"Being a team of five strong women… we had to make an impression:" The College Math Academy as an intervention into mathematics education

This paper, a first-person account, describes a community psychology-aligned intervention into a precalculus mathematics class at an Hispanic Serving Research Institution. The intervention was designed because the standard precalculus mathematics class had a high failure rate, especially for Latinx students, which was serving as a barrier for declaration of a Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics major. The high failure rate indicates a structural problem that requires a structural intervention. The paper is coauthored with the teaching team, undergraduates who had taken the course, a graduate student who evaluated the class, and a community psychologist. We describe the ways that the new course, the College Math Academy, transformed the social environment through capacity building, providing access to valued resources for historically marginalized groups, facilitating opportunities to critique dominant power structures, prioritizing perspectives and experiences of people of color, and promoting understanding of how various social forces shape culture and values. The course also decentered white educational norms via adapting decoloniality and liberatory practices. In turn, each person describes their experience of the course. We draw on the first-person accounts to show how they illustrate a transformative, decolonial, and liberatory social environment. We end with implications for how community psychologists can work in their universities to support structural change.

[Laparoscopic cholecystectomy in elderly patients. Apropos of 115 cases]

We report a retrospective analysis of 115 elderly patients over 70 years of age who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy for symptomatic lithiasis between January 1990 and January 1996. This technique is perfectly adapted to elderly patients. Complications are less frequent and better tolerated than for conventional open surgery. In this series, the success rate was 97.39% with technique-related complications at 2.7%. None of these complications required reoperation.

[Trans-sutural mechanical anastomosis in esophagogastric surgery. Apropos of 25 cases]

The essential point conditioning the success of a mechanical esophagogastric or esophagojejunal anastomosis is the performance of an esophageal purse. The authors present a variety of the technique which consists of replacing the esophageal purse by a linear stapling after having introduced the anvil in esophagus. The anvil shaft is then exteriorized through the staple line. From January 1991 to January 1994, this technique was performed on 25 patients (17 men and 8 women), with a mean-age of 66 years (range 27 to 83). The esophagojejunal anastomosis after total gastrectomy was performed on 17 patients (15 carcinomas, 1 acute gastritis with gastric haemorrhage, 1 stomal ulcer), and the esophagogastric anastomosis after partial esophagectomy for carcinoma on 8 patients. After six to twelve months neither an anastomotic stenosis nor a leakage occurred. The advantage of this technique is on one hand to simplify the performance of the anastomosis and to reduce the septic and operating time, on the other hand to avoid the complications of performing the esophageal purse.

[Double trans-suture technique in colorectal surgical anastomosis. Apropos of 45 cases]

The double trans-suture technique in colorectal anastomoses is an entirely mechanical one which consist of the transformation of two linear sutures in a circular one. During, 2 years, between March 1990 and March 1992, this technique was performed on 45 patients, of whom about two-third had a carcinoma of rectosigmoid. No postoperative mortality occurred. One patient developed an anastomatic stenosis, and another one a clinical leakage. The double trans-suture technique has not only the advantages of the double stapling technique but also avoids the incidents of performing a proximal purse.

Reversible pituitary ovarian suppression induced by an LHRH agonist in the treatment of endometriosis--comparison of two dose regimens

Buserelin [D-Ser(TBU)6-des Gly NH2(10) LHRH ethylamide], an LHRH agonist, was administered intranasally at two dose levels, 200 micrograms t.d.s or 300 micrograms t.d.s., to 20 women with proven endometriosis, many with recurrent disease. Both dose schedules achieved significant suppression of circulating 17 beta-oestradiol levels often to within the postmenopausal range, the larger dose inducing significantly greater suppression (P less than 0.05). Serum FSH values were suppressed below baseline but serum LH remained at pretreatment levels or above, whilst on treatment. Complete resolution of endometriotic deposits was achieved in 68% of cases following 6 months treatment with dramatic and long-standing relief of symptoms with no apparent dose difference. In all other subjects there was significant reduction in the extent of endometriotic deposits and improvement in American Fertility Society classification of disease stage. The most commonly occurring side effect was hot flushes; their intensity and frequency related to the degree of suppression of serum oestradiol and the dose of Buserelin administered.