Comparison of medical students' considerations in choosing a specialty: 2020 vs. 2009/10.

Background: Workforce shortage in healthcare and particularly in physicians poses a threat to healthcare delivery and its quality. In comparison to other OECD countries, Israel currently has a small number of medical graduates relative to its number of physicians, naturally emphasizing the importance of ensuring that this population chooses to remain in medicine. Understanding what is most important to medical students can help improve working conditions in residency.

HLA binding-groove motifs are associated with myocarditis induction after Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccination.

Background And Aims: We found a higher incidence of myocarditis in young males who had received at least two Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccinations. The human leukocyte antigens (HLA) are known to play an important role in infectious and autoinflammatory diseases. We hypothesized that certain HLA alleles might be associated with vaccination-induced myocarditis.

Psychiatric Comorbidities Associated With Keratoconus.

Importance: Evaluating risk factors for keratoconus, often associated with recurrent eye rubbing, could generate hypotheses to be tested in future interventional trials.

Objective: To assess the risk for keratoconus associated with psychiatric comorbidities in adolescents and adults.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This population-based cross-sectional study included medical records of Israeli adolescents and adults in military service from January 2011 through December 2021.

Genomic, phenotypic and demographic characterization of in Israel in 2021.

According to World Health Organization WHO, Tuberculosis (TB) is the second cause of death from infectious disease worldwide. During 2021, 10.6 million people were infected with TB, and 1.

Emergency Department Admission Rates, Waiting Times, and Mortality: An Observational Study in the Tertiary Center Most Proximal to Gaza During a Military Conflict.

Objectives: Military conflicts may be ongoing and encompass multiple medical facilities. This study investigated the impact of a military conflict ("Protective Edge" PE) on emergency department (ED) function in a tertiary medical center.

Methods: Visits to the ED during PE (July-August 2014) were compared with ED visits during July-August 2013 and 2015 with regard to admission rates, waiting times and 30-d mortality.

Apoptotic cells for treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome associated with COVID-19.

Background: Hyper-inflammatory immune response, a hallmark of severe COVID-19, is associated with increased mortality. Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a common manifestation. We undertook two phase I/II studies in five and then 16 subjects with severe/critical COVID-19 to assess the safety and preliminary efficacy of apoptotic cells (Allocetra™-OTS, Enlivex Therapeutics), a cellular immunomodulatory therapy that reprograms macrophages to reduce hyper-inflammatory response severity.

The Suitability of Measuring Patient-Reported Outcomes in Older Adults Following a Hip Fracture Using the Short-Form 36 Questionnaire: A Qualitative Description Approach.

Hip-fractures (HF) in older adults are associated with poor outcomes and high costs. Measuring quality-of-care of HF patients has focused on clinical definitions rather than on measuring outcomes that are meaningful to the patient. Healthcare systems worldwide are increasingly interested in patient-reported outcome measures (PROs).

Quality Assurance of Undergraduate Medical Education in Israel by Continuous Monitoring and Prioritization of the Accreditation Standards.

External accreditation reviews of undergraduate medical curricula play an important role in their quality assurance. However, these reviews occur only at 4-10-year intervals and are not optimal for the immediate identification of problems related to teaching. Therefore, the Standards of Medical Education in Israel require medical schools to engage in continuous, ongoing monitoring of their teaching programs for compliance with accreditation standards.

The presence of a urinary catheter is an important predictor of in-hospital mortality in internal medicine patients.

Rationale And Objective: Mortality rates are used to assess the quality of hospital care after appropriate adjustment for case-mix. Urinary catheters are frequent in hospitalized adults and might be a marker of patient frailty and illness severity. However, we know of no attempts to estimate the predictive value of indwelling catheters for specific patient outcomes.

Involvement levels of breast cancer patients-Seeking trusted hospital and physician.

The active involvement levels of breast cancer patients (BCP) in treatment decisions range from 10% to 81%. We investigated the involvement levels of 179 Israeli breast cancer survivors, aged 30 to 81, in the choice of hospital, surgeon, surgical procedure, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. High involvement was documented in location decisions (operating hospital 77%, chemotherapy facility 82%) as opposed to low involvement in treatment decisions (chemotherapy 30%-38%, radiotherapy 25%, surgical procedure 31%).

Inferring Numbers of Wild Poliovirus Excretors Using Quantitative Environmental Surveillance.

