Practice-based learning and improvement.

Workplace learning is becoming increasingly important in all fields. While workplace learning in medicine, also called practice-based learning and improvement (PBLI) is not new, understanding how it works and how it fits with an individual physician's continuing professional development is new. In this article, we describe seven issues associated with PBLI and then pose questions for reflections, as continuing medical education (CME) planners consider working with PBLI.

Specific psychosocial and behavioral outcomes from the systemic lupus erythematosus self-help course.

This study tested hypotheses about the consistency of specified outcomes with strength of program treatment indexed by time spent in a given activity in the Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Self-Help (SLESH) course. Participants had significant increases in enabling skills and in use of relaxation and exercise activities. Participants also had significantly less depression.

A system for approving, monitoring, and recording CME activities in a university hospital setting.

The increased demand that mandatory continuing education requirements place on an academic physician's time and the conviction that continued learning is best when that learning is related to patient care were the impetus for developing a continuing education system in the University of Michigan Hospital for medical faculty and medical staff. Using the capability to co-sponsor continuing medical education, the University of Michigan Medical School established a quality assessment mechanism that enabled approval of a variety of ongoing instructional activities in the hospital setting for continuing education credit.

What an educator can bring to CME planning.

Health professionals are teaming up with professionally experienced or academically trained educators to plan, implement, and implement, and evaluate continuing education programs. This article explains the systematic methods educators bring to CE program development.

Where to look when assessing CME needs.

Although more and more hospitals are providing accredited continuing medical education (CME) programs, there is little information to aid the individual physician and the hospital-based CME planner in assessing current educational needs. A basic framework along with readily available data sources are provided for conducting needs assessment studies at a community hospital level.

Planning continuing medical education activities.

A review of program development literature in adult education and continuing medical education (CME) indicates the pervasive influence of a single approach to designing instructional activities. An examination of the assumptions of this model indicates several weaknesses. An alternative model is proposed that recognizes the importance and impact of the planners' interaction with representatives of the learner group, institutional colleagues and persons in outside agencies.

Some functional properties of iconic storage in retarded and nonretarded subjects.

Four experiments, which examine some functional properties of iconic storage in mildly retarded subjects, are reported. Experiments I and III demonstrated that retardates report about three items, or one item less than normal subjects, after a single brief tachistoscopic exposure and that this span of attention was independent of size of array. Both normal and retarded groups reported more items correctly when arrays were arranged on two lines.

The fractionation of nuclei from mammalian cells by zonal centrifugation.

1. Purified liver nuclei from adult rats separate into two main zones when centrifuged in the slow-speed zonal rotor. One zone contains diploid nuclei, the other tetraploid.