[Efficacy of interprofessionnality : evidence and challenges].

Skillmix is often proposed as a measure to address the growing needs of an aging population with its expected increase in chronic diseases. This article reports on a symposium on interprofessional collaboration which took place in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Reviews of the literature on interprofessional collaboration show evidence in favor of the effectiveness of having interactions between physicians, nurses, pharmacists and physiotherapists.

[Medical students and community health care centers: preparing the future].

Since 2011, second year medical students from Lausanne University follow a single day course in the community health care centers of the Canton of Vaud. They discover the medico-social network and attend to patients' visits at home. They experience the importance of the information transmission and the partnership between informal caregivers, professional caregivers, general practitioner and hospital units.

[Headaches, five expert opinions: the pitfalls involved in the diagnosis of giant cell arteritis].

Giant cell arteritis (GCA) (or Horton's disease) is a systemic disease affecting the vessels of medium and large sizes. The incidence increases with age (the disease develops rarely before age 50) and the etiology remains unknown. Clinical manifestations may vary (including asthenia, temporal headache, visual disturbances, etc.

[Community immersion in Lausanne: a different approach to teaching public health?].

Teaching community medicine represents a significant challenge for medical schools, which tend to struggle to promote interest in the issue among students. In 2009, the Lausanne medical school introduced a "community immersion" module specifically designed to address the issue. The new module requires students working in small groups under the supervision of a tutor to investigate a health question of their choice.

Talking about sexuality with the physician: are patients receiving what they wish?

Questions Under Study/principles: Little is known concerning patients' expectations regarding sexual history taking by doctors: to ascertain expectations and actual experience of talking about sexuality among male patients attending outpatient clinics, and their sexual behaviour.

Methods: Patients consecutively recruited from two outpatient clinics in Lausanne, Switzerland were provided with an anonymous self-administered questionnaire. Survey topics were: patients' expectations concerning sexual history taking, patients' lifetime experience of sexual history taking, and patients' sexual behaviour.

[Integrated care: how to support a culture change?].

The primary care center at Lausanne University Hospital trains residents to new models of integrated care. The future GPs discover new forms of collaboration with nurses, pharmacists or social workers. The collaboration model includes seeing patients together or delegating care to other providers, with the aim of improving the efficiency of a patient-centered care approach.

Predictive ability of an early diagnostic guess in patients presenting with chest pain; a longitudinal descriptive study.

Background: The intuitive early diagnostic guess could play an important role in reaching a final diagnosis. However, no study to date has attempted to quantify the importance of general practitioners' (GPs) ability to correctly appraise the origin of chest pain within the first minutes of an encounter.

Methods: The validation study was nested in a multicentre cohort study with a one year follow-up and included 626 successive patients who presented with chest pain and were attended by 58 GPs in Western Switzerland.

[Pregraduate training in ambulatory care: a Swiss perspective].

The current lack of general practitioners in Switzerland is the result of health care policy which aimed in the past years to reduce the number of medical students and physicians in private practice. Furthermore, during the past decades, the Swiss Medical Schools emphasized on the transmission of medical care by specialists and neglected primary care medicine. The Faculty of medicine at the University of Lausanne recently decided to renew the curriculum.

Normal weight obesity: relationship with lipids, glycaemic status, liver enzymes and inflammation.

Background And Aims: Normal weight obesity (NWO) is defined as an excessive body fat associated with a normal body mass index (BMI) and has been associated with early inflammation, but its relationship with cardiovascular risk factors await investigation.

Methods And Results: Cross-sectional study including 3213 women and 2912 men aged 35-75 years to assess the clinical characteristics of NWO in Lausanne, Switzerland. Body fat was assessed by bioimpedance.

[Perspectives and challenges to guarantee training and renewal in general internal medicine].

Training new doctors in general internal medicine represents a challenge. This requires to define future needs, which result from interest that are not necessarily convergent between patients, doctors, insurers and politicians. Problems related to medical demography in Switzerland, with the ageing of the population, the increase in health care costs and the place of Switzerland within the European Community require the implementation of specific objectives to train new physicians in general internal medicine.

Prevalence, awareness, treatment and control of high blood pressure in a Swiss city general population: the CoLaus study.

Background: This study is aimed to assess the prevalence of awareness, treatment and control of high blood pressure (HBP) and associated factors in a Swiss city.

Design: Population-based cross-sectional study of 6182 participants (52.5% women) aged 35-75 years living in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Alcohol drinking and cardiovascular risk in a population with high mean alcohol consumption.

Moderate alcohol consumption has been associated with lower coronary artery disease (CAD) risk. However, data on the CAD risk associated with high alcohol consumption are conflicting. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of heavier drinking on 10-year CAD risk in a population with high mean alcohol consumption.

The impact of iron supplementation efficiency in female blood donors with a decreased ferritin level and no anaemia. Rationale and design of a randomised controlled trial: a study protocol.

Background: There is no recommendation to screen ferritin level in blood donors, even though several studies have noted the high prevalence of iron deficiency after blood donation, particularly among menstruating females. Furthermore, some clinical trials have shown that non-anaemic women with unexplained fatigue may benefit from iron supplementation. Our objective is to determine the clinical effect of iron supplementation on fatigue in female blood donors without anaemia, but with a mean serum ferritin < or = 30 ng/ml.

The Lausanne cohort Lc65+: a population-based prospective study of the manifestations, determinants and outcomes of frailty.

Background: Frailty is a relatively new geriatric concept referring to an increased vulnerability to stressors. Various definitions have been proposed, as well as a range of multidimensional instruments for its measurement. More recently, a frailty phenotype that predicts a range of adverse outcomes has been described.