Response to and monitoring of viral outbreaks can be efficiently focused when rapid, quantitative, kinetic information provides the location and the number of infected individuals. Environmental surveillance traditionally provides information on location of populations with contagious, infected individuals since infectious poliovirus is excreted whether infections are asymptomatic or symptomatic. Here, we describe development of rapid (1 week turnaround time, TAT), quantitative RT-PCR of poliovirus RNA extracted directly from concentrated environmental surveillance samples to infer the number of infected individuals excreting poliovirus.

[EXPERTISE IN MEDICINE].

The Israeli state accords the status of "specialist", after an authorization by the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) Scientific Council and Ministry of Health (MOH), to physicians who fulfilled the requirements for the title in the 56 recognized specialties in the country. An "expert" and "specialist" are synonyms in Hebrew. However, there is no doubt that these two terms are not identical.

Cardiac arrest in older adult patients.

Purpose Of Review: To describe the epidemiology, prognostication, and treatment of out- and in-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA and IHCA) in elderly patients.

Recent Findings: Elderly patients undergoing cardiac arrest (CA) challenge the appropriateness of attempting cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Current literature suggests that factors traditionally associated with survival to hospital discharge and neurologically intact survival after CA cardiac arrest in general (e.

A simple index predicting 30-day readmissions in acutely hospitalized patients.

Background: There are various models attempting to predict 30-day readmissions of acutely admitted internal medicine patients. However, it is uncertain how to create a parsimonious index that has equivalent predictive ability and can be extrapolated to other settings.

Methods: We developed a regression equation to predict 30-day readmissions from all acute hospitalizations in internal medicine departments in a regional hospital in 2015-2016 and validated the model in 2019.

Association of Myopia with cognitive function among one million adolescents.

Background: Myopia is a leading cause of visual impairment worldwide, and its increasing incidence is of public health concern. Cognitive function was associated with myopia among children, but evidence for adolescents is scarce. The purpose of this study was to determine whether myopia is associated with cognitive function, and which cognitive ability, verbal or non-verbal, is involved.

Historic tobacco legislation in Israel: a moment to celebrate.

Background: Israel was once a leader in tobacco control, but fell behind other countries, particularly during the past decade, as smoking rates stagnated. TEXT: Landmark tobacco control legislation, which banned advertising (with the exception of the print press) and limited marketing, was passed in Israel on Dec. 31, 2018.

Photobiomodulation Therapy for Cancer Treatment-Related Salivary Gland Dysfunction: A Systematic Review.

Symptoms and clinical signs of decreased saliva secretion are a common after cancer therapy. The goal of this research is to systematically review the evidence about the efficacy of photobiomodulation therapy (PBMT) for the management of cancer treatment-related xerostomia or salivary hypofunction. PubMed was searched for articles investigating the clinical effects of PBMT on cancer therapy-related xerostomia or hyposalivation.

Myristoylation Confers Oral Bioavailability and Improves the Bioactivity of c(MyD 4-4), a Cyclic Peptide Inhibitor of MyD88.

Myeloid differentiation primary response 88 (MyD88) is an intracellular adaptor protein central to the signaling of multiple receptors involved in inflammation. Since innate immune inflammation promotes autoimmunity, MyD88 is an attractive target in autoimmune disease. We previously developed c(MyD 4-4), a novel cyclic peptide competitive inhibitor of MyD88 dimerization that is metabolically stable.

Can immunization with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) protect against Alzheimer's disease?

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder which is the most prevalent cause of dementia in the western world. Currently, it is the most expensive disease in America, costing more than heart diseases and cancer and as the world population is getting older it is expected to become the most expensive medical disorder in the world. AD is characterized by three core pathologies: accumulation of amyloid β (Aβ) plaques, neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) and sustained inflammation.

Adaptation of health systems to climate-related migration in Sub-Saharan Africa: Closing the gap.

Health systems worldwide need to be adapted to cope with growing numbers of migrants and to climate-exacerbated morbidity. Heatwaves, water stress, desertification, flooding, and sea level rise are environmental stressors that increase morbidity, mortality, and poor mental health in Sub-Saharan Africa. While most migration is intra-African, climate change is also affecting migration patterns outside the continent.

The effect of body position on pulmonary function: a systematic review.

Background: Pulmonary function tests (PFTs) are routinely performed in the upright position due to measurement devices and patient comfort. This systematic review investigated the influence of body position on lung function in healthy persons and specific patient groups.

Methods: A search to identify English-language papers published from 1/1998-12/2017 was conducted using MEDLINE and Google Scholar with key words: body position, lung function, lung mechanics, lung volume, position change, positioning, posture, pulmonary function testing, sitting, standing, supine, ventilation, and ventilatory change.