Lifestyle changes in women at genetic risk of breast cancer: an observational study.

Background: Lifestyle influences breast cancer risk. Women at increased familial risk may benefit from modifying behaviour, but it is not known to what extent they do so.

Purpose: This study aims to measure changes that UK (Scottish) women make in response to increased familial risk of breast cancer and attitudes to a risk-reduction trial.

Warfarin dose assessment every 4 weeks versus every 12 weeks in patients with stable international normalized ratios: a randomized trial.

Background: Guidelines recommend that patients receiving warfarin undergo international normalized ratio (INR) monitoring every 4 weeks.

Objective: To investigate whether assessment of warfarin dosing every 12 weeks is as safe as assessment every 4 weeks.

Design: Noninferiority randomized trial.

Screening for overweight and diabetes in rural Hispanic and Caucasian fifth-grade children.

Fifth-grade children were screened for overweight and diabetes and comparisons between Hispanic and Caucasian children in this rural setting are presented. Hispanic children had a significantly higher mean Body Mass Index percentile and waist circumference than Caucasians but blood glucose differences were not significant. Twenty-six percent of all children had slightly elevated glucose levels (100-125 mg per dL) and 2% had elevated levels (equal to or greater than 126 mg per dL) but none of the children were found to have diabetes.

The Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling expedition: northwest Atlantic through eastern tropical Pacific.

The world's oceans contain a complex mixture of micro-organisms that are for the most part, uncharacterized both genetically and biochemically. We report here a metagenomic study of the marine planktonic microbiota in which surface (mostly marine) water samples were analyzed as part of the Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling expedition. These samples, collected across a several-thousand km transect from the North Atlantic through the Panama Canal and ending in the South Pacific yielded an extensive dataset consisting of 7.

Can a dedicated teaching and learning environment in ambulatory care improve the acquisition of learning outcomes?

Current trends in undergraduate medical education are moving away from traditional ward based learning to ambulatory care teaching. We wanted to know whether students gain more learning outcomes from a dedicated ambulatory teaching environment than a conventional outpatient clinic. A comparative evaluation study using a semi-structured student questionnaire and a structured patient questionnaire was performed.

How we developed a core curriculum in clinical skills.

This article describes the process that the authors have used in the Dundee Clinical Skills Centre to develop and maintain the core curriculum for the second-year programme in clinical skills. The programme provides medical students with basic, generic skills required in clinical medicine.