont été informés et le Crous a déduit de leur loyer la part APL », ajoute-t-elle.
Mais dans les faits, certains étudiants sont toujours ballottés entre les administrations. Deux mois après que le Crous assure avoir traité le problème, lorsque Dorian Niel-Ollier demande par courriel quel bailleur a reçu les APL qu’il a dû lui-même payer, la responsable administrative lui montre encore une fois le chemin de la CAF : « S’il s’agit de Paris Habitat, c’est une erreur de leur part, il faudra contacter la CAF à nouveau et rectifier l’erreur. » Aux étudiants de se débrouiller et de payer, en attendant que les administrations s’entendent.
Pour obtenir le paiement de l’intégralité des loyers par les étudiants (APL comprise), les employés du Crous ont un argument massue : le renouvellement du bail. L’une des conditions requises est en effet d’être à jour du paiement des loyers. « Si je perds ce droit au renouvellement, je suis à la rue. Mes parents sont à 900 kilomètres et trouver un logement à Paris est extrêmement difficile », témoigne Quentin Merli. Sa famille a finalement payé. Comme Dorian Niel-Ollier, le jeune homme est en service civique depuis octobre 2019. Il reçoit une indemnité d’un peu plus de 500 euros qui lui permet de régler le solde.
« Du mépris »
Gaëtan, qui travaillait dans l’événementiel parallèlement à ses études, a été contraint, faute de moyens, de laisser son logement étudiant au moment du confinement. Il réclame au Crous, en avril, le remboursement du montant des APL qu’il a lui-même avancés. « Nous sommes désolés et attristés que vous ayez quitté votre logement à cause de la CAF… Nous ne sommes pas informés de l’état d’avancement de votre dossier », lui indique-t-on par courriel. Le jeune homme, qui est retourné dans sa famille, ne cache pas son écœurement. « On nous mène en bateau, alors que nous sommes sans ressources. »
Interrogé sur ces dysfonctionnements à répétition, Tahar Belmounès, directeur de la CAF de Paris, indique que « la situation [est] due à une mauvaise convention avec les bailleurs ». Il reconnaît que la Caisse aurait dû régler le problème.
Les étudiants concernés gardent un goût amer de cette année. « Ce qui me met en colère, ce n’est pas le temps mis à repérer le problème de gestion. Une erreur, cela peut arriver. Mais le silence, la non-réponse comme stratégie d’usure du Crous, c’est du mépris », estime Quentin Merli. Selon Paris Habitat, encore 13 étudiants étaient en attente de régularisation mi-mai. Le bailleur parisien précise être en attente d’une demande de remboursement émanant de la CAF.
Publicație : Le Monde
25 mai 2020
Zilele acestea, Iașul a fost gazda on-line, din cauza crizei de coronavirus, a celei de-a XII-a ediții a EuroInvent, cel mai mare Salon de Invenții din Europa de Est! Cristian Fodor, absolvent al Universității de Medicină din Iași, a luat Marele Premiu, de 10.000 lei, oferit la EuroInvent
Zilele acestea (21 – 23 mai 2020 – n.r.), Iașul a fost gazda on-line, din cauza pandemiei de coronavirus, a celei de-a XII-a ediții a EuroInvent, cel mai mare Salon de Invenții din Europa de Est! La evenimentul din acest an au fost prezentate peste 500 de invenții și proiecte de cercetare, din peste 30 de țări. Din România, 230 de lucrări științifice și de cercetare au fost înscrise în cadrul EuroInvent.
Aici, Cristian Fodor, absolvent al Universității de Medicină (UMF) „Grigore T. Popa” din Iași, a luat Marele Premiu, de 10.000 lei, oferit de Fundația „Dan Voiculescu”. Proiectul câștigător este un dispozitiv mecatronic pentru stimularea fluxului respirator cu aplicații în acordarea primului ajutor
Capitala Moldovei, Iașul, a găzduit săptămână trecută, în intervalul 21 – 23 mai 2020, cea de-a XII-a ediție a EuroInvent, cel mai mare Salon de Invenții din Europa de Est. Din cauza pandemiei de coronavirus, evenimentul științific a avut loc on-line. Cu toate acestea, au fost prezentate peste 500 de invenții și proiecte de cercetare, din peste 30 de țări. Din România, 230 de lucrări științifice și de cercetare au fost înscrise în cadrul EuroInvent.
