Teenager dies after transplant error
(U-WIRE) DURHAM, N.C. – Jesica Santillan died Saturday afternoon after Duke University Hospital doctors mistakenly transplanted a heart and lungs of the incorrect blood type into the 17-year-old girl Feb. 7.
In rapidly declining health and suffering from failing kidneys, Santillan, who had waited three years for the needed organs, was in critical condition as doctors searched for a new set of donated organs. She was pronounced dead at 1:25 p.m., according to the Duke University Web site.
“All of us at Duke University Hospital are deeply saddened by this,” said William Fulkerson, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of the hospital, in a statement on the Web site.
After the first transplant, a second set of organs was located Feb. 19 and transplanted Feb. 20. Santillan’s brain function worsened after the second transplant and, despite medical support, her condition worsened, the hospital reported.
Associate professor of surgery Dr. James Jaggers, who performed the operation on Jesica, told Duke’s student newspaper, The Chronicle, he mistakenly assumed a blood-type match had been completed.
-Kate Stepan
Study shows 25 percent of students plagarize
(U-WIRE) ITHACA, N.Y. – According to a 2002 study conducted by Rochester Institute of Technology professors Patrick M. Scanlon and David R. Neumann, approximately 800 college students from various universities indicated that about 25 percent of the sample sometimes or very frequently copied online text without citation.
More than 50 percent of the students suspected that their peers cut and pasted text from the Internet.
Because plagiarism is a pressing issue throughout the nation and in the university, administrators and faculty alike have developed ways to stop these growing trends.
According to student opinion, however, teens seem to be confident in getting away scot-free. A U.S. News & World Report poll found that 90 percent of students believe that cheaters are either never caught or have not been appropriately disciplined.
-Cornell Daily Sun (Cornell U.)
Students sue over tuition increase
A class-action lawsuit filed on Friday by a group of seven students alleges the University System of Maryland violated the contract between colleges and students with January’s mid-year tuition hike. If successful, the $13 million total students are paying in extra tuition this semester will be returned, the University of Maryland- College Park student newspaper, the Diamondback, reported.
The Baltimore-area students argued that they thought they would be charged the same fixed rate that had been set for the year, according to one of the student’s lawyers, Baltimore attorney Andrew D. Freeman.
“The basic argument is that we think the university had a contract with all of you for tuition,” Freeman told the Diamondback. “They said they were going to charge a set fee and can’t change it midway through the school year.”
Some disagreed with the lawsuit, calling the tuition hike justified.
“What (the students bringing the lawsuit) don’t realize is that without these (tuition increases), it means layoffs of faculty members,” student regent Andrew Canter told the Diamondback. “We’re getting to the point where any more cuts will affect faculty and devastate our reputation for the next five to 10 years.”
-Alex Kingsbury
Computer science under-grads dropping in numbers
(U-WIRE) STILLWATER, Okla. – Computer science departments nationwide are noticing fewer undergraduate students in the classroom.
“They definitely are dropping off,” said Judy Edgmand, coordinator of the Oklahoma State University-Stillwater undergraduate program. “Part of that reason is, there is not as many technical jobs and the trend has been that technical people have been laid off recently.”
Nationally, the Computer Research Association reports only a 1 percent drop from the previous fall, but educators feel the trend will continue.
-Daily O’Collegian
(Oklahoma State U.)
