Publications by authors named "Julie Brennan"

"Lifestyle medicine (LM) is an evidence-based therapeutic intervention delivered by clinicians trained and certified in this specialty to prevent, treat, and often reverse chronic disease". Eighty percent of the conditions primary care physicians routinely encounter in their offices, e.g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Mitigating the stress of graduate medical education has been the focus of residency leadership in the United States. This study examined family medicine (FM) resident and program director (PD) satisfaction with current wellness curricula, including perceptions of availability of resources and emphasis on well-being.

Methods: The Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance administered online surveys to PDs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, US-based FM residencies, and resident American Academy of Family Physicians members from April to May 2021.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic obliged the field of graduate medical education to pivot from in-person to virtual residency interviews in 2020. The decreased travel and financial barriers of this format could potentially lead to greater diversity and equity in the primary care workforce. We aimed to evaluate changes in applicant pools from in-person to virtual interviewing cycles.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objectives: Residency program directors (PDs) are tasked with supporting resident well-being, and a 2018-2019 CERA survey found PDs to be generally satisfied with residency wellness curricula. However, less is known about graduate medical education wellness programming following the unprecedented social and public health stressors of 2020. This study aimed to evaluate PDs' satisfaction with wellness programming and perceived changes in wellness program implementation in the context of these factors.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objectives: Many residency programs are developing resident wellness curricula to improve resident well-being and to meet Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education guidelines. However, there is limited guidance on preferred curricular components and implementation. We sought to identify how specific driving factors (eg, having an identified wellness champion with a budget and protected time to develop wellness programs) impact implementation of essential elements of a resident wellness curriculum.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objectives: The Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors (AFMRD) Physician Wellness Task Force released a comprehensive Well-Being Action Plan as a guide to help programs create a culture of wellness. The plan, however, does not offer a recommendation as to which elements may be most important, least resource intensive, or most feasible. This study sought to identify the most essential components of the AFMRD's Well-Being Action Plan, as rated by expert panelists using a modified Delphi technique.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Transition from the medical school classroom to the clinical training years requires students to adapt in many ways.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Multidisciplinary focus group review of current triage practice identified gaps in identification of potentially infectious diseases. Modifications were made to triage and nursing assessment forms that were easy to maneuver, rapidly modifiable, and provided documentation-based decision support to expedite infection prevention measures. Development of a decision support infectious disease risk screening tool enhances outbreak preparedness, occupational safety, and response.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Approximately 10 % of first year medical students have clinically relevant anxiety or depression which may affect academic success and quality of life. This study tested the effects of a stress management intervention on indicators of anxiety, depression and self-efficacy in self-selected first year medical students. Forty two medical students volunteered to participate and provided informed consent.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In the United States, the health of a community falls on a continuum ranging from healthy to unhealthy and fluctuates based on several variables. Research policy and public health practice literature report substantial disparities in life expectancy, morbidity, risk factors, and quality of life, as well as persistence of these disparities among segments of the population. One such way to close this gap is to streamline medical education to better prepare our future physicians for our patients in underserved communities.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Family medicine residents are at risk for burnout due to extended work hours, lack of control over their work schedule, and challenging work situations and environments. Building resiliency can prevent burnout and may improve a resident's quality of life and health behavior. This report describes a program designed to build resiliency, the ability to bounce back from stress, in family medicine residents in a medium sized U.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Existing literature indicates significant comorbidity between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression. We examined whether PTSD's dysphoria and mood/cognitions factors, conceptualized by the empirically supported four-factor DSM-5 PTSD models, account for PTSD's inherent relationship with depression. We hypothesized that depression's somatic and non-somatic factors would be more related to PTSD's dysphoria and mood/cognitions factors than other PTSD model factors.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The identification of highly potent and orally active triazines for the inhibition of PDE10A is reported. The new analogs exhibit low-nanomolar potency for PDE10A, demonstrate high selectivity against all other members of the PDE family, and show desired drug-like properties. Employing structure-based drug design approaches, we investigated the selectivity of PDE10A inhibitors against other known PDE isoforms, by methodically exploring the various sub-regions of the PDE10A ligand binding pocket.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Entering medical students experience distress symptoms due to the demands of the intensive curriculum, adjustment to new environments and increased responsibilities. The purpose of this controlled, randomized study was to determine the effects of a structured wellness program on measures of anxiety, depression and frequency of acute illness in 449 first year medical students. The effects of eight sessions of stress management were compared to a wait list control group.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

