Progress test as an assessment for learning approach in an Infectious Diseases Residency Program: a case study.

Assessment is an essential component for all educational programs and must check competence acquirement while foster and promote learning. Progress Test (PT) is well recognized to assess cognitive knowledge, clinical reasoning and decision making in the clinical context, offering important information about the individual performance and program quality. It is widely used in Brazilian and international medical schools; however, it still has little role in assessing medical residents in Brazil.

Implementing 1-dose antibiotic prophylaxis for prevention of surgical site infection.

Hypothesis: Replacing a 24-hour regimen with a 1-dose antibiotic prophylaxis for elective surgery would not increase rates of surgical site infection and would decrease costs.

Design And Setting: Before-after trial in a tertiary, private general hospital in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil.

Patients: Surgery was performed on 6140 consecutive patients from February 2002 through October 2002 (period 1) and 6159 consecutive patients from December 2002 through August 2003 (period 2).

SYBR green and TaqMan real-time PCR assays are equivalent for the diagnosis of dengue virus type 3 infections.

Dengue is the most important arthropod-borne viral disease in the world. A rapid diagnostic test for dengue is warranted, and real-time polymerase chain reaction may improve diagnosis. TaqMan and Sybr Green systems were evaluated for the diagnosis of dengue virus type 3 (DENV-3) infections.