The Effect of Post-Graduate Year Training on the Self-Efficacy and Emotional Traits of Physicians Facing the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Taiwan implemented the post-graduate year (PGY) training to reform the medical education system to provide holistic medical care after severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003. In late 2019, COVID-19 quickly spread across the globe and became a pandemic crisis. This study aimed to investigate whether the establishment of the PGY training had positive effects on the self-efficacy and emotional traits of medical workers.

Association Between the Communication Skills of Physicians and the Signing of Do-Not-Resuscitate Consent for Terminally Ill Patients in Emergency Rooms (Cross-Sectional Study).

Background: The signing of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) consent is mandatory in providing a palliative approach in the end-of-life care for the terminally ill patients and requires an effective communication between the physician and the patients or their family members. This study aimed to investigate the association between the communication skills of physicians who participated in the SHARE (supportive environment, how to deliver the bad news, additional information, reassurance, and emotional support) model course on the patient notification and the signing of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) consent by the terminally ill patients at emergency rooms.

Methods: Between May 1, 2017 and April 30, 2018, a total of 109 terminally ill patients were enrolled in this study, of which 70 had signed a DNR and 39 had not.

Nine Novel Phages from a Plateau Lake in Southwest China: Insights into Phage Diversity.

species are common pathogens of fish and some of them can opportunistically cause infectious diseases in humans. The overuse of antibiotics has led to the emergence of bacterial drug-resistance. To date, only 51 complete genome sequences of phages are available in GenBank.

The training in SHARE communication course by physicians increases the signing of do-not-resuscitate orders for critical patients in the emergency room (cross-sectional study).

Background: Communication skills may be an important skill for the front-line emergency physicians.

Aim: This study aimed to investigate the effect of training in a SHARE communication course by emergency physicians on patient notification and signing of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders for critical patients in the emergency room.

Design: From a total of 29 attending physicians in the emergency department, 19 physicians had been trained in the SHARE communication course.

Telomerase reverse transcriptase acts in a feedback loop with NF-κB pathway to regulate macrophage polarization in alcoholic liver disease.

Activation of Kupffer cells (KCs) plays a central role in the pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease (ALD). C57BL/6 mice fed EtOH-containing diet showed a mixed induction of hepatic classical (M1) and alternative (M2) macrophage markers. Since telomerase activation occurs at critical stages of myeloid and lymphoid cell activation, we herein investigated the role of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), the determining factor of telomerase, in macrophage activation during ALD.

Do-not-resuscitate orders and related factors among family surrogates of patients in the emergency department.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders and to identify relevant factors influencing the DNR decision-making process by patients' surrogates in the emergency department (ED).

Methods: A prospective, descriptive, and correlational research design was adopted. A total of 200 surrogates of cancer or non-cancer terminal patients, regardless of whether they signed a DNR order, were recruited as subjects after physicians of the emergency department explained the patient's conditions, advised on withholding medical treatment, and provided information on palliative care to all surrogates.

Tumortropic monocyte-mediated delivery of echogenic polymer bubbles and therapeutic vesicles for chemotherapy of tumor hypoxia.

Overcoming limitations often experienced in nanomedicine delivery toward hypoxia regions of malignant tumors remains a great challenge. In this study, a promising modality for active hypoxia drug delivery was developed by adopting tumortropic monocytes/macrophages as a cellular vehicle for co-delivery of echogenic polymer/C5F12 bubbles and doxorubicin-loaded polymer vesicles. Through the remote-controlled focused ultrasound (FUS)-triggered drug liberation, therapeutic monocytes show prominent capability of inducing apoptosis of cancer cells.

Cancer patient autonomy and quality of dying-a prospective nationwide survey in Taiwan.

Background: Patient autonomy is an essential factor in the measurement of quality of dying. We aimed to conduct a study to investigate the factors affecting the autonomy of advanced cancer patients in Taiwan.

Methods: We conducted a prospective, multicenter study and recruited 574 advanced cancer patients from four inpatient hospice wards in Taiwan; their quality of dying was measured using the validated good death scale and the audit scale.

Charge and spin orderings in triangular t-J-V model with quarter filling: application to Na(0.5)CoO(2).

We investigated the ground state (GS) properties of the single-orbital t-J-V model in a quarter-filling two-dimensional triangular lattice with the slave-boson mean-field approach. We found that the charge ordering (CO) and spin ordering arising from the spin exchange interaction J competes with that from the inter-site Coulomb interaction V. For comparatively large J, the stable GS is insulating with striped CO and antiferromagnetic ordering, avoiding the homogeneous frustrated phase.