Professionalism is a core competency of physicians. Clinical knowledge and skills (and their maintenance and improvement), good communication skills, and sound understanding of ethics constitutes the foundation of professionalism. Rising from this foundation are behaviors and attributes of professionalism: accountability, altruism, excellence, and humanism, the capstone of which is professionalism. Patients, medical societies, and accrediting organizations expect physicians to be professional. Furthermore, professionalism is associated with better clinical outcomes. Hence, medical learners and practicing physicians should be taught and assessed for professionalism. A number of methods can be used to teach professionalism (e.g. didactic lectures, web-based modules, role modeling, reflection, interactive methods, etc.). Because of the nature of professionalism, no single tool for assessing it among medical learners and practicing physicians exists. Instead, multiple assessment tools must be used (e.g. multi-source feedback using 360-degree reviews, patient feedback, critical incident reports, etc.). Data should be gathered continuously throughout an individual’s career. For the individual learner or practicing physician, data generated by these tools can be used to create a “professionalism portfolio,” the totality of which represents a picture of the individual’s professionalism. This portfolio in turn can be used for formative and summative feedback. Data from professionalism assessments can also be used for developing professionalism curricula and generating research hypotheses. Health care leaders should support teaching and assessing professionalism at all levels of learning and practice and promote learning environments and institutional cultures that are consistent with professionalism precepts.
In rare cases, the monoclonal immunoglobulin that characterizes essential monoclonal gammopathy interacts with a self-antigen with functional consequences and a resulting clinical syndrome. This event is presumably random and results from the clone of B lymphocytes making a monoclonal immunoglobulin that simulates an autoimmune antibody. Thus, by chance, the monoclonal immunoglobulin has sufficient affinity for an epitope on a normal protein that functional consequences ensue. One such rare event is the synthesis and secretion of a monoclonal immunoglobulin that binds to human insulin. Inactivation of insulin by antibody results in (1) an early postprandial hyperglycemia, (2) followed by either or both (i) a reactive overshot in insulin secretion, as a result of hypertrophied or hyperplastic islet beta cells, later falling glucose levels, and (ii) an unpredictable dissociation of insulin from the complex, and, several hours later, (3) a resultant increase in free insulin levels and severe hypoglycemia with clinical consequences, ranging from sweating, dizziness, headache, and tremors to confusion, seizures, and unconsciousness. These attacks are invariably responsive to glucose administration. This very uncommon manifestation of a monoclonal gammopathy can occur in patients with essential monoclonal gammopathy or myeloma. The monoclonal anti-insulin immunoglobulin in monoclonal gammopathy has a low affinity for insulin, but has a high capacity for insulin-binding, resulting in the syndrome of episodic hypoglycemic attacks. This phenomenon of an insulin-binding monoclonal immunoglobulin simulates the acquired insulin autoimmune syndrome, although the latter is mediated by a polyclonal antibody response in the majority of cases studied, and has linkage to HLA class II alleles.
Background: Postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a common form of chronic orthostatic intolerance. The remarkable increase in heart rate (HR) upon standing is the hallmark of this syndrome. Treatment of POTS patients is challenging and includes drugs that slow the HR. Ivabradine is a selective If channel blocker designed to slow the HR, as an anti-anginal agent. In view of its ability to slow the HR, we posited that ivabradine may be an ideal medication for treating POTS patients. This report provides the results of an investigation in which we studied ivabradine’s effect on the hemodynamics and sympathovagal balance in POTS patients.
Methods: An open-label trial, without a placebo control, was performed in eight patients with POTS of two years’ standing. Characterization of symptoms, hemodynamics, autonomic function tests, and HR and blood pressure (BP) variability were determined while patients were in a supine position and during a 20-minute head-up tilt before and after a single oral dose of 7.5 mg ivabradine.
Results: Ivabradine slowed the HR of POTS patients at rest by 4±1 bpm (P<0.05). During a 5-minute head-up tilt, the HR decreased from 118±4 bpm to 101±5 bpm (P<0.01). Ivabradine did not affect the BP when patients were at rest in a supine position or in head-up tilt position. Cardiovascular vagal and sympathetic tone, extrapolated from the time and frequency domains of the HR and BP variability, were also not affected by ivabradine.
Conclusions: Ivabradine is an effective drug for slowing the HR of POTS patients at rest and during tilting, without producing significant adverse effects. Moreover, ivabradine exerts its effects without influencing the sympathovagal balance.
The transition of new biotechnologies into clinical trials is a critical step in approving a new drug or therapy in health care. Ethically recruiting appropriate volunteers for these clinical trials can be a challenging task for both the pharmaceutical companies and the US Food and Drug Administration. In this paper we analyze the Jewish halachic perspectives of volunteering for clinical trials by focusing on an innovative technology in reproductive medicine, mitochondrial replacement therapy. The halachic perspective encourages individuals to volunteer for such clinical trials under the ethical principles of beneficence and social responsibility, when animal studies have shown that health risks are minimal.
