Consequences, conditions and caveats: a qualitative exploration of the influence of undergraduate health professions students at distributed clinical training sites.

Background: Traditionally, the clinical training of health professionals has been located in central academic hospitals. This is changing. As academic institutions explore ways to produce a health workforce that meets the needs of both the health system and the communities it serves, the placement of students in these communities is becoming increasingly common.

The impact of a faculty development programme for health professions educators in sub-Saharan Africa: an archival study.

Background: In 2008 the sub-Saharan FAIMER Regional Institute launched a faculty development programme aimed at enhancing the academic and research capacity of health professions educators working in sub-Saharan Africa. This two-year programme, a combination of residential and distance learning activities, focuses on developing the leadership, project management and programme evaluation skills of participants as well as teaching the key principles of health professions education-curriculum design, teaching and learning and assessment. Participants also gain first-hand research experience by designing and conducting an education innovation project in their home institutions.

SPECT imaging of body dysmorphic disorder.

[99mTc]Hexamethylpropylene amine oxime (HMPAO) single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) brain scans were undertaken in six subjects with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). The scans showed a broad range of discrepant findings that do not immediately support a view of BDD as resting on either an obsessive-compulsive or affective disorder spectrum. Nevertheless, involvement of parietal regions is consistent with the characteristic altered body perception of BDD.

Functional brain imaging and pharmacotherapy in trichotillomania. Single photon emission computed tomography before and after treatment with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor citalopram.

The neurobiology and pharmacotherapy of trichotillomania has received increasing attention in recent years. Parallels have been drawn between findings in this disorder and those in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). To date, however, there has been little work on the effect of a pharmacotherapeutic intervention on functional brain imaging in trichotillomania.

SPECT scans in identical twins with trichotillomania.

SPECT scans of a set of twins with trichotillomania showed that the twin with more severe disease had larger perfusion defects, involving more areas on the scan. Prospective brain imaging studies of twins may provide useful information about the neurobiology of trichotillomania and other obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders.

Analysis of clinical brain SPECT data based on anatomic standardization and reference to normal data: an ROC-based comparison of visual, semiquantitative, and voxel-based methods.

Unlabelled: The technique of anatomic standardization and comparison with normal templates is increasingly used in clinical brain SPECT practice and allows automated, operator-independent volume-of-interest (VOI) or voxel-based analysis of whole-brain data. In 2 distinct clinical populations with severe traumatic brain injury and cognitive impairment, this study compared 3 widely available approaches that use normal templates to evaluate SPECT brain perfusion deficits.

Methods: In total, 74 subjects were studied.