Basic essential education program (BEEP): a brief introductory faculty development course for medical teachers.

Background: Physicians have a unique role in teaching future physicians and allied health professionals. Yet, most medical doctors have limited instruction in this critical component of their daily activity.

Methods: This study was a prospective cohort study of the effectiveness of a local teaching program at two teaching hospitals for junior faculty.

Using drama to improve person-centred dementia care.

Aims And Objectives: We implemented a 12-week drama-based educational intervention to introduce to dementia practitioners person-centred care that emphasizes the notion of embodied selfhood (defined as non-verbal self-expression).

Background: Person-centred dementia care guidelines emphasize the assessment of individual needs, and where appropriate, the use of non-pharmacological interventions before resorting to pharmacological management. However, dementia care is not consistent with these guidelines suggesting conceptual limitations and reliance on passive knowledge translation strategies.

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference": reflection techniques for addiction psychiatry training.

Objective: The authors aim to incorporate educational reflection techniques in an addiction psychiatry postgraduate core rotation in order to increase critical self-awareness of attitudes, values, and beliefs related to working with people with substance use and other addictive disorders.

Methods: Reflection discussion times, reflection journaling, and mandatory end-of-rotation reflection papers were embedded into a core addiction psychiatry postgraduate training block. Qualitative analysis of 28 reflection papers was performed to determine key factors and constructs that impacted on the development of attitudes and professionalism.

Horror films: tales to master terror or shapers of trauma?

The authors review the literature of cinematic-related psychiatric case reports and report the case of a 22-year-old woman who presented with intrusive thoughts of demonic possession and flashbacks of the film The Exorcist. Cinematic neurosis may be considered a form of psychological crisis shaped by exposure to a film narrative that is emotionally and culturally significant to the individual. The structure of horror films are examined from the perspectives of trauma theory, narrative theory, and borderline personality organization theories, using the film The Exorcist as an example.

Context is Key: an interactive experiential and content frame game.

Most games used for teaching focus on either content transfer or an experiential learning experience. 'Context is Key' is a combination of both as the learners actively interact experientially with the content being taught, with fellow learners and with the facilitator(s). Using this interactive game after a didactic portion of teaching can reinforce the knowledge in ways that require synthesis of the knowledge for application and encourage group discussion and the sharing of knowledge that participants possess.

Physical and sexual abuse issues among youths with substance use problems.

Objectives: To evaluate the prevalence of reported physical and sexual abuse among youths with substance use problems, to explore whether youths report relying on substances to cope with the abuse, and to examine whether individual factors related to substance use were associated with the outcome measures of reported physical abuse, sexual abuse, and using substances to cope.

Method: We assessed 287 male and female youths (age 14 to 24 years) who presented for help for substance use problems, using a semistructured interview that focused on substance use, history of previous sexual and physical abuse, and coping strategies.

Results: One-half of the female youth substance abusers reported having been sexually abused (50.

Peripheral visual field testing in glaucoma by automated kinetic perimetry with the Humphrey Field Analyzer.

A Humphrey automated perimeter was used to measure the central 24 degrees of vision with static threshold targets and the peripheral field with two automatic kinetic stimuli in 100 eyes of 100 patients with glaucoma or a suspicion of glaucoma and to compare the additional information gained with the peripheral tests. The peripheral visual field supported the diagnosis made with central field testing in approximately one third of the eyes and added additional diagnostic information in another fourth of the cases. In 4% of patients a normal central field was associated with a glaucomatous peripheral defect.

The inhibition of platelet aggregation of metastatic H-ras-transformed 10T1/2 fibroblasts with castanospermine, an N-linked glycoprotein processing inhibitor.

A series of T24-H-ras-transformed 10T1/2 fibroblasts with varying metastatic potential was tested for the ability to aggregate platelets. Results indicate that although platelet activation was always detected in the highly metastatic cells, some non-metastatic cells also have the ability to cause platelet aggregation, suggesting that this is a necessary but not sufficient characteristic of the metastatic phenotype. Apyrase, an ADP scavenger, effectively inhibited platelet aggregation by metastatic cells, however, there was no significant increase in ADP secretion or relation to the ability of the tumor cells to activate platelets.

Superoxide anion radical does not mediate vasodilation of cerebral arterioles by vasoactive intestinal polypeptide.

We examined the hypothesis that oxygen radicals may mediate the vasodilator effect of VIP on cerebral arterioles in cats equipped with cranial windows. The appearance of superoxide anion radical in cerebral extracellular space during VIP application was examined by measuring the rate of superoxide dismutase (SOD)-inhibitable reduction of nitroblue tetrazolium (NBT). Although VIP (1 and 10 micrograms/ml) caused substantial reduction of NBT, the rate of the SOD-inhibitable portion was not significantly different from zero.

Afferent reinnervation of the autotransplanted heart in dogs.

Patients have been observed with a chest pain syndrome after cardiac transplantation. For this pain to be cardiac in origin the afferent nerves carrying sensory information from the heart would have to reinnervate the heart. A previous study in dogs indicated that afferent reinnervation is uncommon during the first 2 years after transplantation.

Occlusive summation of carotid and aortic baroreflexes in control of renal nerve activity.

We recently reported that denervation of aortic or carotid baroreceptors impaired baroreflex control of heart rate but not of hindlimb vascular resistance or lumbar sympathetic nerve activity. Since baroreflex control of sympathetic outflow to different vascular beds is nonuniform, we determined whether carotid or aortic baroreceptor denervation would impair baroreflex control of renal nerve activity. Experiments were performed in 23 alpha-chloralose-anesthetized rabbits.

Central abnormality in baroreflex control of renal nerves in hypertension.

The purpose of our study was to determine if there is a central abnormality in the arterial baroreceptor reflex control of renal nerve activity in renal hypertension. We recorded simultaneously the changes in aortic (input) and renal (output) nerve traffic during phenylephrine-induced increases in arterial pressure in 14 normotensive and 11 hypertensive rabbits [mean arterial pressure (+/- SE) in conscious state 106 +/- 2 and 141 +/- 6 mmHg, respectively]. Changes in aortic nerve traffic were considered representative of changes in total arterial baroreceptor input to the central nervous system.