Solitary Tumefactive Demyelinating Lesions in Children: Clinical and Magnetic Resonance Imaging Features, Pathologic Characteristics, and Outcomes.

Background: Isolated tumefactive demyelinating lesions (≥2 cm) may be difficult to distinguish from contrast-enhancing brain tumors, central nervous system infections, and (rarely) tissue dysgenesis, which may all occur with increased signal on T2-weighted images. Establishing an accurate diagnosis is essential for management, and we delineate our single-center experience.

Methods: We performed a retrospective review of medical records, imaging, and biopsy specimens for patients under 18 years presenting with isolated tumefactive demyelination over a 10-year period.

Preparing Future Doctors for Telemedicine: An Asynchronous Curriculum for Medical Students Implemented During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Problem: The COVID-19 pandemic led to changes in both the clinical environment and medical education. The abrupt shift to telemedicine in March 2020, coupled with the recommendation that medical students pause in-person clinical rotations, highlighted the need for student training in telemedicine.

Approach: To maintain students' ability to participate in clinical encounters and continue learning in the new virtual environment, a telemedicine curriculum for clinical students was rapidly developed at Harvard Medical School (HMS) focusing on the knowledge and skills needed to conduct live video encounters.

Influenza-Associated Neurologic Complications in Hospitalized Children.

Objectives: To define the incidence and characteristics of influenza-associated neurologic complications in a cohort of children hospitalized at a tertiary care pediatric hospital with laboratory-confirmed influenza and to identify associated clinical, epidemiologic, and virologic factors.

Study Design: This was an historical cohort study of children aged 0.5-18.

Twelve tips for clinical teaching with telemedicine visits.

Telemedicine is now an established mode of clinical care for most medical specialties, and clinical teachers must teach and precept learners in this modality. However, faculty need training on how best to teach students when caring for patients via telemedicine. Effectively incorporating learners into telemedicine visits to optimize their education is a critical skill for clinical teachers.

Treatments Administered to the First 9152 Reported Cases of COVID-19: A Systematic Review.

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2/2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has created a global pandemic with no approved treatments or vaccines. Many treatments have already been administered to COVID-19 patients but have not been systematically evaluated. We performed a systematic literature review to identify all treatments reported to be administered to COVID-19 patients and to assess time to clinically meaningful response for treatments with sufficient data.

Twelve tips for providing feedback to peers about their teaching.

When healthcare professionals provide feedback to peers after a teaching observation, there are benefits for both parties. In this article, we outline strategies to use before, during, and after teaching observations to engage in mutually-beneficial conversations that highlight best practices, identify solutions for teaching dilemmas, and initiate teaching relationships. We discuss the importance of choosing words wisely; giving feedback about teaching skills, not the teacher as a person; recognizing how colleagues view their teaching identities; and ensuring peers are emotionally ready for a post-observation conversation.

Peer teaching of the physical exam: a pilot study.

Background: Mastery of the physical exam (PE), and the ability to teach it to peers and medical students, are important milestones for residents (junior doctors); however, several reports indicate that PE skills are in decline. To address this need, we explored the use of peer observation of teaching (POT) as a conceptual framework to develop an innovative approach to PE teaching at the postgraduate medical education level.

Innovation: We designed a PE POT session to be conducted at the patient bedside, and piloted four sessions in April 2014.

The Case-Based Collaborative Learning Peer Observation Worksheet and Compendium: An Evaluation Tool for Flipped Classroom Facilitators.

Introduction: In a flipped classroom, students learn basic concepts before class, allowing them time during class to apply newly gained knowledge to problem sets and cases. Harvard Medical School (HMS) has introduced a form of flipped classroom, called case-based collaborative learning (CBCL), during preclinical curricula. Finding few published resources, the HMS Academy's Peer Observation of Teaching Interest Group developed a guide for observations and feedback to CBCL facilitators.

Retrograde Maculopathy in Patients With Glaucoma.

Purpose: Macular optical coherence tomography (OCT) analysis can be used for quantitative measures of optic nerve atrophy at a location far from the optic nerve head. This recently led to the finding of microcystic macular edema (MME), that is vacuolar inclusions in the macular inner nuclear layer, in some glaucoma patients. The involvement of individual retinal layers is yet unclear in glaucoma.

