Measurement and modelling the sensitivity of tetrapolar transfer impedance measurements.

Finite element method (FEM) modelling of a small disk in a homogeneous saline medium showed that the sensitivity distribution for tetrapolar transfer impedance measurements was dependant on the ratio, σdisk/σsaline, and not absolute conductivity values. In addition, the amplitude of the negative sensitivity regions between the drive and receive electrodes decreased non-linearly with σdisk/σsaline for σdisk/σsaline < 1, eventually becoming zero. This non-linear behaviour determined the limit of the assumption of a small change in conductivity in Geselowitz's lead theorem with 0.

A survey of the teaching and assessment of undergraduate psychiatry in the medical schools of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Background: Individual medical schools currently decide on the content and delivery of their undergraduate psychiatry curriculum, so there is probably significant variation in the students' experience of the speciality during the medical course and in the extent to which they develop the appropriate skills and knowledge base.

Aim: To ascertain how the teaching of undergraduate psychiatry differs across UK and Irish medical schools.

Methods: The educational lead for psychiatry at each medical school in the United Kingdom and Ireland completed a questionnaire providing factual information on the teaching structure, contents and assessment methods in their current psychiatry curriculum.

Service user perspectives about their roles in undergraduate medical training about mental health.

Background: Current policy states that 'service users and carers should be involved in planning, providing and evaluating training for all health care professionals. We wished to explore service users' views regarding undergraduate psychiatry.

Aims: We aimed to explore user perspectives on the specific role of service users in the delivery of teaching psychiatry.

Predictors of online information seeking by international students when disaster strikes their countries.

This study explores factors influencing international students' likelihood of using the Internet to seek disaster-related information should a disaster affect their countries. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in two universities in America between August 1 and September 30, 2005. Two hundred twenty-nine (n = 229) students completed the self-administered questionnaires.

Enforcement of tobacco purchase, use, and possession laws in four Kentucky communities.

This case study examined the implementation and enforcement of the purchase, use, and possession (PUP) laws for tobacco in four Kentucky communities. Purposive and snowball sampling were used to identify 44 adult key informants. Qualitative, semistructured phone interviews assessed knowledge about PUP laws, enforcement, effects of the laws on teen tobacco use, and perceptions about the laws.

Current issues in undergraduate psychiatry education: the findings of a qualitative study.

Background: Recruitment into psychiatry is correlated with the quality of undergraduate medical school teaching programmes and with a commitment of major resources to teaching students. There is an extensive literature related to attitudes towards psychiatry but less on the learning and teaching of psychiatry.

Aims: To identify the current issues in undergraduate psychiatric education in the UK for lead teachers at UK medical schools.

Modernising Medical Careers foundation programme curriculum competencies: will all rotations allow the necessary skills to be acquired? The consultants' predictions.

The new UK Foundation Programme is competency based, with a trainee's progression dependent on achieving and demonstrating a range of competencies. However, we do not know whether all rotations, comprising different combinations of specialties, will enable the foundation programme trainees to acquire these competencies. Questionnaires were sent to 100 consultants from a range of specialties asking them to predict if a foundation year 1 or foundation year 2 doctor could acquire each competency when working in the consultant's specialty.

Class half-empty? Pre-registration house officer attendance at weekly teaching sessions: implications for delivering the new Foundation Programme curriculum.

This study aimed to explore patterns of attendance at classroom-based, taught education programmes for pre-registration house officers (PRHOs) and to identify reasons for non-attendance, and to consider implications for Foundation Programme curriculum delivery and suggest strategies for improving delivery. We analysed registers of attendance for education sessions for 3 local teaching hospitals in the Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland (LNR) Healthcare Workforce Deanery, along with PRHO exit questionnaire returns (from 2001 to 2005). Despite a trend for attendance to fall slightly over the course of a rotation, attendance rates have, in general, remained relatively stable at around two-thirds.

Susceptibility to moxifloxacin of pneumococci isolated in English hospitals participating in the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (EARSS) in 2003.

Susceptibility to moxifloxacin, penicillin and erythromycin was determined for 592 invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae collected from 20 English hospitals participating in the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (EARSS) during 2003. Resistance to moxifloxacin, penicillin and erythromycin was observed in 0.8%, 5.

Sharing learning through narrative communication.

This paper examines key aspects of the learning experiences of ten speech and language therapy (SLT) students on clinical placements, as revealed by an analysis of 102 narrative accounts. We argue that when students on placements tell stories of their learning experiences the process of recounting them can help them to reflect on and consolidate what they have learned and to have this learning validated by peer, clinician or tutor audiences. Thus, sharing learning through narrative communication is itself further learning from the original experience.