Cea de-a XII-a ediție a EuroInvent, cel mai mare Salon de Invenții din Europa de Est, a reunit crema cercetării și inovării. Aici, Cristian Fodor, absolvent al Universității de Medicină din Iași, a luat Marele Premiu, de 10.000 lei, oferit la EuroInvent
Astfel, a XII-a ediție a EuroInvent, cel mai mare Salon de Invenții din Europa de Est, a fost câștigată de Cristian Fodor, absolvent al Universității de Medicină (UMF) „Grigore T. Popa” din Iași, care a luat Marele Premiu, de 10.000 lei, oferit la EuroInvent. Proiectul câștigător este un dispozitiv mecatronic pentru stimularea fluxului respirator cu aplicații în acordarea primului ajutor. Este vorba despre un manechin pentru prim-ajutor (PA) care oferă feedback instantaneu atât vizual, acustic, cât și tactil, persoanelor care sunt instruite în vederea dezvoltării abilității de efectuare a manevrei Heimlich și a compresiunilor toracice în resuscitarea cardiopulmonară (RCP).
„Sunt, cu adevărat, surprins de această reunoaștere. La EuroInvent 2020 au participat foarte multe proiecte românești valoroase. Nu mă așteptam să câștig! Sunt foarte fericit de câștigarea acestui premiu! Am participat la mai multe ediții EuroInvent și mă bucur că ideea mea din acest an a fost apreciată”, le-a transmis organizatorilor marele câștigător.
Fundația „Dan Voiculescu” a acordat, tot în cadrul acestui eveniment, un Premiu de Recunoaștere Științifică, UMF „Carol Davila” din București, pentru proiectul: „Complex de ruteniu cu acțiune antiinflamatoare și procedeu de sinteză”.
La EuroInvent, cel mai mare Salon de Invenții din Europa de Est, au fost prezentate peste 500 de invenții și proiecte de cercetare, din peste 30 de țări
La Ediția EuroInvent 2020, cel mai mare Salon de Invenții din Europa de Est, au fost prezentate peste 500 de invenții și proiecte de cercetare, din peste 30 de țări. Organizatori au fost: Forumul Inventatorilor Români, Europa Direct Iași, Universitatea Tehnică (TUIAȘI) „Gheorghe Asachi” din Iași și Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” (UAIC) din Iași. Principalii coordonatori ai Salonului au fost: conf. univ. dr. ing. Andrei Victor Sandu, Facultatea de Știința și Ingineria Materialelor (SIM) de la TUIAȘI și prof. univ. dr. ing. Petrică Vizureanu, din cadrul aceleiași facultăți și universități.
EuroInvent a devenit un eveniment de tradiție recunoscut în lumea științifică, care are meritul de a aduce împreună cercetători și inventatori din întreaga lume, dar și oameni obișnuiți, pasionați de știință, inventică și cercetare. Evenimentul atrage atenția asupra conceptelor de cercetare și inovare, concepte ce contribuie la creșterea economică, la crearea de locuri de muncă și, în final, la o viață mai bună pentru noi toți. Prin premiile acordate inventatorilor, recunoscute la nivel mondial datorită componenței juriului internațional, EuroInvent stabilește trenduri de cercetare și de implemetare a rezultatelor cercetării în practică.
„Mai mult, prin premiile pentru cel mai tânăr inventator și cea mai bună inventatoare, EuroInvent încurajează implicarea tinerilor și a femeilor în carierele științifice, una dintre nevoile stringente ale cercetării mondiale. Pentru al V-lea an consecutiv, cea mai bună invenție a primit un premiu în valoare de 10.000 de lei, oferit de partenerul educațional Fundația „Dan Voiculescu” pentru Dezvoltarea României”, au precizat organizatorii.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Eva Pinthus obituary
My friend Eva Pinthus, who has died aged 95, was a theology teacher and lecturer whose speciality was providing pastoral care to university students. In the late 1950s she spent two years as deputy warden at Ashburne Hall, Manchester University, and from 1960 until 1968 she was warden of Cleminson Hall at Hull University, where her dog Tigger was an unofficial “therapy dog” for students.
Eva was born in Berlin to Heinrich Pinthus, a solicitor in his family’s legal firm, and his wife, Margarethe (nee Katschke), who worked as his secretary. She was part of a loving Jewish family, but her only sibling, a sister, died from tuberculosis when Eva was 10, and then her father died of a gastric illness, when she was 14. After Kristallnacht in 1938 Eva managed to flee to Britain on a Kindertransport train, but had to leave her mother behind in Germany. Margarethe was later sent to her death in Auschwitz.
