Caregivers' treatment-seeking behaviors and predictors of whether a child received an appropriate antimalarial treatment: a household survey in rural Uganda.

Background: This study responds to a rural community's concern that, despite national initiatives, malaria management in young children falls short of national guidelines in their district. This study aimed to: (1) describe caregivers' treatment-seeking behaviors in the rural district of Butaleja, (2) estimate the percentage of children who received an appropriate antimalarial, and (3) determine factors that maximized the likelihood of receiving an appropriate antimalarial. Appropriate antimalarial in this study is defined as having received only the Uganda's age-specific first-line malaria treatment for uncomplicated and severe malaria during the course of the febrile illness.

Caregivers' treatment-seeking behaviors and practices in Uganda-A systematic review (Part II).

Prompt treatment with artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs) remains the cornerstone for managing uncomplicated malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum. In accordance with global initiatives to curb malaria, the Ugandan government pledged to increase the proportion of children under five to receive the first-line antimalarial treatment to 85% by 2010. To achieve this, Uganda has implemented several initiatives to improve prompt access to ACTs.

Narrative review of current context of malaria and management strategies in Uganda (Part I).

In accordance with international targets, the Uganda National Malaria Control Strategic Plan established specific targets to be achieved by 2010. For children under five, this included increasing the number of children sleeping under mosquito nets and those receiving a first-line antimalarial to 85%, and decreasing case fatality to 2%. This narrative review offers contextual information relevant to malaria management in Uganda since the advent of artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) as first-line antimalarial treatment in 2004.

A demonstration study comparing "role-emergent" versus "role-established" pharmacy clinical placement experiences in long-term care facilities.

Background: Increasing challenges to recruit hospital sites with full-time on-site pharmacy preceptors for institutional-based Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPE) has made it necessary to consider alternate experiential models. Sites with on-site discipline specific preceptors to supervise students have typically been referred to in the literature as "role-established" sites. In British Columbia, long-term care (LTC) facilities offered a unique opportunity to address placement capacity issues.

Promoting direct patient care services at community pharmacies through advanced pharmacy practice experiences.

Objectives: To determine the relative benefits of three different models of advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) in successfully integrating the delivery of direct patient care into students' final year community pharmacy clerkships.

Methods: All fourth-year pharmacy students at the University of British Columbia were divided into one of three study arms for their community APPE: a 2 × 4-week rotation in a traditional format, a 1 × 8-week rotation where their preceptors had experienced a 2-day education course and a 1 × 8-week rotation with both preceptor education plus a 5-day pre-APPE in-store orientation and peer debriefing.

Key Findings: All 123 students conducted patient consultations and documented their care.

Validation of a global assessment of arthroscopic skills in a cadaveric knee model.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether a global assessment of arthroscopic skills was valid for blinded assessment of cadaveric diagnostic knee arthroscopy.

Methods: A global skills assessment for arthroscopy was created using a published theory of the development of expertise. Faculty surgeons, fellows, and residents were consented and enrolled in this institutional review board-approved validation study.

Clinical reasoning in dentistry: a conceptual framework for dental education.

This study presents a conceptual framework for clinical reasoning by dental students. Using a think-aloud method with six vignettes, the researchers interviewed eighteen dental students from two stages of training about oral health-related problems influenced by biopsychosocial factors. Verbatim transcripts of the interviews were analyzed to identify the processes and strategies of clinical reasoning used by the students to produce treatment plans.

Patient satisfaction with pharmaceutical care delivery in community pharmacies.

Background: The purpose of this study was to validate previously published satisfaction scales in larger and more diversified patient populations; to expand the number of community pharmacies represented; to test the robustness of satisfaction measures across a broader demographic spectrum and a variety of health conditions; to confirm the three-factor scale structure; to test the relationships between satisfaction and consultation practices involving pharmacists and pharmacy students; and to examine service gaps and establish plausible norms.

Methods: Patients completed a 15-question survey about their expectations regarding pharmaceutical care-related activities while shopping in any pharmacy and a parallel 15 questions about their experiences while shopping in this particular pharmacy. The survey also collected information regarding pharmaceutical care consultation received by the patients and brief demographic data.