Blueprint for an Undergraduate Primary Care Curriculum.

In light of the increasing demand for primary care services and the changing scope of health care, it is important to consider how the principles of primary care are taught in medical school. While the majority of schools have increased students' exposure to primary care, they have not developed a standardized primary care curriculum for undergraduate medical education. In 2013, the authors convened a group of educators from primary care internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, and medicine-pediatrics, as well as five medical students to create a blueprint for a primary care curriculum that could be integrated into a longitudinal primary care experience spanning undergraduate medical education and delivered to all students regardless of their eventual career choice.

Unstable oxygen supply and glaucoma.

The pathogenesis of the glaucomatous optic neuropathy (GON) is an ongoing bone of contention. While the role of intraocular pressure (IOP) is well known, it is also clear that a variety of other factors, particularly those of a vascular nature, are involved as well. In contrast to other eye diseases, it is an unstable oxygen supply, as opposed to chronic hypoxia, that contributes to GON.

No difference in genotype frequencies of polymorphisms of the nitric oxide pathway between Caucasian normal and high tension glaucoma patients.

Purpose: Substantial evidence suggests that ocular perfusion is regulated by nitric oxide (NO), and polymorphisms in genes encoding for enzymes involved in NO formation and degradation (endothelial nitric oxide synthase [NOS3] and cytochrome b-235 alpha polypeptide gene [CYBA]) might contribute to vascular dysregulation observed in glaucoma. We therefore assessed the association of glaucoma with polymorphisms of NOS3 and CYBA previously associated with cardiovascular disease. We also compared the distribution of these polymorphisms in patients with high tension glaucoma (HTG) and normal tension glaucoma (NTG) and evaluated its association with vascular dysregulation in a subset of glaucoma patients.

Observation of clinical teaching: interest in a faculty development program for surgeons.

Objectives: Observation of clinical teaching is a powerful tool to develop faculty teaching skills. However, the process of being observed can be intimidating for any educator. Our aim is to assess interest in an Observation of Teaching Program within an academic surgical department.

Evaluating externship programs: impact of program length on clinical productivity.

Community-based dental education programs such as externship programs have become an integral component of dental school education. Qualitative evaluation of externship programs has captured increased confidence, efficiency, skill, and independence among students. To better understand these findings, quantitative evaluation of the externship experience is necessary.

Strategies to create and sustain a diverse faculty and student body at the Boston University School of Dental Medicine.

The challenges and opportunities inherent in creating and sustaining a diverse student body and a diverse faculty, staff, and administration are discussed in the context of the experience of the Boston University School of Dental Medicine. The role of the school's evolution as a learning organization is highlighted as an essential contributing factor to success in minority recruitment and retention efforts.

Creating a school without walls and building a learning organization: a case study.

Abstract: This article describes the genesis of a "school without walls" philosophy and the implementation of learning organization principles at Boston University School of Dental Medicine (BUSDM). In Peter Senge's five-discipline approach to organizational learning, a learning organization is defined as "an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future." It is an organization that changes and innovates based on continuous learning, which in BUSDM's case constituted learning from industry trends, patients, students, staff, faculty, and other key stakeholders.

Preventability of emergent hospital readmission.

To determine whether emergent readmissions within 30 days of discharge are potentially preventable, we prospectively studied all readmissions to the medical service of a university teaching hospital during a 4-month period. The 327 readmissions, including 42 patients who were readmitted more than once during the study period, accounted for 12% of medical admissions. Nearly 75% of readmissions were due to previously diagnosed medical conditions; complications of drugs or therapeutic procedures caused 29%, and patient compliance contributed to 11%.

Age-related differences in electric shock detection and escape thresholds in Sprague-Dawley albino rats.

For both male and female Sprague-Dawley albino rats, shock detection thresholds decreased as a function of age over a range of 90 to 660 days of age. Shock escape thresholds also were found to vary inversely with age. The findings are discussed in light of previous shock threshold experiments and in terms of implications for studies of age-related learning changes.