Reusable services from the neuGRID project for grid-based health applications.

By abstracting Grid middleware specific considerations from clinical research applications, re-usable services should be developed that will provide generic functionality aimed specifically at medical applications. In the scope of the neuGRID project, generic services are being designed and developed which will be applied to satisfy the requirements of neuroscientists. These services will bring together sources of data and computing elements into a single view as far as applications are concerned, making it possible to cope with centralised, distributed or hybrid data and provide native support for common medical file formats.

A pilot survey study to define quality in residency education.

Purpose: To begin to define indicators of quality in internal medicine residency training.

Method: In 1995, through a modified Delphi process, the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine's Research Committee developed a questionnaire containing 44 items (34 process and ten outcome indicators). The survey was mailed to all 418 internal medicine program directors and a convenience sample of medical residents.

Encounters with pharmaceutical sales representatives among practicing internists.

Background: Although pharmaceutical sales representatives provide physicians with information on new products, these encounters have rarely been studied in practice settings. We examined these interactions among practicing internists and assessed whether prior residency policies limiting pharmaceutical sales representative access affected the subsequent behavior of practitioners.

Methods: We conducted a mail survey of the internal medicine staffs of a medical school hospital and two affiliated community hospitals.

Bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia (BOOP) heralding anti-Jo-1-positive polymyositis.

We report a 51-year-old man who presented with 3 weeks of polyarthritis with fever, nonproductive cough, bibasilar crackles, tachypnea, and hypoxia. Initial laboratory data showed an increased erythrocyte sedimentation rate, rheumatoid factor, and anti-Jo-1 antibody. Imaging studies showed bilateral lower lobe infiltrates of the lung.