Disadvantage and the 'capacity to aspire' to medical school.

Objectives: This study was designed to elucidate why students from backgrounds of lower socio-economic status (SES) and who may be first in their family (FIF) to enter university continue to be under-represented in medical schools.

Methods: Academically able high school students (n = 33) from a range of socio-economic backgrounds participated in focus groups. School careers advisors (n = 5) were interviewed.

A systematic approach to workplace-based assessment for international medical graduates.

Objectives: To test whether a summative workplace-based assessment (WBA) is feasible and acceptable for international medical graduates (IMGs).

Design, Setting And Participants: A 6-month trial with 27 IMGs from teaching hospitals in Newcastle, Australia. IMGs were assessed by 65 trained assessors from different disciplines, using blueprinted, preset criteria.

Progesterone receptor isoform expression in the guinea pig myometrium from normal and growth restricted pregnancies.

Despite the increased incidence of preterm labor with intrauterine growth restriction, the mechanisms of the relationship are unclear. In women, functional progesterone withdrawal mediated by changing myometrial progesterone receptor (PR) expression is linked to labor. The objectives of this study were to assess myometrial PR isoform abundance in guinea pig pregnancies associated with growth restriction, induced by disruption of placental blood supply, and in nongravid uterine horns during late gestation and with labor.

Randomised comparative trial of thermal balloon ablation and levonorgestrel intrauterine system in patients with idiopathic menorrhagia.

Aims: To compare the effectiveness of thermal balloon ablation (TBA) and levonorgestrel intrauterine system (LNG-IUS) in the management of idiopathic menorrhagia and changes in pictorial blood loss assessment chart (PBAC) scores in patients who had failed on oral medical treatment.

Methods: Phase III, single-centre, open randomised controlled trial. Following full screening and evaluation of 104 women, 33 were randomised to TBA and 33 to LNG-IUS.

Infrared microscopy of epithelial cancer cells in whole tissues and in tissue culture, using synchrotron radiation.

Oral epithelial tumour tissue, and cultured cervical epithelial carcinoma cells have been studied using synchrotron infrared microspectroscopy. Mid infrared absorption spectra collected at cellular spatial resolution from within oral tumours were found to be sufficiently distinct, when analysed by principal component analysis, to distinguish between three different cell types within the tumour. The resulting data were sufficiently robust to allow correct classification of spectra from cells within subsequent tissue samples.