Adding guidance to deliberate reflection improves medical student's diagnostic accuracy.

Context: Diagnostic competence in students is a major medical education goal. Adding instructional guidelines to prompt deliberate reflection fosters medical students' diagnostic proficiency. This study investigates the effects of this teaching strategy on diagnostic accuracy in solving clinical cases of different complexity levels by novice and senior students.

Case presentation methods: a randomized controlled trial of the one-minute preceptor versus SNAPPS in a controlled setting.

Introduction: One-minute preceptor (OMP) and SNAPPS (a mnemonic for Summarize history and findings; Narrow the differential; Analyze the differential; Probe the preceptor about uncertainties; Plan management; and Select case-related issues for self-study) are educational techniques developed to promote learners' expression of clinical reasoning during the case presentation in the workplace. The aim of this present study was to compare the content of the case presentation between the SNAPPS and the OMP methods.

Methods: This was a randomized controlled trial comparing SNAPPS and OMP in 60 medical students at the beginning of their fifth year of medical school.

Biochemical and Molecular Chitotriosidase Profiles in Patients with Gaucher Disease Type 1 in Minas Gerais, Brazil: New Mutation in CHIT1 Gene.

Chitotriosidase (ChT) is a human chitinase secreted by activated macrophages and its activity is used in therapeutic monitoring of Gaucher disease (GD), the most common lysosomal storage disease. About 6% of the population is homozygous for a duplication of 24 bp in exon 11 of the CHIT1 gene (dup24), which is the main polymorphism that results in the absence of ChT. As ChT enzyme activity can be used as a biomarker in GD, it is important to know the CHIT1 genotype of each patient.

Clinical course of 63 children with hereditary spherocytosis: a retrospective study.

Background: Hereditary spherocytosis (HS) is an inherited hemolytic anemia that is caused by deficiency or dysfunction of erythrocyte cytoskeletal proteins.

Aim: The aim of this study was to describe the clinical course of hereditary spherocytosis in patients treated in the Pediatric Hematology Unit, Hospital das Clínicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.

Methods: Sixty-three under 16-year-old patients with hereditary spherocytosis were retrospectively evaluated between January 1988 and December 2007.