Integrated, Scaffolded, and Mandatory Community and Shelter Medicine Curriculum: Best Practices for Transformational Learning on Access to Veterinary Care.

Within veterinary medical education, there is increasing focus on equity and cultural competency/humility, especially within service learning in community and shelter medicine. This article reviews the current literature and draws from the experience of the Ontario Veterinary College Community Healthcare Partnership Program's development of a community and shelter medicine curriculum. We propose that to graduate veterinarians with the knowledge and skills to address inequities in access to veterinary care, a best practice is to integrate mandatory in-class and experiential learning activities, scaffolded across the curriculum.

Curriculum Hours and Approaches to Instruction in Veterinary Ophthalmology: A Global Survey of Veterinary Schools.

Reports regarding curricula in ophthalmology across veterinary schools are not currently available. The objective of this study was therefore to investigate the number of contact hours and approaches to teaching ophthalmology in the curriculum of English-speaking veterinary schools worldwide. An online survey was distributed to 51 veterinary colleges in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the Caribbean.

How do mentors perceive and perform their role in a reflection-based mentoring programme for medical students?

Objectives: To explore how mentors perceive and perform their role in a longitudinal mentorship programme with the objective of guiding medical students in becoming reflective learners.

Methods: A qualitative exploratory study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with 16 mentors from the Ghent University medical education mentoring programme. Participants were selected by purposeful sampling on gender, years of experience and area of specialisation.

Investigating the Relationship between Multiple Mini-Interview Communication Skills Outcomes and First-Year Communication Skills Performance and Reflections in Students at the Ontario Veterinary College.

An important outcome for veterinary education is ensuring that graduates can provide an appropriate level of care to patients and clients by demonstrating core competencies such as communication skills. In addition, accreditation requirements dictate the need to assess learning outcomes and may drive the motivation to incorporate relevant and appropriate methods of entry assessments for incoming students. Predicting the success of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) students based on entry assessment performance has been scantly investigated and can be challenging.

The Efficacy of Online Case-Based Assignments in Teaching Veterinary Ophthalmology.

Veterinarians are required to use clinical reasoning skills to successfully manage their patients with eye diseases. Case-based assignments can be an effective tool for teaching problem-solving skills. Very few models or online modules exist to deepen the instruction of veterinary ophthalmic clinical reasoning skills.

Life stage dependent responses to desiccation risk in the annual killifish Nothobranchius wattersi.

To assess whether the annual killifish Nothobranchius wattersi responds plastically to a desiccation risk and whether this response is life stage dependent, life-history traits such as maturation time, fecundity and life span were experimentally measured in N. wattersi that were subjected to a drop in water level either as juveniles, as adults or both as juveniles and adults. Fish that were exposed to simulated pool drying as juveniles did not show changes in reproductive output or life span.

Mutual perception of communication between general practitioners and hospital-based specialists.

Background: Communication between general practitioners (GPs) and specialists is an important aspect of qualitative care. Efficient communication exchange is essential and key in guaranteeing continuity of care. Inefficient communication is related to several negative outcomes, including patient harm.

Environmental harshness shapes life-history variation in an Australian temporary pool breeding frog: a skeletochronological approach.

For many amphibians, high temperatures and limited precipitation are crucial habitat characteristics that limit species ranges and modulate life-history characteristics. Although knowledge of the ability of amphibians to cope with such environmental harshness is particularly relevant in the light of ongoing environmental change, relatively little is known about natural variation in age, maturation and associated life-history traits across species' ranges. We used the analysis of growth rings in bones to investigate the link between environmental harshness and life-history traits, including age and body size distribution, in specimens from 20 populations of the Australian bleating froglet, Crinia pseudinsignifera.

"Should I prioritize medical problem solving or attentive listening?": the dilemmas and challenges that medical students experience when learning to conduct consultations.

Objective: Communication skills can be trained alongside clinical reasoning, history taking or clinical examination skills. This is advocated as a solution to the low transfer of communication skills. Still, students have to integrate the knowledge/skills acquired during different curriculum parts in patient consultations at some point.

Managing the complexity of doing it all: an exploratory study on students' experiences when trained stepwise in conducting consultations.

Background: At most medical schools the components required to conduct a consultation, medical knowledge, communication, clinical reasoning and physical examination skills, are trained separately. Afterwards, all the knowledge and skills students acquired must be integrated into complete consultations, an art that lies at the heart of the medical profession. Inevitably, students experience conducting consultations as complex and challenging.

Six formats in simulated and standardized patients use, based on experiences of 13 undergraduate medical curricula in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Background: In Belgium and the Netherlands, 13 medical schools collaborate with regard to the use of simulated patients (SPs) and standardized patients in their undergraduate curricula. All schools use SPs in their curriculum but schools differ in (a) the timing or placement of the SPs and (b) the way they are used.

Aim: To give an overview of the formats used most in undergraduate medical education with SPs, including a description of the impact of these formats on the different aspects of SPs.

