Effect of a Mandatory Third-Year Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment Course on Student Attitudes.

Context: Despite interest by osteopathic medical students in learning and incorporating osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) techniques into their future practices, most students indicate that OMT is rarely or never taught during many clinical rotations.

Objective: To determine whether a mandatory OMT course taken during the third year of medical school would influence students' exposure to OMT, confidence in OMT, intent to continue developing OMT skills, and plan to provide OMT as practicing physicians.

Methods: A mandatory pilot OMT course was implemented in the 2014 third-year curriculum.

Predictive relationship of osteopathic manual medicine grades and COMLEX-USA Level 1 total scores and osteopathic principles and practice subscores.

Context: Osteopathic manual medicine (OMM) encompasses hands-on diagnosis and treatment as part of patient care. The area of osteopathic principles and practice (OPP) is considered a core competency for students and practitioners of this medical tradition. The Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination-USA (COMLEX-USA) is a useful tool for assessing candidates' competency.

Opioid consumption following outpatient upper extremity surgery.

Purpose: After elective outpatient upper extremity surgery, patients' need for opioid analgesic medication may be considerably less than typically dispensed. Our goal for this study was to evaluate pain control and quantify the amount of leftover pain medication.

Methods: We recruited patients scheduled for elective outpatient upper extremity surgery, who met the inclusion criteria, to participate in a phone interview 7 to 14 days after surgery.

A prematriculation intervention to improve the adjustment of students to medical school.

Background And Purpose: The transition from a baccalaureate program to a medical curriculum can be a difficult period for some students. Our study asked whether providing students with review materials and a means of assessing their degree of preparedness prior to matriculation influenced actual and perceived performance in 1st-year basic science courses.

Methods: Didactic review materials in basic science subjects encountered in the 1st year were made available to prematriculants online.

Flexner revisited: the role and value of the basic sciences in medical education.

A central tenet of Flexner's report was the fundamental role of science in medical education. Today, there is tension between the time needed to teach an ever-expanding knowledge base in science and the time needed for increased instruction in clinical application and in the behavioral, ethical, and managerial knowledge and skills needed to prepare for clinical experiences. One result has been at least a perceived reduction in time and focus on the foundational sciences.

Acute stroke care in a neurologically underserved state: lessons learned from the Iowa Stroke Survey.

Prior studies have suggested that stroke care is more fragmented in rural or neurologically underserved areas. The purpose of this study was to determine the availability of diagnostic and treatment services for acute stroke care in Iowa and to identify factors influencing care. Each of the 118 facilities in Iowa with emergency departments was surveyed by telephone.

Scaphoid excision and limited wrist fusion: a comparison of K-wire and circular plate fixation.

The purpose of this study was to compare the clinical outcome, union rate, and complications of a consecutive series of Scaphoid excision and limited wrist arthrodesis performed by a single surgeon using distal radius bone graft and K-wires or circular plate fixation. A sequential series of ten patients(11 wrists) who were stabilized with temporary K-wires were compared to 11 patients (11 wrists) who were stabilized with a circular plate. Minimum follow-up was 1 year.

Tissue plasminogen activator use: evaluation and initial management of ischemic stroke from an Iowa hospital perspective.

Despite its efficacy for acute ischemic stroke, tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) is reported as used in less than 5% of patients with stroke. This study assessed the rate of intravenous rt-PA use in a community hospital and identified factors influencing rt-PA use. A retrospective chart review revealed a total of 464 patients presenting to the emergency department with a primary diagnosis of stroke from January 2000 through June 2002.

A departmental outcome assessment to evaluate educational achievement.

Defining and addressing outcome objectives is a crucial process in medical science and education. One outcome objective of the Physiology/ Pharmacology Department at Des Moines University is to prepare students to successfully complete Part I of the national licensure examination. This study assesses the effectiveness of the departmental curriculum in helping the students achieve success on Part I of the licensure examination.

Aging, peripheral nerve injury and nociception: effects of the antioxidant 16-desmethyltirilazad.

Peripheral neuropathies increase with aging, and reactive oxygen species contribute to the symptomatology of neuropathic pain disorders. In this study, we examined age-related differences in the therapeutic efficacy of pre- or post-treatments of the amino-steroidal antioxidant 16-desmethyltirilazad in delaying the onset and/or limiting the duration of tactile-evoked allodynia following the induction of peripheral mononeuropathies in rats. Two different models of nerve injury were utilized to induce allodynia in young and aged rats: (1) the chronic constriction injury (CCI) model of Bennett and Xie [Bennett GJ, Xie Y-K.