Alone on her arrival in Britain, Eva was sponsored by a family who paid for her to go to Nayland House boarding school in Sevenoaks, Kent, and she was baptised into the Church of England. After leaving school she spent two years working as an auxiliary nurse at the cottage hospital in St Paul’s Cray, Kent, before, in 1945, becoming a junior matron at Northfield school in Huntingford, to where it had been evacuated from Watford during the second world war.
She then trained as a nurse at Bedford hospital, and after qualification returned in 1949 to Northfield as the school nurse. Thanks to the influence of Northfield’s head teacher, Doris Martin, Eva became a Quaker, and this led her to join the Quakers’ Friends Relief Service, for whom she travelled to Germany in 1950 to help set up a project to build a peace centre near Bückeburg under the auspices of the German Fellowship of Reconciliation.
After a period as nurse to a family in Birmingham that had contracted infective hepatitis, she decided to study theology at the University of Birmingham, where she was the first woman to take the subject.
She obtained her theology degree in 1955 and, after teacher training at Hughes Hall, Cambridge, taught scripture at Aigburth Vale High school in Liverpool from 1956-58 before taking up her warden posts at Ashburne Hall and then Cleminson Hall. From 1968 until her retirement in 1981 she was a senior lecturer in theology at City of Leeds and Carnegie College of Education (now Leeds Beckett University), training teacher students. During that time she gained an MPhil from King’s College London in urban education.
For 15 years up to 1989 Eva travelled each year during her summer holidays to communist East Germany to work with churches and East German Quakers in peace activism and conflict resolution. A lot of that work was hidden, and Eva was proud to find out later that there was a Stasi file on her.
In retirement in the village of Menston in West Yorkshire, which had been her home since 1959, she worked for a chaplaincy team that serves higher education students in Leeds, and she was also the Quaker representative on the West Yorkshire Ecumenical Council.
Publicație : The Guardian
Why does medicine treat women like men?
Women’s bodies are different from men’s from cellular level upwards, yet the same treatments are usually prescribed for both sexes – to the detriment of women. Dr Alyson McGregor raises the alarm
Towards the end of her training in emergency medicine at Brown University, Rhode Island, Dr Alyson McGregor was asked what her “specialism” would be.
“You are expected to have a niche so my answer was, ‘Well, I like women’s health,’” says McGregor. “From that, people thought, ‘Oh, she’s into obstetrics/gynaecology.’” So on busy shifts in the emergency department of Rhode Island Hospital, the state’s major trauma centre, the newly qualified McGregor became everyone’s go-to doctor for pelvic examinations because this was believed to be her special interest. “I laugh about it now, but it’s when I started to realise that there’s this assumption that women’s health is wrapped up in their reproduction. Women were men with ‘boobs and tubes’.”
But McGregor was interested in far more than that. By women’s health she meant the health of the whole woman, whose female chromosomes exist in every cell and influence every bodily function. She was interested in how these differences – in hormones, in tissue, in systems and structures – impact every disease and the way it should be treated. Cardiovascular health provided her route in.
“This was about 15 years ago when people were realising that women having heart attacks presented differently to men,” she says. “They described different symptoms and had poorer outcomes, so I started to ask why; and if we’re different in this way, what about that way? The more I delved, the more I realised the scope of this. In medicine, we’ve ignored women because we’ve used men as our standard – and it hasn’t served women well.”
When a doctor writes a prescription, ask, ‘Is this specific to me as female?’
McGregor has set this out in her new book Sex Matters. It’s a wake-up call, a cry for action, a frightening and fascinating read. The takeaway message is that women’s bodies are different to men’s from cellular level onwards, yet our medical model is based on knowledge gleaned from male cells, male animals and male humans. Within this, there’s a wealth of disturbing detail – the diseases we routinely fail to understand in women, the drugs that work in men, while being useless, dangerous or even deadly in the other 50% of the population. In an age where we hear talk of “personalised medicine” and “targeted therapies”, it’s impossible to read this book without feeling stunned by science’s failure to have factored all this in earlier. “That’s a common reaction,” says McGregor. “I often hear, ‘Gosh, I thought medicine was taking this into account!’”
