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Government of Canada Supports Improvements to the Postgraduate Medical Education System

Deepak Ghimire — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:13:49 +0000

OTTAWA - The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health, today announced federal funding of over $1.5 million to the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) to strengthen the postgraduate medical education system. The funding will help provide physicians in training with the necessary skills to meet the health care needs of Canadians.

"Our government is working to strengthen Canada's health care system," said Minister Aglukkaq. "I commend the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada for undertaking this important and complex challenge in examining the training needs of physicians."

In undertaking this review, the Association will partner with the College of Family Physicians of Canada, le Collège des médecins du Québec and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. The partners will also work with other health care professional organizations, such as those that support Aboriginal and public health to examine how postgraduate medical education system can better meet the physician requirements of the Canadian population.

"AFMC is extremely pleased that this government has approved funding for the Postgraduate Project," said Dr. Nick Busing, President and CEO of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada. "I believe that once implemented, the recommendations stemming from both the MD education project and this equally critical project will have a profound impact on the way we train physicians in Canada and ultimately, the quality of our health care system."

Funding of $1,590,910 over three years for this new project is provided by Health Canada through the Pan-Canadian Health Human Resources Strategy.

Source: Health Canada

Excessive Sex Behind Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Deepak Ghimire — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:50:26 +0000

Excessive computer use and working with heavy machinery have long been blamed for causing wrist pain, but according to a top medic, the reason behind the agony is: too much sex.

Writing in the journal Medical Hypotheses, researcher Dr John Zenian states that repetitive movements during lovemaking puts extra weight on the wrists. This causes carpal tunnel syndrome, reports The Sun.

The syndrome traps nerves, causing pain and numbness.

Researcher Dr John Zenian, writing in the journal Medical Hypotheses, says: "Sexual intercourse can explain the increase in the overall incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome seen in recent years, since it is the most widely practised activity that uses both hands at the same time."

Carpal tunnel syndrome is when the nerve which runs from the arm into the hand becomes pressed or squeezed at the wrist, resulting in pain, weakness or numbness.

Personally i'm not convinced though. How could sexual activities cause median nerve compression..? any comments...

:::::: I agree sitting on computer for several hours and scrolling the mouse with your median nerve being used and compressed against mouse pad or hard table could sure lead to carpal Tunnel Syndrome. But Sexual activities are not carried out for several hours with median nerve involvement. Whats your thoughts on this..??

Three and half year MBBS courses to produce doctors for villages

Deepak Ghimire — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:15:42 +0000

New Delhi: In order to combat the shortage of doctors in rural areas, the government has come up with a unique three-and-a-half-year bachelor course in medicine and surgery (MBBS) for students from villages. The catch is these doctors will not be allowed practise in urban or semi-urban areas.

Once the rural doctors get their degrees, they will be allowed to practise only in notified rural areas. To ensure this, the MCI would renew their practising licence on an annual basis that too on submission of a certificate from the district health officer.

At present, the sub-centres are handled by the auxiliary nurse and midwives (ANMs) and there are no doctors to man them since they prefer to work in urban areas.

“These doctors will work in rural areas. District hospitals with specified bed capacities can be utilised as medical schools for these courses,” said health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

According to Dr Ketan Desai, president of Medical Council of India (MCI), this will provide an opportunity to children of villagers to get into the medical stream.

“Only 300 out of India’s 604 districts have medical colleges. There are 34,000 medical seats available at the MBBS level out of which only 10,000 are left for general students after quotas. Some very good students are left out due to stiff competition where mainly the urban students score better due to better coaching facility,” Desai said.

The rural medical course has been almost finalised by the MCI and is likely to be discussed in a conference with vice-chancellors of universities, and health secretaries on February 4.

“The syllabus will be the same. We have only condensed the new course by removing certain things like kidney transplant, angiography, MRI, and radiology from it. All we require at the village level is a doctor who can immediately attend to a patient. This doctor can refer serious patients to district or bigger hospitals,” Desai said.

In rural areas, doctors can handle common ailments like asthma or abdominal ailments. They can also attend to normal child delivery, but they will not conduct surgery or look into complicated cases, Dr Desai said.

The government will begin by picking up 25 students from each of India’s 300 districts which do not have medical colleges. The new MBBS course has been tailor-made to suit the rural requirements.

Source:Dnaindia

Medical students examination forms cancelled

Deepak Ghimire — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:48:28 +0000

No less than 22 MBBS students will not be able to appear for their exams as their examination forms have been rejected by college authorities, taking into account their' scant attendance and failure in internal exams. The students are from city's B J Medical College and NHL Municipal Medical College and Vaghodiya's Sumandeep Medical College.
The first and third year MBBS exams are scheduled to begin from January 18.

The colleges which have repealed their students' examination forms include

The colleges decided to cancel the students' examination forms as per the GU's guidelines, which have made at least 75 percent of attendance compulsory for students. It may be noted that compulsory attendance has been made applicable to Science, Commerce and Arts colleges as well.

"The affected students include seven third year students of paediatrics, 10 third year students of community optional, one third year student of community medical part-1 and two first year students of autonomy," said Gujarat University vice-chancellor Parimal Trivedi, adding that the students will have to reappear for the examination next year.

Last year, the university had repealed examination forms of 40 students.

International medical graduates could soon buy interships

Deepak Ghimire — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:01:12 +0000

FOREIGN medical students could soon buy training places in Queensland Health, potentially shutting out local students, secret Government documents reveal.

A Queensland Health medical advisory panel will look at developing a policy with Queensland medical schools to sell internships overseas – possibly for up to $200,000.

But the panel has also expressed concern about international medical graduates being able to "buy a place and subsequent issues of them being placed over Australian students" and "patient safety".