Novel trisubstituted harmine derivatives with original in vitro anticancer activity.

To overcome the intrinsic resistance of cancer cells to apoptotic stimuli, we designed and synthesized approximately 50 novel β-carbolines structurally related to harmine. Harmine is known for its anticancer properties and is a DYRK1A inhibitor. Of the synthesized compounds, the most active in terms of growth inhibition of five cancer cell lines are cytostatic and approximately 100 times more potent than harmine but demonstrated no DYRK1A inhibitory activity.

Impact of three alternative consultation training formats on self-efficacy and consultation skills of medical students.

Background: Conducting a consultation is a core competence of medical professionals. Consultation training of medical students centers on clinical, communication, reasoning and reflection skills. The training incorporates practice with a standardized simulated patient and supervising physician, to prepare for real patient encounters.

Synthesis, crystal structures and electronic properties of isomers of chloro-pyridinylvinyl-1H-indoles.

Three isomers of chloro-3-(2-pyridin-3-ylvinyl)-1H-indole were synthesized and tested as inhibitors of human tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase (hTDO). The crystal structures of two of them were solved by X-ray diffraction. The solubility of the molecules also was determined experimentally.

Synthesis and inhibition study of monoamine oxidase, indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase and tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase by 3,8-substituted 5H-indeno[1,2-c]pyridazin-5-one derivatives.

Previous studies on 5H-indeno[1,2-c]pyridazin-5-one derivatives as inhibitors of MAO-B revealed that it was possible to increase the MAO-B inhibitory potency of 5H-indeno[1,2-c]pyridazin-5-ones by substituting the central heterocycle in the 3-position or C-8 with lipophilic groups which occupy the substrate cavity or the entrance of the binding site, respectively. Here, four new 5H-indeno[1,2-c]pyridazin-5-one derivatives containing lipophilic groups at both positions were synthesized and their inhibitory potency against human monoamine oxidase A and B were evaluated. Selectivity of these compounds against IDO and TDO, two enzymes sharing substrate similarity with MAO and involved in the serotonergic and kynurenine pathways was also studied.

Synthesis and evaluation of β-carboline derivatives as potential monoamine oxidase inhibitors.

Previous studies have shown that harmine is a reversible inhibitor of human monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A). Moreover, the crystal structure of human MAO-A in complex with harmine has been recently solved. This crystal structure shows that close to the methoxy group of the harmine moiety, a lipophilic pocket is left vacant within the binding site of human MAO-A.

Chlamydial antibodies and tubal infertility.

Prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis antibodies was studied in infertile women with and without tubal obstruction, and in a control group of pregnant women in a Central-African country with a high infertility rate. In comparison with the control group, tubal infertility patients were significantly more likely to have serum antibodies of 1:64 or greater with an age-adjusted odds ratio of 7.8 (95% confidence interval (CI) 3.

Infertility in Central Africa: infection is the cause.

Determinants of infertility were studied in 340 women in Eastern Gabon, an area situated in the "infertility belt" of Central Africa. Fallopian tube occlusion was diagnosed in 82.8% of cases, showing the importance of infection-related causes.

Prevalence of anti-delta antibodies in pregnant women in Bandung, Indonesia.

Knowledge of the epidemiology of hepatitis D virus (HDV)-infection is very scarce in many parts of the world. The endemicity of delta-infection is believed to be maintained and spread through the network of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) carriers in the community. In the Far East and the Pacific area, the prevalence of chronic HBsAg carriers is mostly high.

Prevalence and determinants of hepatitis B virus markers in pregnant women in West Java, Indonesia.

In Bandung, West Java, 300 consecutive pregnant women were screened for hepatitis B virus (HBV) markers at a prenatal consultation. The prevalence of HBsAg and of anti-HBs/anti-HBc was 4.7% (14/300) and 35.

Importance of chlamydial antibodies in acute salpingitis in central Africa.

Of 35 women with acute salpingitis on laparoscopy, 86% had chlamydial antibodies at a titre of 1/16 or higher and 49% at a titre of 1/512 or higher. Geometric mean titres of chlamydial antibodies correlated significantly with a laparoscopic observation of chronic salpingitis (p less than 0.001), with a history of infertility (p less than 0.

Immunogenicity of a recombinant DNA hepatitis B vaccine in neonates.

Infants of HBsAg-positive mothers (Group I) as well as those born to women without HBV markers (Group II) were vaccinated with a 10 micrograms dose of a recombinant DNA hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours after birth according to a 0, 1, and 2 month schedule, with a booster dose planned 12 months later. Vaccination results in 14 (Group I) and 47 (Group II) neonates showed that at two months after the third dose of vaccine, 86% (6/7) and 100% (37/37), respectively, seroconverted, with anti-HBs geometric mean titres of 80 IU/l and 266 IU/l in the respective groups. No adverse reactions to the vaccine were observed.