On the basis of the previously reported benzimidazole 1,3'-bipyrrolidine benzamides (1), a new class of 2-(pyrrolidin-1-yl)ethyl-3,4-dihydroisoquinolin-1(2H)-one derivatives (3-50) were synthesized and evaluated as potent H(3) receptor antagonists. In particular, compound 39 exhibited potent in vitro binding and functional activities at the H(3) receptor, good selectivities against other neurotransmitter receptors and ion channels, acceptable pharmacokinetic properties, and a favorable in vivo profile.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Researchers developed new phenylpyrazine compounds that effectively inhibit the PDE10A enzyme, achieving subnanomolar potency and high selectivity against other PDE family members.
  • They used structure-based drug design to modify the parent compound to enhance its binding affinity and reduce mutagenicity by adding bulky substituents.
  • One potent compound, referred to as 96, showed an impressive IC(50) of 0.7 nM for PDE10A and proved effective in animal models relevant for antipsychotic treatments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rationale: α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) agonists are proposed as candidate agents for the adjunctive treatment of cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia. Despite the pursuit of such an approach clinically, it is surprising that the preclinical profile of pro-cognitive agents in conjunction with antipsychotic drugs is currently unexplored.

Objectives: We determined if the memory-enhancing effects of the selective α7 nAChR agonist WYE-103914 were preserved in the presence of the atypical antipsychotic drug risperidone, and if the antipsychotic-like profile of risperidone was preserved in the presence of WYE-103914.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objectives: The Communication Assessment Tool (CAT), developed by Makoul et al assesses patient perceptions of physicians' interpersonal and communication skills. The objective of this study was to gather initial benchmarking data for the use of the CAT in family medicine residency programs.

Methods: Data were collected from patients seeing 127 residents from six family medicine residency programs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Phosphodiesterase 11A (PDE11A) is the most recently identified family of phosphodiesterases (PDEs), the only known enzymes to break down cyclic nucleotides. The tissue expression profile of this dual specificity PDE is controversial, and little is understood of its biological function, particularly in the brain. We seek here to determine if PDE11A is expressed in the brain and to understand its function, using PDE11A(-/-) knockout (KO) mice.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The preclinical characterization of WS-50030 [7-{4-[3-(1H-inden-3-yl)propyl]piperazin-1-yl}-1,3-benzoxazol-2(3H)-one] is described. In vitro binding and functional studies revealed highest affinity to the D(2) receptor (D(2L) K(i), 4.0 nM) and serotonin transporter (K(i), 7.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A 5-fluoro-tetrahydrocarbazole serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) building block was combined with a variety of linkers and dopamine D2 receptor ligands in an attempt to identify potent D2 partial agonist/SRI molecules for treatment of schizophrenia. This approach has the potential to treat a broader range of symptoms compared to existing therapies. Selected compounds in this series demonstrate high affinity for both targets and D2 partial agonism in cell-based and in vivo assays.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Following several recent reports that suggest that dual cAMP and cGMP phosphodiesterase 10A (PDE10A) inhibitors may present a novel mechanism to treat positive symptoms of schizophrenia, we sought to extend the preclinical characterization of two such compounds, papaverine [1-(3,4-dimethoxybenzyl)-6,7-dimethoxyisoquinoline] and MP-10 [2-{[4-(1-methyl-4-pyridin-4-yl-1H-pyrazol-3-yl)phenoxy]methyl}quinoline], in a variety of in vivo and in vitro assays. Both of these compounds were active in a range of antipsychotic models, antagonizing apomorphine-induced climbing in mice, inhibiting conditioned avoidance responding in both rats and mice, and blocking N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonist-induced deficits in prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle response in rats, while improving baseline sensory gating in mice, all of which strengthen previously reported observations. These compounds also demonstrated activity in several assays intended to probe negative symptoms and cognitive deficits, two disease domains that are underserved by current treatments, with both compounds showing an ability to increase sociality in BALB/cJ mice in the social approach/social avoidance assay, enhance social odor recognition in mice and, in the case of papaverine, improve novel object recognition in rats.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: fopen(/var/lib/php/sessions/ci_sessionqlv669uivna4of1cl12ih3cs0h0e6db4): Failed to open stream: No space left on device

Filename: drivers/Session_files_driver.php

Line Number: 177

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: session_start(): Failed to read session data: user (path: /var/lib/php/sessions)

Filename: Session/Session.php

Line Number: 137

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once