Virtual Coaching and Deliberate Practice to Enhance Medical Students\u27 Clinical Reasoning during Oral Case Presentations

ABSTRACT: Introduction Oral case presentations (OP) provide an opportunity for medical students to practice clinical reasoning and communication skills, and for faculty to provide assessment. Specific teaching strategies are needed to improve students’ OP skills. Objective To compare the effectiveness of Virtual Coaching (VC) to Small Group (SG) discussion or Traditional Feedback (TF/control) in improving clinical reasoning during OP, using a validated PBEAR (Problem Representation, Background Evidence, Analysis, Recommendation) tool. Design/Methods Students from two medical schools were randomly assigned to three groups during their inpatient pediatric clerkship. All completed an eLearning module about using illness scripts to promote clinical reasoning and presenting in the PBEAR format. TF/control students completed online “Aquifer” cases; VC students recorded abstracted data from the same cases with on-line faculty feedback and self-reflection; SG students attended faculty facilitated discussions of the same cases. Students were video recorded presenting pre- and post-curriculum cases. Reviewers blinded to assignment groups rated pre and post videos with the PBEAR OP tool. Results The overall score and sub-scale scores improved for all groups. VC students significantly improved in the Analysis subscale compared to SG or controls. Students rated the SG teaching sessions as more enjoyable and effective in improving their clinical reasoning and presentation skills. Conclusions A blended learning curriculum using VC significantly improved students’ clinical reasoning as assessed by the Analysis subscale

The Impact of Mouse Passaging of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Strains prior to Virulence Testing in the Mouse and Guinea Pig Aerosol Models

It has been hypothesized that the virulence of lab-passaged Mycobacterium tuberculosis and recombinant M. tuberculosis mutants might be reduced due to multiple in vitro passages, and that virulence might be augmented by passage of these strains through mice before quantitative virulence testing in the mouse or guinea pig aerosol models.By testing three M. tuberculosis H37Rv samples, one deletion mutant, and one recent clinical isolate for survival by the quantitative organ CFU counting method in mouse or guinea pig aerosol or intravenous infection models, we could discern no increase in bacterial fitness as a result of passaging of M. tuberculosis strains in mice prior to quantitative virulence testing in two animal models. Surface lipid expression as assessed by neutral red staining and thin-layer chromatography for PDIM analysis also failed to identify virulence correlates.These results indicate that animal passaging of M. tuberculosis strains prior to quantitative virulence testing in mouse or guinea pig models does not enhance or restore potency to strains that may have lost virulence due to in vitro passaging. It is critical to verify virulence of parental strains before genetic manipulations are undertaken and comparisons are made

Correlation between the functional impairment of bone marrow-derived circulating progenitor cells and the extend of coronary artery disease

Abstract Background Bone marrow-derived circulating progenitor cells (BM-CPCs) in patients with coronary heart disease are impaired with respect to number and functional activity. However, the relation between the functional activity of BM-CPCs and the number of diseased coronary arteries is yet not known. We analyzed the influence of the number of diseased coronary arteries on the functional activity of BM-CPCs in peripheral blood (PB) in patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD). Methods The functional activity of BM-CPCs was measured by migration assay and colony forming unit in 120 patients with coronary 1 vessel (IHD1, n = 40), coronary 2 vessel (IHD2, n = 40), coronary 3 vessel disease (IHD3, n = 40) and in a control group of healthy subjects (n = 40). There was no significant difference of the total number of cardiovascular risk factors between IHD groups, beside diabetes mellitus (DM), which was significantly higher in IHD3 group compared to IHD2 and IHD1. Results The colony-forming capacity (CFU-E: p  Conclusions The functional activity of BM-CPCs in PB is impaired in patients with IHD. This impairment increases with the number of diseased coronary arteries. Moreover, the regenerative capacity of BM-CPCs in ischemic tissue further declines in IHD patients with DM. Furthermore, monitoring the level of BM-CPCs in PB may provide new insights in patients with IHD.</p

A. Multiplication of mouse-passaged and -unpassaged <i>M. tuberculosis</i> clinical isolate in BALB/c mice.

<p>A. Growth in lungs of the isolate following intravenous infection. B. Growth in lungs following aerosol infection of mouse-passaged clinical isolate in comparison with regularly mouse-passaged H37Rv strain (JHU) in BALB/c mice. Errors are SD.</p

Comparison of bacterial multiplication in the lungs of C57BL/6 mice by passaged and unpassaged <i>dosR</i> deletion mutants and their parental <i>M. tuberculosis</i> H37Rv strain following aerosol infection.

<p>Errors are SD.</p

Mouse passaged JHU <i>M. tuberculosis</i> H37Rv strain compared to in vitro propagated TAMU H37Rv strain in guinea pigs after aerosol infection.

<p>Errors are SEM.</p

Comparative lung histopathology in guinea pigs infected with <i>M. tuberculosis</i> H37Rv with different histories of in vitro and in vivo passaging.

<p>* Not passaged in mice.</p><p>** Passaged in mice.</p

Comparison of inflammatory granulomatous pathology in the lungs of guinea pigs three weeks after aerosol infection with one of two H37Rv strains (unpassaged TAMU, top, and mouse-passaged JHU, bottom).

<p>Comparison of inflammatory granulomatous pathology in the lungs of guinea pigs three weeks after aerosol infection with one of two H37Rv strains (unpassaged TAMU, top, and mouse-passaged JHU, bottom).</p