Nursing Management of Hepatic Encephalopathy.

This article provides a background of hepatic encephalopathy, its relation to liver disease as well as its prevalence in the United States. A literature review provides an overview of HE discussing the pathophysiology, evidence-based diagnosis, and grading of the disease severity as well as treatment options and interventions. A large emphasis of the article is placed on nursing's role of identifying and managing hepatic encephalopathy.

Collaborative Testing in Medical Education: Student Perceptions and Long-Term Knowledge Retention.

Collaborative testing blends collaborative learning and assessment, engaging small groups of students in answering exam questions as a team. Previous studies have shown that collaborative testing promotes increased student performance and short-term knowledge retention over individual testing alone. In this mixed-methods study, we examined the effects of collaborative testing on preclinical medical students' long-term retention of basic science knowledge, as well as students' approaches and perceptions of collaborative testing.

Learning by doing: construction and manipulation of a skeletal muscle model during lecture.

Active learning, "learning by doing," enhances student performance on examinations and improves student retention of course content. Active learning also provides inquiry-based, collaborative, and problem-solving activities that promote curiosity, skepticism, objectivity, and the use of scientific reasoning. To incorporate active learning into our undergraduate anatomy and physiology course of 70 nursing students, students constructed working physical models of skeletal muscle during the scheduled class time.