We are talking a few weeks before the book’s publication – though Sex Matters certainly won’t have the launch once planned. Instead, McGregor is working long shifts in her emergency department because of Covid-19. (Her husband is a doctor, too – she tweeted pictures of the two of them in their protective gear.) When we Skype on her day off, I ask what life is like right now.
“It’s challenging,” she says. “There’s the anxiety of being home and worrying about my family, and then my family worrying about us at work. And then being at work, but not recognising anyone because we’re all covered up.” The Covid cases in her hospital, says McGregor, are “manageable” and, overall, her patient volumes are down. “The messaging has been, ‘Stay home,’” she says. “Though that makes me worry, too, because where are the heart attacks, the complications from dialysis, the infections? I am seeing people with underlying psychiatric issues seeking care as the pandemic restrictions have increased anxiety and depression for so many.”
In fact, the data on Covid-19 indicates that this, too, is a disease that affects men and women differently. Though many countries, including the US and UK, have been slow to publish detailed sex-specific information, those that have suggested it could have killed up to twice as many men as women. In the UK, an analysis of 4,000 cases by the Office of National Statistics found the same ratio, while figures from New York City Health suggest men account for more than 61% of Covid deaths. Social differences is one possible cause – in China, for example, far more men are smokers. Biological differences is another. Oestrogen helps stimulate the immune system, but the fact that women have two X chromosomes, which contain a high density of immune-related genes, could be key. (Men were also disproportionately affected by Sars and Mers.)
“I’m trying to create a call for all countries to start collecting Covid-19 data by sex so that we can have this knowledge ahead of time,” says McGregor. “In the H1N1 [swine flu] pandemic, it wasn’t until we started looking at sex differences that we realised pregnant women were very susceptible to complications. If we have the information, we can look for explanations and target better treatments. And I’m still not seeing it.”
McGregor believes the reason can be traced back to the beginnings of organised medical research when it was decided that women of childbearing age should be excluded from trials – effectively taking sex differences out of the picture. The reason was to protect them, but for the medical profession and pharmaceutical industry it also made work faster, easier and cheaper by taking out pesky variables such as menstrual cycles and hormone surges. In Sex Matters, McGregor lists multiple ways that today’s drugs can still fail women as a direct result. Women metabolise drugs differently (there are lots of reasons, but many are linked to different hormones and different levels of enzymes), so certain drugs remain in the system for longer or drop to dangerously low levels at certain points of the menstrual cycle. McGregor also shows how common fillers used in generic drugs – which are typically only tested for two weeks in a group of healthy males – can alter bioavailability (how much of the drug that will reach the body and work as planned) in women by up to 24%, which is why she often asks presenting patients if they’ve recently switched to a generic.
One particularly frightening example is the impact of medication on our QT – that’s the resting time between heartbeats. A woman’s QT is already longer than a man’s (a result of men’s teenage testosterone surge) and many prescription drugs – painkillers, antidepressants, antihistamines, antibiotics – cause incremental QT increases as a side-effect. For women on multiple meds (and statistically, women are most likely to be on multiple meds), the risk of these combined increases can range from simple arrhythmia to sudden cardiac death.
McGregor gives the example of one patient, a woman in her 40s whose back pain resulted in a common medication spiral – painkillers then sleeping tablets then steroids then anti-anxiety meds, and finally an antibiotic for a UTI. This cocktail, she believes, caused the patient sudden cardiac death, something she says is “more common than many physicians would like to admit”. One German study found that 66% of long QT syndrome patients were female – and of these, 60% were drug-related.
“Hydroxychloroquine, the drug being trialled as a treatment for Covid [and hyped by Donald Trump], also has the side-effect of prolonging QT interval,” says McGregor. “If it’s prescribed to a female, we should have her QT interval measured first, but that’s not even in the discussion.” In fact, she is concerned that in the race to find a Covid vaccine, reverting to standard research protocols (male cells, male animals and no sex-specific analysis of human trials) could result in dangerous gaps in knowledge.
Some of the areas covered in Sex Matters are already in the public eye. The British Heart Foundation is halfway through a three-year campaign to tackle what it calls the “heart attack gender gap” – a UK woman is 50% more likely than a man to receive an initial wrong diagnosis for a heart attack and, even after correct diagnosis, significantly less likely to receive life-saving treatments. One reason could be that women’s symptoms don’t always fit previous male-centric models. In men, plaque tends to build up, causing blood vessels to rupture. In women, plaque is more likely to gradually erode, making blood vessels stiffer and less flexible over time.
