What do medical students think are characteristics of a good ultrasound tutor? A qualitative study.

Purpose: This study was designed to elicit medical students' opinions on the characteristics of a good ultrasound tutor. The results should help educators to create an optimal teaching environment and inform tutor training.

Materials And Methods: The qualitative study recruited 15 participants from a larger mixed-methods study of 64 medical students who underwent a basic course on abdominal ultrasound taught by faculty and near-peer tutors.

Optimal timing of faculty teaching when combined with near-peer teaching: A mixed methods analysis.

Background: Near-peer teaching is increasingly used in medical education, supporting or replacing faculty teaching. It has positive aspects for learners and tutors, some of which are explained by higher social and cognitive congruence between learners and near-peer tutors (NPTs). This study investigates the optimal combination of faculty tutors (FTs) and NPTs in an abdominal ultrasound course.

Near-peer compared to faculty teaching of abdominal ultrasound for medical students - A randomized-controlled trial.

Purpose: Medical schools increasingly rely on near-peer tutors for ultrasound teaching. We set out to compare the efficacy of a blended near-peer ultrasound teaching program to that of a faculty course in a randomized controlled trial.

Methods: 152 medical students received 21 hours of ultrasound teaching either by near-peer teachers or medical doctors.

[Near-Peers First, Physician Tutors Last. Interim Report of a Mixed-Methods Study Exploring Optimal Timing in Undergraduate Ultrasound Teaching].

Near-Peers First, Physician Tutors Last. Interim Report of a Mixed-Methods Study Exploring Optimal Timing in Undergraduate Ultrasound Teaching While many medical undergraduate ultrasound teaching programmes combine teaching from both physician and student ('near-peer') tutors, there has been little research on how these can be optimally combined. In this study, four groups of 16 medical undergraduates each received twelve lessons from student tutors and four lessons from physician tutors as part of their basic ultrasound course.

[Emergency Ultrasound Training for and with Medical Students].

Emergency Ultrasound Training for and with Medical Students Practical basic skills in sonography are a mandatory part of Swiss medical schools since 2018. The universities of Basel and Bern teach students the content of the POCUS component "Basic Emergency Sonography" of the SGUM and have developed the e-learning tool "POCUS Emergency Sonography" for this purpose in cooperation. By using this innovative blend- ed learning concept, students acquire basic skills in sonography and can build upon this know-how in their further education.

[Five Tips for Practical Ultrasound Teaching from the Perspective of Peer Tutors].

Five Tips for Practical Ultrasound Teaching from the Perspective of Peer Tutors Abtract: When learning diagnostic ultrasound, practical teaching in small groups is of particular importance. In this article, we present five tips that we consider particularly important for successful and effective ultrasound teaching from the perspective of peer tutors.

[Rare Incidental Finding during a Student Ultrasonography Course - A Case Report].

Rare Incidental Finding during a Student Ultrasonography Course - A Case Report During a sonography class in medical school, a large fluid-filled mass was discovered in the center of the lower abdomen in a healthy, asymptomatic female student; an overflow bladder was suspected. Despite various interdisciplinary investigations, the etiology of the cystic formation could not be clarified. Three months after discovery of the incidental finding, the increasingly symptomatic patient was diagnosed with a cystic tumor in the lower abdomen with secondary urinary retention, and surgical cyst excision was performed.

[Revision of the Young Sonographers Basic e-Learning Abdomen Course].

Revision of the Young Sonographers Basic e-Learning Abdomen Course The Young Sonographers e-learning was created in 2017 and contains the theoretical content and the procedure for the practical examination technique of the basic course on abdominal ultrasound. In order to provide an optimal teaching tool for ultrasound training in Switzerland in the future, this e-learning material has now been revised. The feedback from various experts as well as from participants, tutors and examiners served as the basis for the revision.

Managing Incidental Findings Reported by Medical, Sonography and Other Students Performing Educational Ultrasound Examinations.

The evolution of ultrasound imaging into a key technology for diagnostic practice has resulted in its incorporation into the education of medical students worldwide. Although the introduction of ultrasound into medical schools' curricula is relatively recent, training of sonographers and other ultrasound users is mature. Ultrasound is being used in a variety of learning environments and clinical settings, from courses in anatomy and physiology to clinical rotations where medical and other students may scan healthy volunteers or patients, sometimes with little to no supervision.

Comparing Blended Learning with Faculty-Led Ultrasound Training: Protocol for a Randomised Controlled Trial (The SIGNATURE Trial).

Background: Ultrasound is increasingly used in clinical practice as a bedside tool. As medical graduates first encounter the technique in early residency, ultrasound training needs to be integrated into the undergraduate curriculum. In Switzerland, abdominal ultrasound skills have been taught by a faculty-led, 21-hour course.

[Peer Teaching in Ultrasound Education - A Narrative Review].

Peer Teaching in Ultrasound Education - A Narrative Review Learning about ultrasound is becoming an increasingly important component of the undergraduate medical curriculum. However, teaching about this is very time-consuming, which is why many universities use peer teaching in ultrasound training. Peer teaching has various advantages that go beyond reducing specialists' teaching time: students may learn more from their peers because their cognitive schemata are more congruent and they are more likely to be open about their learning deficits.

Emancipatory Nursing Praxis: A Theory of Social Justice in Nursing.

Emancipatory nursing praxis (ENP) is a middle-range nursing theory of social justice developed from an international, grounded theory study of the critical factors influencing nurses' perceptions of their role in social justice. The ENPs implementing processes (becoming, awakening, engaging, and transforming) and 2 conditional contexts (relational and reflexive) provide an in-depth understanding of the transformative learning process that determines nurse engagement in social justice. Interpretive findings include the voice of Privilege primarily informed ENP theory, the lack of nursing educational and organizational support in social justice role development, and the advocate role should expand to include the role of an ally.

Diminished acute phase response and increased hepatic inflammation of aged rats in response to intraperitoneal injection of lipopolysaccharide.

Aging is associated with a deterioration of the acute phase response to inflammatory challenges. However, the nature of these defects remains poorly defined. We analyzed the hepatic inflammatory response after intraperitoneal administration of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) given to Fisher 344 rats aged 6, 15, and 22-23 months.

T-kininogen: a biomarker of aging in Fisher 344 rats with possible implications for the immune response.

T-kininogen (T-KG) is a reliable biomarker of aging in male Sprague-Dawley rats. Here we confirm, in a longitudinal study, a similar behavior in Fisher 344 rats of both sexes. In males, the increase in serum levels of T-KG follows an exponential curve, whereas in females the increase is best fitted by a linear curve.

T-kininogen induces endothelial cell proliferation.

Basal proliferation of endothelial cells increases with age, and this might play a role in the etiology of age-related vascular diseases, as well as angiogenesis. Serum kininogen levels increase during aging in rats and humans, and T-kininogen (T-KG) can affect proliferative homeostasis in several cell models. Both kinins and kininogens have been shown previously to be angiogenic through activation of endothelial cell proliferation, and here we show that exposure of endothelial cells to T-KG results in vigorous cell proliferation, accompanied by ERK/AKT activation.

Serum from aged F344 rats conditions the activation of young macrophages.

There is considerable controversy about the molecular mechanisms responsible for the variations in innate immunity associated with age. While in vivo, aged animals and humans react to an inflammatory signal with an excessive production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, studies in vitro generally show that this response is attenuated in macrophages from old individuals. In an effort to examine possible extrinsic factors that might affect the response of macrophages to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), we have challenged peritoneal macrophages obtained from young rats with sera obtained from rats of different ages.

T-kininogen, a cystatin-like molecule, inhibits ERK-dependent lymphocyte proliferation.

Plasma levels of kininogens increase with age in both rats and humans. Kininogens are inhibitors of cysteine proteinases, and filarial cysteine proteinase inhibitors (cystatins) reduce the proliferation of T cells. We evaluated whether T-kininogen (T-KG) might mimic this effect, and here we present data indicating that exposure of either rat splenocytes or Jurkat cells to purified T-KG results in inhibition of both ERK activation and [(3)H]-thymidine incorporation, both basal and in response to ConA or PHA.

Increased kinin levels and decreased responsiveness to kinins during aging.

Kinins are vasoactive peptides released from precursors called kininogens, and serum levels of both T- and K-kininogens increase dramatically as rats age. Kinin release is tightly regulated, and here we show that serum kinin levels also increase with age, from 63 +/- 16 nmol/L in young Fisher 344 rats to 398 +/- 102 nmol/L in old animals. Both K- and T-kininogens contribute sequentially to this increase, with the increase in middle-aged animals being driven primarily by K-kininogen, whereas the further augmentation in older rats occurs by increasing T-kininogen.

T-kininogen inhibits kinin-mediated activation of ERK in endothelial cells.

Serum levels of T-kininogen increase dramatically as rats approach the end of their lifespan. Stable expression of the protein in Balb/c 3T3 fibroblasts leads to a dramatic inhibition of cell proliferation, as well as inhibition of the ERK signaling pathway. T-kininogen is a potent inhibitor of cysteine proteinases, and we have described that the inhibition of ERK activity occurs, at least in part, via stabilization of the MAP kinase phosphatase, MKP-1.

Defect in ERK2 and p54(JNK) activation in aging mouse splenocytes.

We have previously reported on a defect in both extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase (ERK) and c-jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation in splenocytes obtained from old rats. In order to investigate whether these effects are conserved across species, we have now used mouse splenocytes to measure the effect of aging on the activation of the same two MAPK families: ERK and JNK. Our results demonstrate that, as in rats, both MAPK signal transduction pathways are affected by aging in mice, indicating the existence of a further defect located downstream of the receptor-proximal events.