Pulmonary edema clearance is necessary for patients with lung injury to recover and survive. The mechanisms regulating edema clearance from the lungs are distinct from the factors contributing edema formation during injury. Edema clearance is effected via vectorial transport of Na+ out of the airspaces which generates an osmotic gradient causing water to follow the gradient out of the cells. This Na+ transport across the alveolar epithelium is mostly effected via apical Na+ and chloride channels and basolateral Na,K-ATPase. The Na,K-ATPase pumps Na+ out of the cell and K+ into the cell against their respective gradients in an ATP-consuming reaction. Two mechanisms contribute to the regulation of the Na,K-ATPase activity:recruitment of its subunits from intracellular compartments into the basolateral membrane, and transcriptional/translational regulation. Na,K-ATPase activity and edema clearance are increased by catecholamines, aldosterone, vasopressin, overexpression of the pump genes, and others. During lung injury, mechanisms regulating edema clearance are inhibited by yet unclear pathways. Better understanding of the mechanisms that regulate pulmonary edema clearance may lead to therapeutic interventions that counterbalance the inhibition of edema clearance during lung injury and improve the lungs’ ability to clear fluid, which is crucial for patient survival.
Whilst painting the vault of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo Buonarroti left an autographical sketch that revealed a prominence at the front of his hyper-extended neck. This image was recently diagnosed as goiter. The poet Michelangelo in a sonnet dated 1509 described himself as being afflicted by goiter similarly to the cats in the northern Italian Lombardy, a region with endemic goiter. Several narratives extended this sonnet into a pathological theory. The analyses of Michelangelo’s works, however, his portraits and self-portraits, of poems and major biographies, have not indicated the likelihood of goiter. This investigation makes an attempt to assess the diagnosis on clinical as well as iconographical grounds.
Historically speaking, in many societies a select few carried the burden of preserving and transferring knowledge. While modern society has broadened the scope of education, this is not enough in the medical sciences. We must ensure that all those who pursue a career in medicine become life-long learners who will grow and contribute well beyond their years in medical school. In considering how to attain this goal, we were intrigued by the similarities between generations-old wisdom of teaching and learning methods in Jewish culture and modern educational principles. Both aim to nurture a culture of learners. Our objective was to parallel the methodologies, pedagogic directives, and demands made of students in the Jewish tradition, to the principles used in medical education today. We surveyed the traditional Jewish culture of teaching and learning. We compared it to modern medical teaching methods and looked to see what lessons might be gleaned. In the traditional Jewish community, life is focused on education, and producing “learners” is the ideal. This culture of learning was developed over the generations and many educational methods are similar to modern ones. Some of the pedagogic principles developed successfully in Jewish society should be considered for adaptation in medical education. Further comparative research could help to expand the ways in which we teach medicine.
Surgical Apgar Score is a simple, 10-point scoring system in which a low score reliably identifies those patients at risk for adverse perioperative outcomes. Surgical techniques and anesthesia management should be directed in such a way that the Surgical Apgar Score remains higher to avoid postoperative morbidity and mortality.
Background: Guidelines and Class 1 evidence are strong factors that help guide surgeons’ decision-making, but dilemmas exist in selecting the best surgical option, usually without the benefit of guidelines or Class 1 evidence. A few studies have discussed the variability of surgical treatment options that are currently available, but no study has examined surgeons’ views on the influential factors that encourage them to choose one surgical treatment over another. This study examines the influential factors and the thought process that encourage surgeons to make these decisions in such circumstances.
Methods: Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 32 senior consultant surgeons, surgical fellows, and senior surgical residents at the University of Toronto teaching hospitals. An e-mail was sent out for volunteers, and interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and subjected to thematic analysis using open and axial coding.
Results: Broadly speaking there are five groups of factors affecting surgeons’ decision-making: medical condition, information, institutional, patient, and surgeon factors. When information factors such as guidelines and Class 1 evidence are lacking, the other four groups of factors—medical condition, institutional, patient, and surgeon factors (the last-mentioned likely being the most powerful)—play a significant role in guiding surgical decision-making.
Conclusions: This study is the first qualitative study on surgeons’ perspectives on the influential factors that help them choose one surgical treatment option over another for their patients.
Although the word “robot” was coined in 1921, only close to 70 years later were robotic devices developed to assist during surgery. Urology has always been at the forefront of endoscopic, minimally invasive, and robotic developments in medicine. Robotic prostatectomy signaled the emerging role of robotic surgery in urology, but since then it has been applied to every urologic laparoscopic procedure.
