Exploring the Clinical Usefulness of Undergraduate Medical Research: A Mixed-Methods Study.

Unlabelled: A significant amount of published clinical research has no measurable impact on health and disease outcomes, and research in undergraduate medical education is viewed as especially susceptible. The aims of this mixed methods study were to (a) to use group concept mapping (GCM) to explore key features identified by hospital physicians, medical educators, and medical students as central to clinical usefulness in an undergraduate medical research context, and (b) review a sample of undergraduate medical research projects based on usefulness criteria described by Ioannidis (2016). In the GCM procedure, 54 respondents (39 students, 15 physicians) from an Irish medical school participated across each of three phases: brainstorming, sorting, and rating.

Implementing high-value, cost-conscious care: experiences of Irish doctors and the role of education in facilitating this approach.

Background: Adopting high-value, cost-conscious care (HVCCC) principles into medical education is growing in importance due to soaring global healthcare costs and the recognition that efficient care can enhance patient outcomes and control costs. Understanding the current opportunities and challenges doctors face concerning HVCCC in healthcare systems is crucial to tailor education to doctors' needs. Hence, this study aimed to explore medical students, junior doctors, and senior doctors' experiences with HVCCC, and to seek senior doctors' viewpoints on how education can foster HVCCC in clinical environments.

Overshadowing and salience attribution in relation to cannabis use.

Aberrant attentional salience has been implicated in the cannabis-psychosis association. Here, history and frequency of cannabis use were examined against changes in overshadowing (OS), a cue competition paradigm that involves salience processing. Additionally, we examined the association between OS and alternative measures of aberrant salience, as well as schizotypy, in a non-clinical adult sample.

Patients' and doctors' views and experiences of the patient safety trajectory of breast cancer care.

Introduction: Successful breast cancer outcomes can be jeopardised by adverse events. Understanding and integrating patients' and doctors' perspectives into care trajectories could improve patient safety. This study assessed their views on, and experiences of, medical error and patient safety.

Patient-healthcare provider communication and age-related hearing loss: a qualitative study of patients' perspectives.

Background: The prevalence of age-related hearing loss (ARHL) significantly increases in people aged 60 and older. Medical errors are frequently reported because of communication breakdown, especially for patients with ARHL.

Aims: This qualitative study focuses on identifying the communication challenges faced by people aged over 65 with ARHL and potential ameliorative strategies based on the participants' personal experiences.

Latent inhibition, aberrant salience, and schizotypy traits in cannabis users.

Aberrant salience processing may underlie the link between cannabis and psychosis, as posited in individuals with schizophrenia or high schizotypy. We investigated the relative effects of cannabis use, schizotypy status, and self-reported aberrant salience experiences on salience processing, measured using a latent inhibition (LI) task (Granger et al., 2016), in a non-clinical population.

Adapting for sustainability: Ensuring provision of research skills development for undergraduate medical students.

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic forced undergraduate medical students and staff to adapt and adjust to new strategies for conducting research. The aim of this study was to investigate its impact on student research opportunities across Irish and UK medical schools and how these programmes have responded, both in terms of innovation and practical solutions.

Methods: A 17-item online mixed methods survey was distributed to academic staff across 31 Irish and UK medical schools.

Cannabis Use, Schizotypy and Kamin Blocking Performance.

Cannabis use has been associated with increased risk for a first episode of psychosis and inappropriate assignment of salience to extraneous stimuli has been proposed as a mechanism underlying this association. Psychosis-prone (especially schizotypal) personality traits are associated with deficits in associative learning tasks that measure salience allocation. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between history of cannabis use and Kamin blocking (KB), a form of selective associative learning, in a non-clinical sample.

Medical student empathy and breaking bad news communication in a simulated consultation.

Objectives: This study examined the relationship between self-reported empathy and breaking bad news (BBN) communication skills performance in a sample of undergraduate medical students (n = 100) in the clinical years of their program.

Methods: Correlational and regression analysis examined the relationship between Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE-S) and Empathy Quotient (EQ) scores, and communication skills performance based on students' application of the SPIKES protocol to a BBN scenario in a simulated encounter.

Results: Higher BBN communication skills performance was positively correlated with scores on the "Social Skills" EQ sub-scale (r (99) = 0.

Transition to clinical practice during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of young doctors' experiences in Brazil and Ireland.

Objectives: To explore and compare the perspectives of junior doctors in Brazil and Ireland regarding transition and professional socialisation during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the purpose of identifying better ways to support doctors as they assume their new professional role.

Design: 27 semistructured interviews. Transcripts were analysed using qualitative thematic analysis.

Association between dispositional empathy and self-other distinction in Irish and Belgian medical students: a cross-sectional analysis.

Objective: Physicians' cognitive empathy is associated with improved diagnosis and better patient outcomes. The relationship between self-reported and performance-based measures of cognitive empathic processes is unclear.

Design: Cross-sectional analysis of the association between medical students' empathy scale scores and their empathic performance in a visuospatial perspective-taking (VPT) task.

Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare staff at a combined elderly care and specialist palliative care facility: A cross-sectional study.

Background: In the pre-COVID-19 era, healthcare professionals experienced stress and burnout. The international literature confirms that COVID-19 placed significant additional burdens on healthcare workers.

