The medical licensing assessment in the UK: Knowledge, attitudes and preparedness of medical schools

BackgroundFrom academic year 2024/25, medical graduates who wish to practice in the United Kingdom must pass the new Medical Licensing Assessment (MLA). This exam has been introduced to ensure a common standard of practice for all graduating doctors, and UK medical schools have a major role to play in its development and implementation and in preparing their students to pass it. This study explores knowledge, attitudes and preparedness of medical school staff with respect to the MLA.MethodsMembers of staff, who are involved with MBBS/MBChB programmes, at medical schools across the UK were invited by email to complete a 35-item anonymous online questionnaire. Four items asked about the respondent’s professional role and time in post; 10 asked about knowledge of the MLA; 20 asked about perceptions of the MLA; and a single item asked about the school’s preparedness to help its students pass the MLA.ResultsA total of 75 responses were received from 16 UK medical schools. Staff knowledge levels of the MLA were high, with an average of 67% correct answers for the 10 knowledge items, and higher scores for those whose roles directly related to assessment. Attitudes tended to be negative, particularly with regard to concerns about increased workload and inter-school competition associated with the introduction of the MLA. Positive aspects were also recognised, particularly regarding standardisation for entry into the UK medical register. Despite their misgivings, respondents were optimistic about their schools’ preparedness to help their students pass the MLA.ConclusionsUK medical schools may benefit from reinforcing positive attitudes and taking steps to mitigate the negative attitudes of staff to help ensure a smooth transition to the new licensing assessment

The medical licensing assessment in the UK: Knowledge, attitudes and preparedness of medical schools

BackgroundFrom academic year 2024/25, medical graduates who wish to practice in the United Kingdom must pass the new Medical Licensing Assessment (MLA). This exam has been introduced to ensure a common standard of practice for all graduating doctors, and UK medical schools have a major role to play in its development and implementation and in preparing their students to pass it. This study explores knowledge, attitudes and preparedness of medical school staff with respect to the MLA.MethodsMembers of staff, who are involved with MBBS/MBChB programmes, at medical schools across the UK were invited by email to complete a 35-item anonymous online questionnaire. Four items asked about the respondent’s professional role and time in post; 10 asked about knowledge of the MLA; 20 asked about perceptions of the MLA; and a single item asked about the school’s preparedness to help its students pass the MLA.ResultsA total of 75 responses were received from 16 UK medical schools. Staff knowledge levels of the MLA were high, with an average of 67% correct answers for the 10 knowledge items, and higher scores for those whose roles directly related to assessment. Attitudes tended to be negative, particularly with regard to concerns about increased workload and inter-school competition associated with the introduction of the MLA. Positive aspects were also recognised, particularly regarding standardisation for entry into the UK medical register. Despite their misgivings, respondents were optimistic about their schools’ preparedness to help their students pass the MLA.ConclusionsUK medical schools may benefit from reinforcing positive attitudes and taking steps to mitigate the negative attitudes of staff to help ensure a smooth transition to the new licensing assessment

Association of Glutathione–S-Transferase (GSTP1) Genetic Polymorphism in Iraqi Patients with Diabetes Mellitus Type2

Glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) are enzymes that included, in a more range of detoxifying reactions by conjugation of glutathione, to electrophilic material. Polymorphisms n the genes that responsible of GSTs affect, the function of the GSTs. GSTs play an active role in protection of cell against oxidative stress mechanism. Polymorphisms of GSTP1 at codon 105 amino acids forms GSTP1 important site for bind of hydrophobic electrophiles and the substitution of Ile/Val affect substrate specially catalytic activity of the enzyme and may correlate with reach to different diseases in human like diabetes mellitus type2 disease. Correlation between these polymorphisms and changes in the parameters file of diabetic patients has also been found, therefore, the results variation considerably among the studies; therefore, these control study was designed to leading to detecting know, as there are no studies on this performed in the people of Iraq. The polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism was used to study GSTP1genetic polymorphism in 60 T2DM patients and 50 healthy individuals. Our results showed that presence of the GSTP1 heterozygous mutant allele Ile/Val was more common in subjects with T2DM than in the control group (40.00% and 32.00%, respectively; p = 0.01), as well as the found of the homozygous mutant of GSTP1 allele Val/Val was common in T2DM patient and not found in the control group (3.33% and 0.00%, respectively; p = 0.001).GSTP1 genotypes do not have an effect on blood lipids after infection with diabetes mellitus. Agarose gels used to determined genotypes according to the bands were that appeared in electrophoresis of gel

A systematic review of the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of online supportive care interventions targeting men with a history of prostate cancer

