TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
PROBLEM: The University of Kansas will have what it says is the smallest four-year medical education site in the country when eight students begin taking classes on Monday on a satellite campus in Salina, Kansas. The move is in response to a shortage of rural doctors in the United States. “By training physicians in a nonmetropolitan area, we are showing young medical students that life can be good, and practice can be stimulating, outside of the big city,” said Dr. William Cathcart-Rake, the physician who directs the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Salina. Students will get some course work via tele-video and podcasts from the school’s other campuses, but they will also train through visits to doctors’ offices in small communities and at the hospital in Salina, school officials said. “It’s a bold and innovative move,” said Dr. Roland Goertz, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He said students at rural clinics will be exposed to a potential medical career they wouldn’t see in urban hospital settings. Cathcart-Rake said six of the eight students being taught at Salina, as part of their scholarships, have committed to practicing in a rural area. Seven of the eight students are from rural areas to begin with, he said. “They see the value of living in wide open spaces and going back to where their friends are,” Cathcart-Rake said. Attending medical school in a place such as Salina reduces chances they will change their minds, which could happen if they went to a big-city school, he said. Salina, with 46,000 residents, is about 175 miles west of the Kansas City metropolitan region where the university’s main medical school is located. Small-town America has become increasingly under-served by doctors. About 21 percent of U.S. residents live in rural regions but only about 10 percent of physicians practice there, according to data cited by the family physicians group. In Kansas, 12 counties don’t have a full-time doctor at all, said Barbara Atkinson, executive dean of the University of Kansas School of Medicine. Several factors are often cited for a shortage of rural doctors. Rural doctors tend to be paid less, partly because they are more likely to treat patients on Medicare and Medicaid, which reimburses at rates below standard insurance. General practitioners make up the largest share of rural doctors, but until recent years fewer medical students were going into general medicine, putting a strain on rural care. Older doctors who practice in small towns and retire are sometimes not replaced because younger doctors may prefer the greater cultural amenities urban regions tend to offer. Recent changes in federal healthcare laws are intended to make rural practice more acceptable to doctors. Doctors who practice in certain underserved areas will get bonuses beyond the 10 percent boost in Medicare reimbursements they were already receiving, Goertz said. He said another reason why there are fewer rural doctors is that the large majority of medical students come from urban areas, where medical schools are usually located, making them less like to consider rural medicine. “You tend to gravitate to where you grew up,” Goertz said. Cathcart-Rake is optimistic that the Salina medical school will be a success and that in future years admissions may grow from eight to 12 students.

SOLUTION: Rural doctor shortage prompts opening of medical school.

PROBLEM: The Kate Spade New York Foundation said in a statement Wednesday it is donating $200,000 to The Jed Foundation, which partners with schools to strengthen mental health programs. The fashion brand will match public donations to JED from Wednesday through June 12, up to $100,000, at jedfoundation.org/katespade. The donations follow money already given to other organizations, including the Crisis Text Line. Anna Bakst, brand president and CEO of Kate Spade New York, said the company hopes to encourage more conversation, education and research around mental health. Spade killed herself June 5, 2018, at 55, after years of battling depression and anxiety.

SOLUTION: Kate Spade New York fulfills $1 million mental health pledge.

PROBLEM: The story didn’t mention cost. The nicotine patch is readily available over the counter. We found a range of prices online, including one big chain’s patch for roughly $2.70 a day. Quantifying changes in cognitive function for readers is a challenge. Exactly what does a long term memory performance of 46% of normal mean? Are these changes important for daily living or are they statistically significant but clinically irrelevant? The story included that important caveat from the researchers:  “whether these effects are clinically important will require larger studies.” The story reported:  “The study found no problematic side effects associated with the nicotine patch and none of the patients had withdrawal symptoms when it was stopped. However, patients on nicotine did lose a few pounds, which is a known side effect.” The study also reported a small drop in systolic blood pressure in subjected treated with nicotine – an unusual finding which the story did not report. We like that the story, unlike the MSNBC piece, noted that “nicotine might enhance the cancer-causing properties of other substances.” The study design, number of subjects and other information is provided. Both this story and the one by MSNBC used information that we could not find in the journal article, but which did appear in news releases by the American Academy of Neurology and by Vanderbilt – the “46% of normal” and “26% decline in recall” statistics. We liked that this story, unlike the MSNBC piece, stated that “when clinical experts rated overall change in the patients, they did not see a significant difference between the two groups.” That’s an important finding and, possibly, could have led to a different lead and headline for both stories. The story does not resort to disease-mongering. Like the MSNBC story, though, it could have more clearly distinguished between mild cognitive impairment and forgetfulness. We can’t give this a satisfactory score because, unlike the MSNBC story, this one does not include any information from clinical experts not involved in the study. It does, however, note that some of the authors on the study have received drug company funding and funding from tobacco makers. It also noted that the nicotine patches themselves were provided by Pfizer. There is no mention of alternative strategies to either improve or slow down the degradation of cognitive function in people with mild cognitive impairment. We’re going to rule this one Not Applicable because – while availability was not explicitly addressed – this is a product that’s probably well known to most readers. However, both stories we reviewed could have been more specific about the exact types of patches that were studied and in what doses. The story didn’t make any claims of novelty. However, the story could have briefly explained whether there has been other research studying nicotine’s effects on memory. (There has been.) As explained in the “evidence” criterion above, there were numbers used in this story and that by MSNBC that we couldn’t find anywhere in the journal article but which did appear in in news releases by the American Academy of Neurology and by Vanderbilt. But it’s clear that the story didn’t rely solely on news release, as it brought in enough good contextual information, including the conflict of interest information and the information about nicotine and cancer.

SOLUTION:
Nicotine Patch May Improve Memory