Aim: To describe and characterise the magnitude and variety of ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic affected the personal, social and professional lives of healthcare workers representing several multidisciplinary specialties in a fully-integrated palliative and elderly care service.

Bridging the divide between medical school and clinical practice: identification of six key learning outcomes for an undergraduate preparatory course in radiology.

Background: There exists a significant divide between what is learnt in medical school and subsequently what is required to practice medicine effectively. Despite multiple strategies to remedy this discordance, the problem persists. Here, we describe the identification of a comprehensive set of learning outcomes for a preparation for practice course in radiology.

Building capacity: getting evidence-based practice into healthcare professional curricula.

Unlabelled: Fostering a culture of clinical effectiveness in healthcare is crucial to achieving optimum outcomes for patients. Evidence-based practice (EBP) is a cornerstone of clinical effectiveness. An EBP capacity-building project commenced in Ireland in 2016, in collaboration with the Centre of Evidence-Based Medicine in Oxford.

Impact of hearing loss on clinical interactions between older adults and health professionals: a systematic review.

Purpose: Age-related hearing loss increases significantly in people aged 60 years and older. An ageing population with impaired hearing presents an additional burden to the multiple comorbidities found among older patients, who are high users of medical services. We sought to quantify the extent to which hearing loss is cited and/or accounted for in studies of older adult interactions with health professionals.

Ethologically based behavioural and neurochemical characterisation of mice with isoform-specific loss of dysbindin-1A in the context of schizophrenia.

Dysbindin-1 is implicated in several aspects of schizophrenia, including cognition and both glutamatergic and dopaminergic neurotransmission. Targeted knockout of dysbindin-1A (Dys-1A KO), the most abundant and widely expressed isoform in the brain, is associated with deficits in delay/interference-dependent working memory. Using an ethologically based approach, the following behavioural phenotypes were examined in Dys-1A KO mice: exploratory activity, social interaction, anxiety and problem-solving ability.

Does cannabis use predict psychometric schizotypy via aberrant salience?

Cannabis can induce acute psychotic symptoms in healthy individuals and exacerbate pre-existing psychotic symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Inappropriate salience allocation is hypothesised to be central to the association between dopamine dysregulation and psychotic symptoms. This study examined whether cannabis use is associated with self-reported salience dysfunction and schizotypal symptoms in a non-clinical population.

Age-related hearing loss and provider-patient communication across primary and secondary care settings: a cross-sectional study.

Background: The prevalence of age-related hearing loss (ARHL) increases with age. Older adults are amongst the most dependent users of healthcare and most vulnerable to medical error. This study examined health professionals' strategies, as well as level of formal training completed, for communication with older adults with ARHL, and their views on the contribution of ARHL to suboptimal quality of patient care.

Strategies for Enhancing Resilience in Medical Students: a Group Concept Mapping Analysis.

Objective: Research has consistently shown that medical students have greater rates of stress and mental-ill health in comparison with non-medical students. The objective of this study was to investigate the resilience strategies employed by medical students in an Irish medical school to inoculate themselves against the deleterious effects of stress on health and wellbeing.

Methods: Group concept mapping was utilized incorporating qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

Developmental Genes and Regulatory Proteins, Domains of Cognitive Impairment in Schizophrenia Spectrum Psychosis and Implications for Antipsychotic Drug Discovery: The Example of Dysbindin-1 Isoforms and Beyond.

Alongside positive and negative symptomatology, deficits in working memory, attention, selective learning processes, and executive function have been widely documented in schizophrenia spectrum psychosis. These cognitive abnormalities are strongly associated with impairment across multiple function domains and are generally treatment-resistant. The DTNBP1 (dystrobrevin-binding protein-1) gene, encoding dysbindin, is considered a risk factor for schizophrenia and is associated with variation in cognitive function in both clinical and nonclinical samples.

Acute stress in adolescence vs early adulthood following selective deletion of dysbindin-1A: Effects on anxiety, cognition and other schizophrenia-related phenotypes.

Background: As exposure to stress has been linked to the onset and maintenance of psychotic illness, its pathogenesis may involve environmental stressors interacting with genetic vulnerability.

Aim: To establish whether acute stress interacts with a targeted mutation of the gene encoding the neurodevelopmental factor dystrobrevin-binding protein 1 (DTNBP1), resulting in a specific loss of the isoform dysbindin-1A, to influence schizophrenia-relevant phenotypes in mice during adolescence and adulthood.

Methods: Male and female mice with a heterozygous or homozygous deletion of DTNBP1 were assessed in the open field test following acute restraint stress in adolescence (Day 35) and young adulthood (Day 60-70).

Medical students' empathy and attitudes towards professionalism: Relationship with personality, specialty preference and medical programme.

Background: Existing research has suggested that self-reported empathy in medical students is moderated by personality traits and diverse demographic and educational factors including age, gender, nationality, career aspirations, as well as year of curriculum. It is unclear how empathy, personality, and background factors might impact on students' attitudes towards professionalism in medicine.

Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted in first and final year medical students at an Irish medical school.

Internet skills of medical faculty and students: is there a difference?

Background: The shift from a more didactic to student-centred pedagogical approach has led to the implementation of new information communication technology (ICT) innovations and curricula. Consequently, analysis of the digital competency of both faculty and students is of increasing importance. The aim of this research is to measure and compare the internet skills of medical school faculty and students and to investigate any potential skills gap between the two groups.