Assessing patient experience of the tenets of osteopathic medicine.

Context: Previous studies document that both osteopathic physicians and third-party observers identify an approach to the patient that is consistent with the philosophy and tenets of osteopathic medicine, often without investigating whether patients identify or are satisfied with it. Osteopathic physicians and the medical education community understand the distinctiveness of an osteopathic approach to the patient. Understanding the outcomes of an osteopathic approach to patient care includes confirming whether patients experience the tenets of osteopathic medicine in physician visits and, if so, how it relates to their experience of physician empathy and satisfaction with the visit.

Clinical Preceptors' Perceptions of Empathy: The Empathy in Osteopathic Training and Education (EMOTE) Study.

Context: Physician empathy influences rapport with patients and improves outcomes, but it is not well understood as an outcome of osteopathic medical education.

Objective: To determine how clerkship preceptors at Touro University College of Osteopathic Medicine-CA (TUCOM) in Vallejo define empathy and how they compare observed empathetic behavior of TUCOM students with that of other medical students.

Methods: Cross-sectional data were obtained from a survey of TUCOM clinical preceptors comparing TUCOM students with other medical students on 10 behaviors.

Scoring system for estimating age in the foot skeleton.

This study assesses chronological age of immature individuals from the degree of ossification evident in the foot skeleton. We considered all tarsal and ray bones in various combinations to determine the most sensitive indicators of chronological age. Skeletal maturity was rated according to a subjective but simple scoring system applied to radiographs of normal feet of children of known chronological age.

Fractal analysis of sagittal suture morphology.

Quantifying shape is a broad problem in the morphological sciences. Most techniques for numerically describing shape abstract the shape into the most logical ideal Euclidean dimension. The fractional, or fractal, dimension is a simple computation that expresses shape in real, rather than ideal, space.