Effects of visible and UV light on the characteristics and properties of crude oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions.

The effects of visible and UV light on the characteristics and properties of Prudhoe Bay (PB) and South Louisiana (SL) emulsions were investigated to better understand the role of sunlight on the fate of spilled crude oils that form emulsions with a dispersant in the aquatic environment. Before irradiation, crude oil emulsions showed the presence of dispersed crude oil micelles in a continuous water phase and crude oil components floating on the surface. The crude oil micelles decreased in size with irradiation, but emulsions retained their high degree of polydispersity.

Guided autobiography's developmental exchange: what's in it for me?

The developmental exchange is a central feature of social development, interpersonal dynamics, situated learning, and personal transformation. It is the enabling process in Guided Autobiography (GAB) settings that promotes the achievement of personal goals and group accomplishments. Nevertheless, these exchanges are embedded in the GAB structures of time, events, participants, themes, perspectives, medium, and quest for relevance.

An online module series to prepare pharmacists to facilitate student engagement in patient-centered care delivery: development and evaluation.

Introduction: Accreditation bodies across North America have adopted revised standards that place increased emphasis on experiential education and preceptors to promote and demonstrate patient-centered, pharmaceutical care practices to students. Since such practices are still evolving, challenges exist in recruiting skilled preceptors who are prepared to provide such opportunities. An online educational module series titled "A Guide to Pharmaceutical Care" (The Guide) was developed and evaluated to facilitate this transition.

"Teaching as a Competency": competencies for medical educators.

Most medical faculty receive little or no training about how to be effective teachers, even when they assume major educational leadership roles. To identify the competencies required of an effective teacher in medical education, the authors developed a comprehensive conceptual model. After conducting a literature search, the authors met at a two-day conference (2006) with 16 medical and nonmedical educators from 10 different U.

Biosynthesis of iron and silver nanoparticles at room temperature using aqueous sorghum bran extracts.

Iron and silver nanoparticles were synthesized using a rapid, single step, and completely green biosynthetic method employing aqueous sorghum extracts as both the reducing and capping agent. Silver ions were rapidly reduced by the aqueous sorghum bran extracts, leading to the formation of highly crystalline silver nanoparticles with an average diameter of 10 nm. The diffraction peaks were indexed to the face-centered cubic (fcc) phase of silver.

Comparison of patients' expectations and experiences at traditional pharmacies and pharmacies offering enhanced advanced pharmacy practice experiences.

Objectives: To compare patients' expectations and experiences at pharmacies offering traditional APPE learning opportunities with those offering enhanced APPEs that incorporate pharmaceutical care activities.

Methods: A survey of anchored measures of patient satisfaction was conducted in 2 groups of APPE- affiliated community pharmacies: those participating in an enhanced APPE model versus those participating in the traditional model. The enhanced intervention included preceptor training, a comprehensive student orientation, and an extended experience at a single pharmacy rather than the traditional 2 x 4-week experience at different pharmacies.

Do spouses know how much fatigue, pain, and physical limitation their partners with rheumatoid arthritis experience? Implications for social support.

Objective: To determine whether perceptions of clinical manifestations (fatigue, pain, and physical limitation) of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) differ between spouses and their partners with RA, and to determine whether the differences are associated with the perception of beneficial and problematic spousal social support.

Methods: English-speaking adults with RA of ≥ 6 months' duration and their spouses (n = 222 couples) completed standardized questionnaires for fatigue, pain, physical limitation, beneficial spousal support, and problematic spousal support. Spouses completed questionnaires based on their perception of their partner with RA.

High-fidelity simulation in anesthesiology training: a survey of Canadian anesthesiology residents' simulator experience.

Purpose: The objective of this survey was to explore Canadian anesthesiology residents' educational experience with high-fidelity simulation and to improve understanding of the factors perceived to have either a positive or a negative effect on residents' learning.

Methods: In 2008, all Canadian anesthesiology residents (n = 599) were invited to complete a ten-minute anonymous online survey. Survey questions were derived from two sources, a literature search of MEDLINE (1966 to present), EMBASE (1980 to present), and the Cochrane and Campbell collaboration libraries and the experience of 25 pilot residents and the lead author.

