Your professionalism is not my professionalism:congruence and variance in the views of medical students and faculty about professionalism

Abstract Background Medical professionalism is an essential aspect of medical education and practice worldwide and it must be adopted according to different social and cultural contexts. We examined the current congruence and variance in the perception of professionalism in undergraduate medical students and faculty members in one medical school in Saudi Arabia. Methods The target population was first year to final year medical students of College of Medicine, King Saud University. Out of a total of 1431 students at College of Medicine 750 students (52 %) participated in the study. Fifty faculty members from clinical and non-clinical departments of the College of Medicine were randomly selected for this study and all participated in the study. The respondents recorded their responses through the Bristol online survey system, using a bilingual (English and Arabic) version of the Dundee Polyprofessionalism Inventory I: Academic integrity, which has 34 items. Results There are 17 lapses (50 % of the total) in professional behaviour where none of the faculty recommend the ignore sanction while students recommended a variable ignore sanction in a range of 6–29 % for different behaviours. Students and faculty recommended similar sanctions for 5 lapses (14.7 % of the total) in professional behaviours. Furthermore, there is statistically significant two level difference between the sanctions approved by faculty and students in the recommended sanctions for 12 lapses (35 % of the total (p < 0.050). Conclusions These results raised concerns in relation to the students’ understanding of professionalism. It is therefore, important to enhance their learning around the attributes of medical professionalism

Liver cell therapy: is this the end of the beginning?

The prevalence of liver diseases is increasing globally. Orthotopic liver transplantation is widely used to treat liver disease upon organ failure. The complexity of this procedure and finite numbers of healthy organ donors have prompted research into alternative therapeutic options to treat liver disease. This includes the transplantation of liver cells to promote regeneration. While successful, the routine supply of good quality human liver cells is limited. Therefore, renewable and scalable sources of these cells are sought. Liver progenitor and pluripotent stem cells offer potential cell sources that could be used clinically. This review discusses recent approaches in liver cell transplantation and requirements to improve the process, with the ultimate goal being efficient organ regeneration. We also discuss the potential off-target effects of cell-based therapies, and the advantages and drawbacks of current pre-clinical animal models used to study organ senescence, repopulation and regeneration

A property of the CHAID partitioning method for dichotomous randomized response data and categorical predictors

In this paper, we present empirical and theoretical results on classification trees for randomized response data. We considered a dichotomous sensitive response variable with the true status intentionally misclassified by the respondents using rules prescribed by a randomized response method. We assumed that classification trees are grown using the Pearson chi-square test as a splitting criterion, and that the randomized response data are analyzed using classification trees as if they were not perturbed. We proved that classification trees analyzing observed randomized response data and estimated true data have a one-to-one correspondence in terms of ranking the splitting variables. This is illustrated using two real data set

Comparison of infant sleep practices in African-American and U.S. Hispanic families: Implications for sleep-related infant death

BACKGROUND: African-American and Hispanic families share similar socioeconomic profiles. Hispanic rates of sleep-related infant death are four times lower than African-American rates. METHODS: Cross-sectional, multi-modal (surveys, qualitative interviews) study to compare infant care practices that impact risk for sleep-related infant death in African-American and Hispanic families. RESULTS: We surveyed 422 African-American and 90 Hispanic mothers. Eighty-three African-American and 6 Hispanic mothers participated in qualitative interviews. African-American infants were more likely to be placed prone (p<0.001), share the bed with the parent (p<0.001), and to be exposed to smoke (p<0.001). Hispanic women were more likely to breastfeed (p<.001), while African-American women were more knowledgeable about SIDS. Qualitative interviews indicate that, although African-American and Hispanic parents had similar concerns, behaviors differed. DISCUSSION: Although the rationale for infant care decisions was similar for African-American and Hispanic families, practices differed. This may help to explain the racial/ethnic disparity seen in sleep-related infant deaths

Unbiased estimators of mean, variance and sensitivity level for quantitative characteristics in finite population sampling

Percent relative efficiency, Randomized response, Sample size allocation, Simple random sampling with replacement,