Formal peer-teaching in medical school improves academic performance: the MUSC supplemental instructor program.

Background: Formal systems of peer teaching are common in many advanced-degree graduate school programs but are less prevalent in medical schools. In 1997, The Medical University of South Carolina's Center for Academic Excellence created a Supplemental Instructor (SI) program in which interested upper-level medical students are hired to teach a small group of junior peers, primarily in basic science topics.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine if participation as an SI leader resulted inmeasurable academic improvement for those students.

Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of piperacillin/tazobactam when administered by continuous infusion and intermittent dosing.

Background: Although intermittent bolus dosing is currently the standard of practice for many antimicrobial agents, beta-lactams exhibit time-dependent bacterial killing. Maximizing the time above the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) for a pathogen is the best pharmacodynamic predictor of efficacy. Use of a continuous infusion has been advocated for maximizing the time above the MIC compared with intermittent bolus dosing.

Linezolid-Induced anemia and thrombocytopenia.

Linezolid, a fluorinated oxazolidinone, is the first of a new class of antimicrobials designed to target resistant gram-positive cocci. Hematologic adverse effects, including reversible thrombocytopenia, were reported during phase III comparator-controlled trials. A 66-year-old man developed sternal osteomyelitis due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus after undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

Coinfection with HIV and HCV: more questions than answers?

Chronic infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major public health threat in the United States and worldwide. By sharing some routes of transmission, persons infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are at risk for coinfection with HCV As a result, hepatic cirrhosis, end-stage liver disease, and hepatocellular carcinoma due to chronic infection with HCV are important causes of both morbidity and mortality in coinfected patients. The advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy improved the management of patients with HIV, leading to decreased morbidity and better survival.