© 2019, The Author(s). Purpose: To examine the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of online supportive care interventions targeting prostate cancer survivors (PCS). Methods: Studies were identified through structured searches of PubMed, Embase and PsycINFO databases, and bibliographic review. Inclusion criteria were (1) examined feasibility, acceptability, or efficacy of an online intervention designed to improve supportive care outcomes for PCS; (2) presented outcome data collected from PCS separately (if mixed cancer); and (3) evaluated efficacy outcomes using randomized controlled trial (RCT) design. Results: Sixteen studies met inclusion criteria; ten were classified as RCTs. Overall, 2446 men (average age 64years) were included. Studies reported on the following outcomes: feasibility and acceptability of an online intervention (e.g., patient support, online medical record/follow-ups, or decision aids); reducing decisional conflict/distress; improving cancer-related distress and health-related quality of life; and satisfaction with cancer care. Conclusion: We found good preliminary evidence for online supportive care among PCS, but little high level evidence. Generally, the samples were small and unrepresentative. Further, inadequate acceptability measures made it difficult to determine actual PCS acceptability and satisfaction, and lack of control groups precluded strong conclusions regarding efficacy. Translation also appears minimal; few interventions are still publicly available. Larger trials with appropriate control groups and greater emphasis on translation of effective interventions is recommended. Implications for Cancer Survivors: Prostate cancer survivors have a variety of unmet supportive care needs. Using online delivery to improve the reach of high-quality supportive care programs could have a positive impact on health-related quality of life among PCS

Evaluating molecular study of the association of Glutathione S – Transferase GST (T1 , M1) genetic polymorphism in Iraqi Arab Femals with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Coronary Artery Disease

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a major health concern and leading of death in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Glutathione S – Transferase(GST) are known for their broad range of detoxification and in the metabolism of xenobiotics . The role of functional variants of these genes in the development of various disorder is proven. We investigated the possible role of these variants in the development of CAD in T2DM patients. In this case – control study a total of 60 patients (T2DM = 30 ; T2DM – CAD = 30) and 30 controls were included. Serum lipid profiles were measured and DNA was extracted from the blood samples. Multiplex PCR for GSTT1/M1 (present / null) polymorphism, were performed for genotyping of study participants. Gene frequency and lipid profiles were statistically analyzed for disease association. Regression analysis showed that, there was no significant difference of the frequency of GSTT1 (positive /null) genotype and GSTM1 (positive /null) genotype in the 3 study groups . GSTT1 – positive genotype is associated with a 0.51 fold increased ( OR = 0.51 ; 95%CI = 2- 0.1 ;P = 0.321 ) , while the GSTM1 – positive genotype was associated with a 3 fold increase ( OR = 3.06 ; 95%CI=1- 9.7 ; P = 0.055) .We conclude GSTT1 positive genotype considered to be a protective risk from CAD in T2DM patients . The GSTM1 – positive genotype it was considered to be a risk factor of the CAD in T2DM patients

Water-Soluble Glass Substrate as a Platform for Biodegradable Solid-State Devices

A biodegradable glass material is utilized as a novel functional element of solid-state devices. A water-soluble borate glass substrate serves as the structural platform on which thin film device is built. The glass substrate completely dissolves in a saline solution in approximately 40 h. Intentional failure of the spiral device (RLC resonator circuit) as a result of rapid structural disintegration by dissolution is demonstrated in DC, AC, and RF ranges that agrees well with simulation. Adopting water-soluble glass elements is expected to be a viable approach to develop reliable all-inorganic biodegradable devices that are fully functional during an intended operational lifetime followed by rapid degradation

Volume, enthalpy and entropy of activation of the diels-alder reaction of dimethyl 1,2,4,5-tetrazine-3,6-dicarboxylate with 1-hexene

Pressure and temperature effects on the reaction rate of dimethyl 1,2,4,5-tetrazine-3,6-dicarboxylate with 1-hexene were investigated. The activation volume (-26.7 cm3 mol1, 298.1 K) is in agreement with the conservation of all four nitrogen atoms in transition state. Densitometry, 1H NMR and calorimetric studies of the reaction indicate nitrogen molecule loss by the intermediate just after its formation. Partial molar volumes in acetone of diene (127.2), 1-hexene (127.6) and the resulting adduct (206.9 cm3 mol-1) were determined

An industrial study on the risk of software changes

ABSTRACT Modelling and understanding bugs has been the focus of much of the Software Engineering research today. However, organizations are interested in more than just bugs. In particular, they are more concerned about managing risk, i.e., the likelihood that a code or design change will cause a negative impact on their products and processes, regardless of whether or not it introduces a bug. In this paper, we conduct a year-long study involving more than 450 developers of a large enterprise, spanning more than 60 teams, to better understand risky changes, i.e., changes for which developers believe that additional attention is needed in the form of careful code/design reviewing and/or more testing. Our findings show that different developers and different teams have their own criteria for determining risky changes. Using factors extracted from the changes and the history of the files modified by the changes, we are able to accurately identify risky changes with a recall of more than 67%, and a precision improvement of 87% (using developer specific models) and 37% (using team specific models), over a random model. We find that the number of lines and chunks of code added by the change, the bugginess of the files being changed, the number of bug reports linked to a change and the developer experience are the best indicators of change risk. In addition, we find that when a change has many related changes, the reliability of developers in marking risky changes is affected. Our findings and models are being used today by an industrial partner to manage the risk of their software projects