Design and effectiveness of a required pre-clinical simulation-based curriculum for fundamental clinical skills and procedures.

Background: For more than 20 years, medical literature has increasingly documented the need for students to learn, practice and demonstrate competence in basic clinical knowledge and skills. In 2001, the Louisiana State University Health Science Centers (LSUHSC) School of Medicine - New Orleans replaced its traditional Introduction in to Clinical Medicine (ICM) course with the Science and Practice of Medicine (SPM) course. The main component within the SPM course is the Clinical Skills Lab (CSL).

Comparison of methylene blue/gentian violet stain to Gram's stain for the rapid diagnosis of gonococcal urethritis in men.

We compared a simple, one-step staining procedure using a mixture of methylene blue and gentian violet to Gram stain for the detection of gonococcal urethritis. The sensitivity and specificity of both Gram stain and methylene blue/gentian violet stain were 97.3% and 99.