A theory of multiformat communication: mechanisms, dynamics, and strategies.

Unlabelled: Extant communication theories predate the explosion of digital formats and technological advances such as virtual reality, which likely explains their predominant focus on traditional and format-level (e.g., face-to-face, email) rather than digital or characteristic-level (e.

Risk Factors for Kidney Dysfunction With the Use of Gentamicin in Open Fracture Antibiotic Treatment.

Objectives: To evaluate all patients who received gentamicin for open fracture treatment and determine the incidence of, and risk factors for, kidney injury in this population.

Design: Retrospective, case control.

Setting: Single institution; Level 1 trauma center.

The impact of a program for systematically recognizing and rewarding academic performance.

Purpose: To describe an academic performance incentive system (APIS) and faculty perception of it; explore the impacts of incentive level, faculty rank, clinical practice volume, and administrative responsibility on academic productivity; and describe the APIS's use in maintaining congruence between department mission and activities.

Method: A list of teaching, research, and academic service activities was developed, which full-time faculty (n = 33) used to report activities. Clinical faculty members received incentive income based on credits earned.

Evaluation of students' physical examination skills during their surgery clerkship.

Background: Faculty often presume that students possess adequate physical examination skills upon graduation. Yet assessments of their performance with these skills often reveal deficiencies. This study was designed to determine if students' physical examination skills improved during their clerkship year.

Description and evaluation of the Surgeons as Educators course.

Background: Since 1993, the American College of Surgeons has sponsored an annual 6-day course entitled the Surgeons as Educators. The course was designed to provide academic surgeons with the knowledge and skills necessary to enhance the surgical education curriculum, teaching strategies, educational program administration, and performance evaluation. This article describes the development, implementation, and effect of the course on the classes graduating in 1993 and 1994.

Topics and skills in orthopaedics for the general practitioner.

We conducted a survey to identify topics and skills in orthopaedics that should be included in a curriculum for the education of general practitioners. Forty-one program chairpersons responded to a questionnaire that asked respondents to rate the importance of each of eighty topics or skills related to orthopaedic surgery. The questionnaires were analyzed with use of descriptive statistics.

Description and results of a needs assessment in preparation for the "Surgeons as educators" course.

Background: In August 1993 the American College of Surgeons sponsored a course entitled "Surgeons as Educators" (SAE) aimed at equipping academic surgeons with the knowledge and skills necessary to enhance surgical education administration, curriculum, teaching, and evaluation.

Methods: The instructional design model used to construct the course called for a formal needs assessment to determine the importance, current skill level, and priority of what needed to be learned to be an effective educator. The needs assessment was accomplished using a job analysis and questionnaire approach.

Gastroesophageal physiology after stapled gastroesophagostomy in dogs.

A stapled vertical gastroesophagostomy (VGE) has been proposed for benign esophageal stricture. The VGE involves performing an anastomosis using a linear cutting stapler inserted via a gastrotomy (one limb in the esophagus, the other in the proximal fundus). In phase I of the study, a 50-mm VGE was performed in 13 dogs; 7 received an additional fundoplication.

An evaluation of surgery departments in community-based medical schools.

Since 1960, most newer medical schools have been community-based and have used existing community hospitals and a large number of volunteer faculty. As these schools have evolved, many have developed more traditional characteristics. To assess the positive and negative features of these new schools, chairs of departments of surgery from 21 community-based medical schools and 17 traditional schools were surveyed to acquire information on policies and practices related to faculty development, undergraduate and graduate education, hospital relationships, clinical activities, research, and relationships with community physicians.

Reliability of different grading systems used in evaluating surgical students.

Inter-rater agreement in assigning grades using five different grading systems was determined. The performance of 16 students in a surgery clerkship was rated by 21 faculty raters using a pass-fail grading system, a pass-fail-honors system, a letter grade system, a number grade scale from 1 to 10, and a number grade scale from 1 to 100. Inter-rater agreement coefficients were used to assess relative and absolute reliabilities, respectively.

The practicing doctor's perspective on the surgical curriculum.

The purpose of this study was to identify deficiencies of surgical clerkship and residency curricula in the training of family physicians. Responses to a survey from 202 practicing family practitioners were analyzed. Orthopedics, otolaryngology, urology, neurosurgery, and cardiovascular surgery were surgical specialty areas where more than 40 percent of the respondents thought they had spent too little time.

Improved prediction of success in surgical clerkship through measures of information processing.

A new system for predicting success of surgical student performance has been developed. A test of surgical knowledge, with questions given in the form of analogies, was administered to 16 students in their fourth week of clerkship. While solving test items, students' eye movements and fixations were tracked.

Vascular surgery in the United States. Report of the Joint Society for Vascular Surgery--International Society for Cardiovascular Surgery Committee on Vascular Surgical Manpower.

The Joint Committee on Vascular Surgical Manpower was established in 1985 by the Society for Vascular Surgery and the North American Chapter of the International Society for Cardiovascular Surgery. It was charged to provide recommendations regarding vascular surgical manpower requirements for the next 15 years. Analysis of National Center for Health Statistics vascular operative rate data and 1690 questionnaire responses from vascular surgeons documented that vascular surgeons performed 235,400 (41%) of the total of 571,000 vascular operations undertaken in 1985.

Effect of sleep deprivation on the performance of surgical residents.

Surgical residents were tested under sleep-deprived and nonsleep-deprived conditions. Three performance domains were tested: factual recall, the ability to concentrate, and manual dexterity. Sleep deprivation was defined as less than 3 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period.

A rationale for the teaching of statistics to surgical residents.

The two aims of this study were to investigate the use of statistics in the surgical literature and to assess the degree of statistical comprehension possessed by graduating surgical residents. Two hundred journal articles were randomly selected from the 1984 issues of four surgical journals and were reviewed for statistical content. A classification of statistical techniques was created.

Late development of metachronous colorectal cancer.

The incidence of metachronous colorectal cancer has been reported to be 1 to 5 percent, with most of the cases being discovered within ten years of the initial cancer. A retrospective review of all colorectal cancer patients was conducted at the Southern Illinois University Affiliated Hospitals to determine the incidence of metachronous colorectal cancer at the authors' institution. In this study, a metachronous cancer was defined as a second colorectal primary occurring at least three years following discovery of the initial lesion.

Spontaneous expulsion of lipoma per rectum occurring with colonic intussusception.

The spontaneous expulsion of lipoma per rectum is an extremely rare phenomenon. The present case report describes this event in a patient with lower abdominal pain and bleeding per rectum leading to exploratory laparotomy. At surgery, a large intussuscepting ulcerated submucosal lipoma remnant was identified in the transverse colon.

Content knowledge and problem-solving skill in reviewing medical charts.

Skills in reviewing medical charts have been demonstrated components of clinical competence related to knowledge base, level of clinical experience, and basic observational skills. A study of the generalizability of performance on chart review exercises, which controlled for knowledge in the content area, was undertaken to determine their potential in evaluating students' problem-solving ability. Results of the study indicate that the case specificity which has characterized simulated problem-solving tasks is largely case, rather than content, specificity: correlations between scores on single charts demonstrated no consistent relationships for measures of proficiency, efficiency, and diagnostic accuracy.

Identification and consequences of a guanosine-15 to adenosine-15 change in the yeast mitochondrial tRNASerUCX gene.

We have characterized a mutation affecting the yeast mitochondrial tRNASerUCX. The mutation is a single nucleotide substitution located within the structural portion of the tRNASerUCX gene which causes the strain to be respiratory deficient. The substitution is a G leads to A transition located in the dihydrouridine arm.