Neuro- and cognitive diversity in surgery and allied professions: celebrating difference and optimising performance.

Neurotypicality (NT) and neurodiversity (ND) are two terms used to describe separate ways of thinking and experiencing the world. The prevalence of ND within surgery and allied professions is poorly studied or understood but is likely to be significant and increasing. If our aim is to be truly inclusive, ND's effects on teams and our willingness and ability to adapt adequately must improve.

The Leaning Tower of Pasta: Lessons in Team Performance and Creativity From a Core Surgical Training Boot Camp Design Challenge.

Aims: Unity of effort is an important component of strategic leadership and management theory associated with Core Surgical Training (CST) outcome. The aim was to determine the impact of team diversity on task completion: a creative design challenge, during CST Boot camp.

Methods: Attendees (n = 44) at a single Statutory Education Body's CST Boot camp were stratified into teams related to specialty theme, and set a design challenge as described by Peter Skillman, to build the tallest free-standing tower out of spaghetti (20 pieces), tape (1 m), and string (1 m), with a marshmallow on top in 18 minutes.

Strategic organisational skills predict surgical training success.

Introduction: Surgical career progression is determined by examination success and Annual Review of Competence Progression (ARCP) outcome, yet data on organisational skills are sparse. This study aimed to determine whether organisational skills related to Core Surgical Training (CST) outcome. Primary outcome measures include operative experience, publications, examination success (Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons or the Diploma in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (MRCS/DO-HNS)) and ARCP outcome.

Biosensors, Biomarkers and Biometrics: a Bootcamp Perspective.

Introduction: Competitive physical performance is routinely monitored by wearable technology (biosensors), yet professional healthcare is not, despite high prevalence of trainee stress and burnout, notwithstanding the corresponding risk to patient safety. This study aimed to document the physiological stress response of UK Core Surgical Trainees (CSTs) during simulation training.

Methods: CSTs (n=20, 10 male) were fitted with Vital Scout Wellness Monitors (VivaLNK, Campbell, California, USA) for an intensive 3-day training bootcamp.

Stress and Burnout in Training; Requiem for the Surgical Dream.

Objective: Burnout among trainee doctors is common with as many as two-thirds reporting poor health. This study aimed to assess burnout in a cohort of UK core and higher general surgical trainees.

Design: The Maslach Burnout Inventory for Medical Personnel was distributed to 158 surgical trainees to evaluate emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and personal accomplishment (PA).

Pancreas Volume Declines During the First Year After Diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes and Exhibits Altered Diffusion at Disease Onset.

Objective: This study investigated the temporal dynamics of pancreas volume and microstructure in children and adolescents with recent-onset type 1 diabetes (T1D) and individuals without diabetes, including a subset expressing autoantibodies associated with the early stages of T1D.

Research Design And Methods: MRI was performed in individuals with recent-onset stage 3 T1D ( = 51; median age 13 years) within 100 days after diagnosis (mean 67 days), 6 months, and 1 year postdiagnosis. Longitudinal MRI measurements were also made in similarly aged control participants ( = 57) and in autoantibody-positive individuals without diabetes ( = 20).

Transmissibility of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in remote and isolated Canadian communities: a modelling study.

Objectives: During the first wave of the 2009 influenza pH1N1, disease burden was distributed in a geographically heterogeneous fashion. It was particularly high in some remote and isolated Canadian communities when compared with urban centres. We sought to estimate the transmissibility (the basic reproduction number) of pH1N1 strain in some remote and isolated Canadian communities.

Effect of pathogen-resistant vectors on the transmission dynamics of a vector-borne disease.

A model is introduced for the transmission dynamics of a vector-borne disease with two vector strains, one wild and one pathogen-resistant; resistance comes at the cost of reduced reproductive fitness. The model, which assumes that vector reproduction can lead to the transmission or loss of resistance (reversion), is analyzed in a particular case with specified forms for the birth and force of infection functions. The vector component can have, in the absence of disease, a coexistence equilibrium where both strains survive.

The treatment of disc-herniation-induced sciatica with infliximab: one-year follow-up results of FIRST II, a randomized controlled trial.

Study Design: A randomized controlled trial.

Objectives: To evaluate the long-term efficacy of infliximab, a monoclonal antibody against tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), in patients with acute/subacute sciatica secondary to herniated disc.

Summary Of Background Data: The results of experimental studies and our open-label trial support the use of infliximab in sciatica.

Modelling strategies for controlling SARS outbreaks.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a new, highly contagious, viral disease, emerged in China late in 2002 and quickly spread to 32 countries and regions causing in excess of 774 deaths and 8098 infections worldwide. In the absence of a rapid diagnostic test, therapy or vaccine, isolation of individuals diagnosed with SARS and quarantine of individuals feared exposed to SARS virus were used to control the spread of infection. We examine mathematically the impact of isolation and quarantine on the control of SARS during the outbreaks in Toronto, Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing using a deterministic model that closely mimics the data for cumulative infected cases and SARS-related deaths in the first three regions but not in Beijing until mid-April, when China started to report data more accurately.

Gutta-percha obturation of lateral grooves and depressions.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the movement of gutta-percha into lateral grooves and depressions in the apical 7 mm of a root canal by using the System B Heat Source for the continuous wave of condensation and the Obtura II for the backfill. A split-tooth model was constructed with lateral grooves and dentin depressions prepared at 1, 3, 5, and 7 mm from working length (WL). The study included three experimental groups with 10 obturations in each group: group A-System B Fine heat plugger used at 5 mm from WL; group B-System B Fine heat plugger used at 4 mm from WL; and group C-System B Fine heat plugger used at 3 mm from WL.