Baylor History of Medicine Society Schedule 2007-2008

"Medicine: Perspectives in History and Art" (Robert E. Greenspan) Eight Practical Lessons from Osler That Will Better Your Life (Bryan Boutwell) History of the American Mental Hospital: From networking to not working & Back (Ed Fann) Ambiguities and Amputations: Methods, mishaps, and the surgical quest to cure breast cancer (Student Essay Contest Winner) (Matt Luedke) An Automated, Algorithmic, Retrospective Analysis of the Growing Influence of Statistics in Medicine (Student Essay Contest Winner) (Ryan Rochat) What’s Special about William Osler? (Charles S. Bryan) The Virtuous Physician: Lessons from Medical Biography (Charles S. Bryan) Legacy: 50 Years of Loving Care – The History of Texas Children’s Hospital, 1954-2004 (Betsy Parish) The Education of a University President: Edgar Odell Lovett of Rice University (John B. Boles) Artists and Illness: The Effect of Illness on an Artist’s Work (David Bybee)

Occupation and glioma: The Harris County Brain Tumor Study, 2001--2010

The relationship between occupational exposures and glioma has not been adequately assessed due to the lack of studies in current scientific literature. To address this disparity, the Harris County Brain Tumor Study, an ongoing population-based case-control study, began in January 2001. Longest-held occupation for 382 cases and 629 controls were frequency matched on age (within 5 years), sex, and race and placed into 14 predetermined occupational categories. Adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated for each category using multiple logistic regression. Potential confounders assessed included sex, age, smoking status, education and income. For all subjects, significantly elevated adjusted odds ratios were found in health-related (aOR=1.66; 95%CI=1.03, 2.68), teaching (aOR=1.84; 95%CI=1.17, 2.88), and protective service (aOR=3.6; 95%CI=1.05, 12.31) occupational categories after controlling for sex and education. A significantly lowered odds ratio was seen in the writers, artists, and entertainers category (aOR=0.14; 95%CI=0.03, 0.58). In the stratified analyses, which controlled for education, males had a significantly elevated odds ratio for protective service workers (aOR=4.83; 95%CI=1.24, 18.83) while a significantly lower odds ratio was found in mechanics and machine operators (aOR=0.33; 95%CI=0.12,0.87). In females, we observed a significantly elevated odds ratio in teachers (aOR=1.99; 95%CI=1.20,3.31) and a significantly lower odds ratio in clerical workers (aOR=0.63; 95%CI=0.45,0.90). These analyses revealed several significant associations and allowed for separate analyses by gender, distinguishing this study from many glioma studies. Further analyses should provide a large enough sample size to stratify by gender as well as histological subtype.^