Retrospective Study on the Effect of the Timing of Exposure on Confidence Level in Applying to Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Residency Programs.

Residency specialty choice, a complex decision-making process, is often influenced by confidence level built upon knowledge, experience, and fit with the specialty. Despite the need for physiatrists with population growth, especially people with disability and older patients, limited growth in the number of residency positions and delayed exposure to the field of physical medicine and rehabilitation potentially contribute to a lack of confidence in pursuing physical medicine and rehabilitation. Early introduction to a specialty has been shown to impact specialty selection.

Leading Practices and Future Directions for Technical Standards in Medical Education.

The medical profession first addressed the need for technical standards (TS), defining the nonacademic requirements deemed essential for participation in an educational program, in guidelines published by the Association of American Medical Colleges in 1979. Despite many changes in the practice of medicine and legal, cultural, and technological advances that afford greater opportunities for people with disabilities, the profession's approach to TS largely has not changed over the ensuing four decades. Although physicians with disabilities bring unique perspectives to medicine and contribute to a diverse physician workforce of culturally competent practitioners, they remain underrepresented in the profession.

State of the States: Growing Physiatry: Association of Academic Physiatrists Position Statement Addressing Academic Physiatry and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Growth.

The growth of physiatry in the United States is dependent on academic exposure at both the undergraduate and graduate medical education levels. Undergraduate medical education provides students with knowledge of physiatry, as well as proper understanding of human function, medical rehabilitation treatments, and of physiatrists as consultants. Graduate medical education contributes more directly to the total number of practicing physiatrists.

Interrater reliability of the International Association for the Study of Pain and Tunks' spinal cord injury pain classification schemes.

Objective: To determine the interrater reliability of the International Association for the Study of Pain and Tunks' spinal cord injury pain classification schemes.

Methods: A total of 64 pain sites reported by 29 individuals were classified using International Association for the Study of Pain and Tunks' classification schemes. Three raters independently categorized each pain site.

Reliability characteristics of the Donovan spinal cord injury pain classification system.

Objective: To determine the interrater reliability of the Donovan system for classification of pain in spinal cord injury (SCI) as well as the clinician-based usefulness of each of the classification criteria used in the Donovan system.

Design: Information pertinent to the Donovan system was provided incrementally by videotape for each pain site. After each additional piece of information, the 3 raters classified the pain site into 1 of 5 types and gave a confidence rating (5-point Likert scale) regarding the accuracy of their classifications.

Long-term use of gabapentin for treatment of pain after traumatic spinal cord injury.

Objective: To determine the long-term efficacy of gabapentin as a treatment of pain after spinal cord injury.

Design: All patients with traumatic-onset spinal cord injury treated with gabapentin were identified and followed up using a longitudinal observational design with two contact points (6 and 36 months after the trial) using a semi-structured interview. The first follow-up interview attempted to capture all 31 patients placed on therapeutic trial.

A case of spinal cord injury-related pain with baseline rCBF brain SPECT imaging and beneficial response to gabapentin.

Central pain following spinal cord injury is poorly understood, and is often resistant to conventional pain therapy regimens. We describe an individual with paraplegia who for many years experienced rapidly fluctuating, severe, unilateral pain below the level of his lesion. Prior to the initiation of pharmacological treatment, regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured during PAIN and NON-PAIN states using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT).