The Association Between Antenatal Maternal Self-reported Substance Use, Maternal Characteristics, and Obstetrical Variables.

Background: Substance use disorders during pregnancy are a concern both to the public and medical community, because the negative consequences can be detrimental to both mother and the fetus. The accurate identification of prenatal drug exposure is necessary to determine appropriate medical and psychosocial intervention, and to identify risk factors that may affect outcomes for the mother and her newborn. The prevalence of prenatal drug exposure is very difficult to estimate because of flaws in all methods of identification.

Clinical Case of the Month:A 54 Year-Old Woman With Fever and Chills of Four-Days Duration.

A 54 year-old woman with diabetes mellitus type two and end-stage renal disease on hemodialysis presented to the emergency department with a four day history of generalized malaise, fever, and chills. Her symptoms were also associated with occasional dyspnea without a cough. She reported intermittent chronic diarrhea with hemodialysis which was currently unchanged.

Intergenic transcriptional interference is blocked by RNA polymerase III transcription factor TFIIIB in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The major function of eukaryotic RNA polymerase III is to transcribe transfer RNA, 5S ribosomal RNA, and other small non-protein-coding RNA molecules. Assembly of the RNA polymerase III complex on chromosomal DNA requires the sequential binding of transcription factor complexes TFIIIC and TFIIIB. Recent evidence has suggested that in addition to producing RNA transcripts, chromatin-assembled RNA polymerase III complexes may mediate additional nuclear functions that include chromatin boundary, nucleosome phasing, and general genome organization activities.

[The effects of a new model of hospital management on undergraduate teaching of urology].

Background: Since January 2005, a new model for hospital coordinated assistance was implanted in Chile, denominated Self Managed Hospitals in net, to improve resource use effectiveness and efficiency. This new design changed health care and teaching models.

Aim: To analyze, understand and to reflect on how teachers and students of the Urology Unit of the Eastern Campus of the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Chile, perceive learning in this new hospital scenario.

[Dimensions of medical professionalism. Perspectives for the 21st. Century].

Medicine is progressively loosing its prestige and efficacy and needs to rebuild the moral values that maintain the tacit social contract subscribed between doctors and patients. This altruistic commitment to serve people has been devaluated by changes in health systems, by advances in knowledge and by social and economical changes. The perspective with which humanity faces its future, harmed by radical environmental transformations also has contributed to this devaluation.

[4 directions and a strategy for the foreseen changes in medical education].

The curricular renewal of Medical studies is a priority of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile. After an initial phase of analysis done in 1994, the process must be accomplished through the elaboration of proposals in 1995-96 and their concretion in 1996-97. The new curriculum construction must be based, according to the Dean, on four general principles.

[Origin, development, and perspectives of public health institutions in Chile].

This review gives information about the origin and development of the Public Health organisms in Chile, particularly the National Health Service, outstanding governmental health institution created in 1952, whose achievements were favored by the coordinated support of the University and the Chilean Medical Association. At the present time, their work is carried on by the National System of Health Services. The National Health systems have contributed to the improvement of population's health conditions, specially of the most vulnerable groups.

[Family health and responsible paternity: Chile's experience 1965-1988].

In 1965 the Chilean government incorporated fertility regulation policies to the national health programs. The aim was to promote responsible parenthood and family welfare, reducing the number of clandestine abortions and the associated maternal and infant mortality. These decreased to 1.