The design and evaluation of a simulated-patient teaching programme to develop the consultation skills of undergraduate pharmacy students.

Objectives: This study aimed to identify the key skills and knowledge required for the delivery of an ideal patient consultation in order to develop a training programme (using simulated-patients) to teach consultation skills to undergraduate pharmacy students.

Methods: Participants included all third year undergraduate Pharmacy students (MPharm, level III) at the School of Pharmacy & Biomolecular Sciences, University of Brighton (from October 1999 to March 2000). Working in groups of 12, students participated in two 4 hour seminars.

Partial left ventriculectomy and limited heart transplantation availability.

Background And Aim: Partial left ventriculectomy, a novel cardiac volume reduction operation, is applied in countries without a developed heart transplantation program. We sought to determine its impact in our population of patients.

Methods: Partial left ventriculectomy was performed in 38 patients during the last 4 years.

[Use of the internal thoracic artery in repeat myocardial revascularization surgery].

The incidence of redo myocardial revascularization is increasing lately. These procedures are accompanied by the higher operative risk, and the use of internal thoracic artery graft may have additional negative impact on early-rization. Mortality and morbidity in this group did not differ significantly compared to a group where only venous grafts were used.

[Myocardial revascularization using the internal thoracic artery: pro and con].

Internal thoracic artery (ITA) has superior histological, physiological and pharmacological properties over the venous grafts, and it is considered to be the graft of choice for myocardial revascularization. It has low incidence of late atherosclerotic lesions, and excellent long-term patency. Usage of ITA yields improved clinical results in all subgroups of patients with coronary artery disease, including patients with poor left ventricular function (EF%), left main stenosis, diffuse coronary artery disease and octogenarians.

Single-day loading dose of oral amiodarone for the prevention of new-onset atrial fibrillation after coronary artery bypass surgery.

Background: Various regimens have been proposed for the prevention of postoperative atrial fibrillation, including the use of intravenous and oral amiodarone. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a single-day loading dose of oral amiodarone in prophylaxis of atrial fibrillation during the 7 days after coronary artery bypass surgery.

Methods: We conducted a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study encompassing 315 consecutive patients who underwent coronary artery bypass surgery.