The role of undergraduate teaching, learning and a national prescribing safety assessment in preparation for practical prescribing: UK medical students' perspective.

Aims: To investigate medical students' perspectives on the influence of their undergraduate course and the UK prescribing safety assessment (PSA) on the acquisition of practical prescribing skills.

Methods: An online questionnaire comprising multiple choice and open-ended questions was available to UK medical students in years 3, 4 and 5. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were completed.

Safe prescribing training provision for junior doctors: is this optimal?

Background: The aim of this study was to determine the training provisions in practical safe prescribing for foundation doctors in NHS hospitals located in the South Thames region.

Methods: A web-based questionnaire was distributed by e-mail to all 1762 foundation doctors in the South Thames Foundation School (STFS) region. In addition, a separate questionnaire was distributed to prescribing training Leads at 15 NHS Hospital Trusts.

Healthy children's identification and risk perception of medicines in England.

Background: Children's understanding of medicines has an impact on their behavior toward those medicines, and yet there has been a paucity of studies exploring this area.

Objectives: To assess children's ability to identify and to explore their risk perceptions of medicines.

Methods: One hundred eighty-two children aged 4 to 11 years at 2 primary schools in England completed a worksheet containing photos of foods and pharmaceutical products.

Alveolarization continues during childhood and adolescence: new evidence from helium-3 magnetic resonance.

Rationale: The current hypothesis that human pulmonary alveolarization is complete by 3 years is contradicted by new evidence of alveolarization throughout adolescence in mammals.

Objectives: We reexamined the current hypothesis using helium-3 ((3)He) magnetic resonance (MR) to assess alveolar size noninvasively between 7 and 21 years, during which lung volume nearly quadruples. If new alveolarization does not occur, alveolar size should increase to the same extent.

CLC-5 and KIF3B interact to facilitate CLC-5 plasma membrane expression, endocytosis, and microtubular transport: relevance to pathophysiology of Dent's disease.

Renal tubular reabsorption is important for extracellular fluid homeostasis and much of this occurs via the receptor-mediated endocytic pathway. This pathway is disrupted in Dent's disease, an X-linked renal tubular disorder that is characterized by low-molecular-weight proteinuria, hypercalciuria, nephrolithiasis, and renal failure. Dent's disease is due to mutations of CLC-5, a chloride/proton antiporter, expressed in endosomes and apical membranes of renal tubules.

Mutational analysis of CLC-5, cofilin and CLC-4 in patients with Dent's disease.

Background/aims: Dent's disease is caused by mutations in the chloride/proton antiporter, CLC-5, or oculo-cerebro-renal-syndrome-of-Lowe (OCRL1) genes.

Methods: Eighteen probands with Dent's disease were investigated for mutations in CLC-5 and two of its interacting proteins, CLC-4 and cofilin. Wild-type and mutant CLC-5s were assessed in kidney cells.

Uromodulin mutations causing familial juvenile hyperuricaemic nephropathy lead to protein maturation defects and retention in the endoplasmic reticulum.

Familial juvenile hyperuricaemic nephropathy (FJHN), an autosomal dominant disorder, is caused by mutations in the UMOD gene, which encodes Uromodulin, a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored protein that is expressed in the thick ascending limb of the loop of Henle and excreted in the urine. Uromodulin contains three epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like domains, a cysteine-rich region which includes a domain of eight cysteines and a zona pellucida (ZP) domain. Over 90% of UMOD mutations are missense, and 62% alter a cysteine residue, implicating a role for protein misfolding in the disease.

Competency domains in an undergraduate Objective Structured Clinical Examination: their impact on compensatory standard setting.

Context: Following a 15-week attachment in paediatrics and child health, general practice and dermatology medical students in their second clinical year at this medical school undertake a high-stakes assessment including an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). There were 2 hypotheses. Firstly, groups of similar stations map to competency domains identifiable by factor analysis.