Residents' views about family medicine specialty education in Turkey

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Residents are one of the key stakeholders of specialty training. The Turkish Board of Family Medicine wanted to pursue a realistic and structured approach in the design of the specialty training programme. This approach required the development of a needs-based core curriculum built on evidence obtained from residents about their needs for specialty training and their needs in the current infrastructure. The aim of this study was to obtain evidence on residents' opinions and views about Family Medicine specialty training.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study. The board prepared a questionnaire to investigate residents' views about some aspects of the education programme such as duration and content, to assess the residents' learning needs as well as their need for a training infrastructure. The questionnaire was distributed to the Family Medicine Departments (n = 27) and to the coordinators of Family Medicine residency programmes in state hospitals (n = 11) by e-mail and by personal contact.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 191 questionnaires were returned. The female/male ratio was 58.6%/41.4%. Nine state hospitals and 10 university departments participated in the study. The response rate was 29%. Forty-five percent of the participants proposed over three years for the residency duration with either extensions of the standard rotation periods in pediatrics and internal medicine or reductions in general surgery. Residents expressed the need for extra rotations (dermatology 61.8%; otolaryngology 58.6%; radiology 52.4%). Fifty-nine percent of the residents deemed a rotation in a private primary care centre necessary, 62.8% in a state primary care centre with a proposed median duration of three months. Forty-seven percent of the participants advocated subspecialties for Family Medicine, especially geriatrics. The residents were open to new educational methods such as debates, training with models, workshops and e-learning. Participation in courses and congresses was considered necessary. The presence of a department office and the clinical competency of the educators were more favored by state residents.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study gave the Board the chance to determine the needs of the residents that had not been taken into consideration sufficiently before. The length and the content of the programme will be revised according to the needs of the residents.</p

Some Aspects of the Reproductive Biology of Poor Cod (Trisopterus minutus capelanus Lacepede, 1800) in Edremit Bay (the North-Eastern Aegean Sea)

Aspects of the reproductive biology of poor cod were studied from samples collected by bottom trawl in Edremit Bay during September 1999 and December 2000. A total of 3904 poor cod specimens were investigated consisting of 1946 females, 1576 males and 382 individuals with unidentified sex. The sex ratio (males to females) of poor cod varied from 0.34 to 1.27 and significant differences were found in the unity (1: 1) among months. The reproductive period started in December and continued throughout spring. The main spawning was in February and March. The length at maturity of female observed to be 11.4 cm while the smallest mature female was 10.8 cm. Batch fecundity was found to be highly variable between individuals and ranged from 765 to 7958 eggs (mean: 2295 eggs, SD: 968 eggs). Batch fecundity increased with fish length and weight. Relative fecundity varied between 41 and 116 eggs/g (mean: 76 eggs/g, SD: 12 eggs/g) for the fish weight ranged from 14.2 to 83.6 g

FRAMES WITH SEMIRIGID STRUCTURAL CONNECTIONS

During recent years, researchers have focused their attention on the actual behaviour of beam-to-column joints. In general, structural analysis of frames are performed either for rigid joints or pin-ended connections. Nevertheless in practice, no joints are either fully rigid or actually pinned. A presumed rigid joint always allows for a relative rotation or presumed pin-ended connections are never proper hinges. Therefore all joints should be treated as semi-rigid. To meet semi-rigidly connected behaviour an empirical interaction equation, given in Turkish Standard TS 4561, is adopted into analysis by using Cm values which modifies the moment relating with effective buckling length of member, where Cm values are different for rigidly and semi rigidly connected frame elements