Julie Ward is a senior cardiac nurse with the British Heart Foundation who has worked on the campaign’s All-Party Parliamentary Group. “Coronary care has been male-driven,” she says. “Treated by men using research by men carried out on men. We’re only now beginning to understand the different physiology. Part of our campaigning is to encourage more UK women to sign up for trials, and also to encourage more women to become cardiologists.”
Our treatments for pain are another area where women are poorly served. Epidemiologic studies clearly demonstrate that women are at greater risk of pain conditions – from migraines to musculoskeletal, from IBS to PMS. The interaction between the sex hormones, neurotransmitters, like dopamine and serotonin, and the central nervous system is one key reason (a study of transsexuals undergoing hormone therapy found that half of those transitioning from female to male reported improvements in chronic pain conditions.)
When a man says he’s in a bit of pain, we think he’s in a lot of pain. When a woman says it, we think she’s worried
There’s also women’s XX chromosomes that create those aggressive immune responses so effective in fighting disease, but also prone to turn on the body itself (autoimmune diseases, such as lupus and osteoarthritis, are far more common in women). Yet women are more likely than men to receive a psychiatric diagnosis than a physical one (panic attack instead of heart attack), more likely than men to be given lifestyle advice rather than an exploratory x-ray when presenting with IBS – and in the case of “women’s conditions” such as endometriosis, highly likely to be told that the pain they’re experiencing is “normal”. (In the UK, it takes women an average of 7.5 years to get an endometriosis diagnosis – and even then, we’ve developed few effective treatments for this debilitating disease.)
Dr Amanda Williams, Reader in Clinical Health Psychology at University College London agrees that women’s pain is typically downplayed. “Patient studies show it,” she says. “Women are prescribed less analgesic. When a man says he’s in a bit of pain, we think he’s really in a lot of pain. When a woman says she’s in a lot of pain, we think she’s in a bit of pain, but worried about it.”
According to Williams, this can be traced back to Darwinism and the belief in a great “chain of being”, which put men at the top of the hierarchy and women at the lower end. Beliefs about pain reflected power and status. “Black people endured horrendous hardship and brutality so it was said that they were less sensitive to pain, and women endured childbirth, which was pretty painful, so it was believed they were oversensitive, prone to hysterics.” White European men, it was decided, had it just about right.
It’s a bleak picture, but McGregor is confident it’s changing. She is now a recognised sex and gender expert in emergency medicine at Brown (which covers a lot more than pelvic examinations)and has co-founded the Sex and Gender Health Collaborative, a national organisation which works to integrate sex and gender knowledge into medical education and clinical practice. “It has been an interesting evolution,” she says. “When I first started talking about this, no one really understood what I was saying or didn’t quite see the importance. Most physicians are data-driven – and now there’s exponential data coming through that shows how significant sex differences can be. Now I see a different response when I’m speaking. In 2016, the top research funder in the US stated you must include sex as a biological variable in your research design.”
It’s too big to wait for change from the top down. It took great grass-roots efforts to have women’s reproductive health taken seriously’: Dr Alyson McGregor. Photograph: Benedict Evans/The Observer
Sex Matters was written to educate and empower the rest of us. “It’s too big to wait for change from the top down,” says McGregor. “If you look at past experiences, it took great grass-roots efforts to have women’s reproductive health taken seriously.”
The book is packed with specific advice for female patients, ranging from volunteering for medical trials to researching sex differences in prescriptions, recording side-effects, joining patient support groups, keeping careful records of symptoms and treatments and taking an advocate along to appointments. She also urges women to be pushier patients. “When a doctor writes a prescription, ask, ‘Is this specific to me as female? Should I have a different dose? Will I have different side-effects? Will this affect my birth control? Should I take a different drug at certain times of my menstrual cycle?’ A doctor may not know those answers – but most people who go to medical school take an oath of lifelong learning. I hope doctors will say, ‘Let me look.’”
Though McGregor believes it can be done in 10 years, the scale of change required seems enormous. “Yes,” she nods happily, “mammoth! I absolutely agree – and I make no apology for that. Each hypothesis is based on the one before and the one before – and if this has all been male, we unfortunately need to start from scratch. But I think it’s a moral obligation we have for half the population.”
Publicație : The Guardian