Publications by authors named "Bitran M"

High sense of purpose in life, a fundamental domain of eudaimonic well-being, has been consistently associated with lower risk for various obesity-related chronic diseases. Although this psychological feature correlates with some health behaviors as potential mediators, its association with healthy eating remains less explored. In addition, studies of these psycho-behavioral and health relationships in the South American population are lacking.

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Background: a healthy food intake pattern, specifically the Mediterranean diet (MedDiet), is a factor associated with reduced risk, lower prevalence, and better management of chronic diseases. However, there is limited information regarding how patients integrate proposals for adherence to this food pattern in their daily lives. Objective: to identify factors and conditions that influence adherence to the MedDiet in Chile.

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Psychosocial status and lifestyle are key risk factors of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which, in turn, are main drivers of healthcare costs and morbimortality worldwide, including Chile. Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) is one of the healthiest dietary patterns under study. However, its impact on high-risk conditions, such as metabolic syndrome (MetS), and NCDs outside the Mediterranean Basin remains mostly unexplored.

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Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and can be treated with glucocorticoids (GC), although some patients are unresponsive to this therapy. The transcription factor LRH-1/ is critical to intestinal cortisol production (intestinal steroidogenesis), being reduced in UC patients. However, the relationship between LRH-1 expression and distribution with altered corticosteroid responses is unknown.

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Background: Medical students experience high levels of psychological stress during clinical training. However, most medical curricula do not teach self-care skills. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted medical education causing increased distress among students.

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Chile is currently experiencing a progressive epidemiological transition towards chronic diseases. In this country, >50% of annual deaths are attributed to cardiovascular disease and cancer. Moreover, health surveys have shown high prevalence of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and elevated cardiovascular disease risk.

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Medical resilience is a dynamic capacity, which has the potential to improve the well-being of physicians and to enhance the quality of the clinical relationship. Strategies to promote resilience are important to achieve a sustainable medical practice and improve patient care. Mindfulness training has demonstrated to be an effective tool to promote resilience in physicians.

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Chemical and electrical synapses are the two major communication systems that permit cell-to-cell communication within the nervous system. Although most studies are focused on chemical synapses (glutamate, γ-aminobutyric acid, and other neurotransmitters), clearly both types of synapses interact and cooperate to allow the coordination of several cell functions within the nervous system. The pineal gland has limited independent axonal innervation and not every cell has access to nerve terminals.

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Background: Throughout medical education, students are gradually incorporated into authentic clinical practice scenarios.

Aim: To describe the use of clinical learning strategies by Chilean students and compare them according to sex and year of training.

Material And Methods: The Clinical Learning Strategies Questionnaire (CEACLIN) was applied to 336 students from the 4th to 6th year of medicine at a Chilean university.

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Increasing scientific evidence shows that the Mediterranean lifestyle -including a characteristic dietary pattern as well as psychosocial and cultural features- has beneficial effects on human health. However, production and use of some of the distinctive components (e.g.

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At the end of May 2017, the third version of the Latin American Conference on Resident Education, LACRE, was held in Chile; it convened 433 people from 14 regional countries. Chronic stress and emotional exhaustion of residents was one of the topics discussed. Reports from different countries documented that about half of residents suffer from burnout.

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Background: The Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) is a multidimensional measure of well-being designed to assess emotional, psychological and social well-being.  It has been translated into different languages; however, there is no validated Spanish version.  Our aim was to provide the Spanish-speaking community with a validated version of the MHC-SF.

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Rationale And Objectives: Radiology teachers are well trained in their specialty; however, when working in academic institutions, faculty development and promotion through the education pathway tends to be based on their teaching knowledge and skills. The aim of this study is to assess psychometric properties of the Medicina Universidad Católica-Radiology 32 items (MEDUC-RX32), an instrument designed to evaluate the performance of postgraduate radiology teachers and to identify the best teachers.

Materials And Methods: Mixed methodology was used, including qualitative and quantitative phases.

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Background: Teaching methods of the undergraduate medical curriculum change considerably from the first years to clinical training. Clinical learning occurs in complex and varied scenarios while caring for patients. Students have to adapt their learning approaches and strategies to be able to integrate theory and clinical practice and become experiential learners.

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Background: Upon the beginning of pre-clerkship years, medical students must develop strategies to learn from experience and to improve their relational skills to communicate with patients.

Aim: To develop an instrument to identify the strategies used by medical students to learn in clinical contexts.

Material And Methods: Using a Delfi technique to reach consensus, a national panel of students and clinical teachers from 15 Chilean medical schools analyzed an 80-item questionnaire built from perceptions of Chilean students and teachers from one medical school.

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Background: Feedback is one of the most important tools to improve teaching in medical education.

Aim: To develop an instrument to assess the performance of clinical postgraduate teachers in medical specialties.

Material And Methods: A qualitative methodology consisting in interviews and focus-groups followed by a quantitative methodology to generate consensus, was employed.

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Health is defined as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely as the absence of disease. Thus, medical practice must not only deal with diagnosis and treatment of pathological conditions and solve physical ailments, but also promote a comprehensive wellbeing state -including the psychological domain- to achieve positive health. Therefore, it is necessary to scientifically identify the psychological and social determinants that contribute more effectively to prevent disease and achieve optimal health.

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Background: The transition to the clinical courses represents a major challenge for medical students who are expected to become experiential learners, able to integrate theory and practice in the context of patient care. There are questions about how students face this challenge.

Aim: To understand and compare the perceptions of students and clinical tutors on how medical students learn during the transition to the clinical levels of the curriculum.

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Background: Training of postgraduate medical specialty program managers (PMSPM) is essential for the proper development of their programs.

Aim: To identify the main training needs of PMSPM at a medical school.

Material And Methods: A mixed-methodology approach was implemented including focus group/interviews and the administration of the Program Managers Training Needs Assessment Questionnaire (PROMANAQ) developed by an expert panel with 59 items (with two sections: relevance/performance-self-perception).

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Background: Most students admitted to medical school are abstract-passive learners. However, as they progress through the program, active learning and concrete interpersonal interactions become crucial for the acquisition of professional competencies. The purpose of this study was to determine if and how medical students' learning styles change during the course of their undergraduate program.

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Background: The modernization of clinical teaching has called for the creation of faculty development programs, and the design of suitable instruments to evaluate clinical teachers' performance.

Aim: To report the development and validation of an instrument in Spanish designed to measure the students' perceptions of their clinical teachers' performance and to provide them with feedback to improve their teaching practices.

Material And Methods: In a process that included the active participation of authorities, professors in charge of courses and internships, clinical teachers, students and medical education experts, we developed a 30-item questionnaire called MEDUC30 to evaluate the performance of clinical teachers by their students.

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Background: The study of predictors of academic performance is relevant for medical education. Most studies of academic performance use global ratings as outcome measure, and do not evaluate the influence of the assessment methods.

Aim: To model by multivariate analysis, the academic performance of medical considering, besides academic and demographic variables, the methods used to assess students' learning and their preferred modes of information processing.

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Background: Despite being among the best academically prepared of the country, many medical students have difficulties to communicate in writing. In 2005, the School of Medicine at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile introduced a writing workshop in the undergraduate curriculum, to enhance the students' writing skills.

Aim: To describe the workshop and its impact on the writing skills of 3 cohorts of students.

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