[Improving the quality of clinical interview teaching: evaluation of an intervention with medical students].

Background: Quality of clinical interview is a key issue both for patient satisfaction and for diagnostic efficiency. Its adequacy relates to better clinical diagnosis treatment plans and patient compliance.

Aim: To measure the quality of interviews performed by medical students in three Chilean medical schools before receiving specific training on the subject and to compare the scores obtained after introductory courses on interview.

[Communications difficulties during the medical interview].

The aims of medical interview are to obtain diagnostic information, to obtain an empathetic communication with the patient, to educate him about his disease and to establish a personal link allowing a lasting relationship. We analyze some features of communication with patients. Individualized communication, recognizing his identity and personal aspects, "looking from the patient".

[Why do we work in public hospitals? Some ideas to keep in mind].

Why do we work in public hospitals, what do we look for and what do we find working at these places? There are several answers. The heritage, the places where we learnt, the places where medicine is practiced. A model that feeds us.

[General features of the patient-physician relationship].

The communication between physicians and patients is often deficient. Little time is devoted to it and the patient receives scanty information with a low emotional content. Some features of our medicine can explain this situation.

[Informed consent].

The informed consent, in which the physician informs about procedures to be performed and requests approval, puts into practice the communication between physicians and patients. The consent will always be verbal and will only put writing in complex or risky situations. This doctrine, that promotes the recognition of patients autonomy, is employed since the end of World War II.

[In the search of a language for medical ethics].

After World War II, the interest in medical ethics increased and several international codes defending patients rights appeared. Four pragmatic, non ideological and non religious principles were defined to analyze clinical ethical problems. Autonomy, the capacity of self management and to reach our own informed decisions; the informed consent is the way to accomplish this principle.

Gastricsin and cathepsin D in normal and hypertrophic human prostates.

The relative contents of gastricsinogen, the inactive zymogen precursor of gastric gastricsin (EC 3.4.23.