Developing anchored measures of patient satisfaction with pharmaceutical care delivery: Experiences versus expectations.

Background: A pilot study was undertaken to evaluate patients' satisfaction with pharmaceutical care (PC) activities delivered at community pharmacies. The objectives of the study were to: (1) operationalize patient satisfaction in terms of the advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) PC activities, (2) conduct psychometric analysis of the satisfaction instrument, and (3) assess the sensitivity of the instrument to detect any differences that may exist between what patients expect to receive versus what is actually experienced.

Methods: Pharmacies affiliated with two national chains were recruited to participate.

Validation of a survey instrument to evaluate students' learning during community-based advanced pharmacy practice experiences.

Objective: To develop and validate a preceptor/student self-report survey instrument to distinguish between different advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) models based on pharmaceutical care competencies.

Methods: The survey instrument's psychometric properties and differential impacts of 3 community-based APPE models were evaluated retrospectively.

Results: Five dimensions characterized APPE learning: importance of 14 pharmaceutical care competencies; agreement with pharmaceutical care procedures in practice; gains in perceived pharmaceutical care abilities; and learning climate and preceptor support.

The power of one: looking beyond the teacher in clinical instruction.

Background: Research on clinical teaching in medicine tends to focus on preceptors and senior attending physicians as the primary source of learning for medical students. As a result, there is an artificial separation of 'teacher' from context in much of the research on clinical teaching in medicine.

Aims: The central aim of this study was to challenge the taken-for-granted assumption that student learning can be attributed primarily to a preceptor or attending physician on a rotation.

Development of an instrument to assess the impact of an enhanced experiential model on pharmacy students' learning opportunities, skills and attitudes: a retrospective comparative-experimentalist study.

Background: Pharmacy schools across North America have been charged to ensure their students are adequately skilled in the principles and practices of pharmaceutical care. Despite this mandate, a large percentage of students experience insufficient opportunities to practice the activities, tasks and processes essential to pharmaceutical care. The objective of this retrospective study of pharmacy students was to: (1) as "proof of concept", test the overall educational impact of an enhanced advanced pharmacy practice experiential (APPE) model on student competencies; (2) develop an instrument to measure students' and preceptors' experiences; and (3) assess the psychometric properties of the instrument.

Towards a plurality of perspectives for nurse educators.

Most of the literature on teaching within nursing education presents teaching and learning strategies as unproblematic and widely generalized across contexts, content, learners, and educators. We argue that to be truly effective, teaching strategies must be harmonious with instructor's beliefs, intentions, and actions. In this paper, we introduce the notion of a plurality of effective teaching based on five different 'perspectives on teaching'--each composed of different beliefs, intentions, actions, and strategies and illustrated by cases from nursing education.

Confidence in spine training among senior neurosurgical and orthopedic residents.

Study Design: A cross-sectional survey of senior neurosurgical and orthopedic residents.

Objective: To evaluate the confidence of senior orthopedic and neurosurgery residents in performing spinal surgical procedures and their need for further training. The content and exposure to spine training as well as anticipated practice profile were characterized.

Children's perspectives of a pediatric hospice program.

Little attention has been paid to documenting the experiences of children in pediatric palliative care programs, both those who are ill and their siblings. In this evaluation study of Canuck Place, a Canadian, free-standing hospice program, 26 ill children and 41 of their siblings completed mail-out questionnaires. In addition, four ill children and 10 siblings participated in face-to-face interviews.

End-of-life care in a children's hospice program.

A project was completed in 1999 to evaluate the Canuck Place children's hospice program. This article reports only on the end-of-life care component. Results are provided from mail-out surveys with families who required end-of-life care and are supplemented by qualitative data which were collected from interviews with individuals prior to the survey.

The impact on families of respite care in a children's hospice program.

With increasing trends towards home care of children with even the most complex conditions and care requirements, respite becomes critical in improving the quality of life for terminally ill children and their families. This article reports on the respite component of an evaluation project that examined the effect of the Canuck Place children's hospice program on the families it served during its first 30 months of operation. Canuck Place, located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, is the first free-standing children's hospice in North America.