The move has angered the State Opposition, which claimed it contradicted Bligh Government measures to ensure more Queensland doctors were trained in Queensland to reduce the reliance on foreign-trained doctors.

Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek said the "cash-strapped" Government was looking at more ways to "raise revenue to pay for spiralling debt".

"If the Government is faced with having to pay a $60,000 salary for a Queensland intern or actually getting paid $200,000 to take on a foreign intern, does anyone really think Bligh and Labor aren't going to maximise the number of international fee-paying spots at the expense of Queenslanders?" Mr Langbroek said.

In documents obtained by the LNP under Right to Information, it was revealed that 16 members of the high-powered medical advisory panel met last July to consider the controversial option.

The panel noted: "Concerns have been raised over the equity of allowing international medical graduates to buy a place and subsequent issues of them being placed over Australian students.

"(There are) concerns around taking money from students for internship and if this contracts Queensland Health to get the students 'registrable'."

The panel suggested it would be good for the health system if overseas-born, Australian-trained medicos stayed in the country.

Mr Langbroek said a "debt-ridden" NSW Labor Government introduced a similar scheme last year where it allowed international students to buy a spot for $200,000.

"But the scheme blew up in the government's face when it chased so much cash from overseas applicants that in the end there wasn't enough staff to actually train them," he said.

He accused Ms Bligh of keeping the plan secret.

"Queensland medicine graduates will start losing their internship places in hospitals because dumbed-down full fee paying foreign students will get the places.

"As Queensland Health becomes reliant on the income from the 'cash for job' positions, this will jeopardise the quality of young doctors in Queensland," he said.

Health Minister Paul Lucas said the Government was not considering a scheme to make overseas students who graduated as doctors from Queensland universities to pay for their internships.

He said the Government would increase the number of internships from 515 in 2009 – 75 of these for international students – to 643 (90 international) this year and 727 (120 international) by 2014.

"Our first priority is and always has been to provide internships for Australian graduates from our medical schools," he said yesterday.

Source: SundayMail

Medical Graduates Are Unable To Obtain Internships In New South Wales

Deepak Ghimire — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:31:43 +0000

Australian Medical Students Association Reports that New South Wales medical graduates are unable to obtain internships in New South Wales is cause for serious concern says the Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA).
AMSA President, Ross Roberts-Thomson said “local graduates must be guaranteed internships in order to further their training and contribute back to the healthcare system.”

In 2009, there were 469 medical graduates from New South Wales medical schools for an estimated 670 intern places. However, this figure will more than double to 891 graduates in 2012, and action must be taken.
Mr Roberts-Thomson said "Without sufficient numbers of intern places, the community will not gain the full benefit from increases in medical student numbers intended to alleviate the current doctor shortage.
"The New South Wales Government must act now to ensure the people of New South Wales are not left stranded with an inadequate supply of doctors" he said.

AMSA calls on all state and territory governments to guarantee that every locally trained doctor will be able to complete an internship in their graduating state.

Importantly, both the New South Wales Government and the state’s medical schools need to take responsibility for the predicted shortage of intern places and demonstrate appropriate foresight by ensuring that the number of students accepted into New South Wales medical courses can be accommodated as interns by the state’s healthcare system.

"In Australia, a medical graduate cannot enter any form of clinical practice or further training without first completing an internship. The fact remains that medical student numbers are on still on the rise, and the New South Wales Government has refused to explicitly guarantee internship places for all local medical graduates, and this must be a priority” said Mr Roberts-Thomson.

Source: Australian Medical Students Association

Choosing the Right Career

planet — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:57:08 +0000

Many people go into careers and jobs without thinking if this is suited for me or 5 to 10 years later they realize this is not what I expected. Many individuals spend months or even years not happy with their careers. Some may take any available job while others may follow in their parents footsteps. This may work out for some but many others never discover their true career skills and are dissatisfied with their jobs.

Careful career planning is essential in fulfilling one's job search that will give years of work enjoyment and satisfaction. If you are going to work it might as well be something you like to do and skilled at doing. Knowing what your skills are and what you are good at is the starting point in choosing the right career.You will unlikely be completely satisfied in your career unless you use the skills you enjoy and are good at.

Ask yourself some questions such as : What interests do I have? What sorts of people would I like to work with?

Don't confuse an ideal job with a job title. You might enjoy working in one place and hate working in another. Both could have the same job title but be entirely different jobs.

Let's say you were looking for a job as a sales person or a teacher, these would be job titles. The ideal job within the salesperson category could be in retail sales, real estate, manufacturing sales representatives, car sales, etc. A teacher might teach kindergarten, elementary, middle, or high school students. Or a teacher might teach adults or special need individuals how to read and write. So don't choose a job just by it's title but by the different job areas under the title that fits your interests and skills. People are more likely to stay in a career and be successful if it suits their interest and skills.

It would be wise to spend extra time thinking about what type of work you want to do. Some key factors to consider when planning a career is your skills, interests, earnings, location, work environment, kinds of people you like to work with, etc.

You may have to go back to school for more education, but don't let that hold you back from that ideal job. Education and earnings go hand in hand. The more education you have the more money you are capable of earning. Although earnings are important, liking your work is equally important.

Having a college degree is definitely a plus in career planning, but many trade, technical and other schools offer similar opportunities to individuals without a college degree.

A well trained electrician, plumber, police officer, auto mechanic, computer repair technician, tool and die maker among many others can do very well in todays economy. There are many jobs that only require one or two years of training. Many companies and organizations have on the job training while paying your salary. People in sales, small business, self employment and other job areas do quite well without a college degree, although for better positions more education is often required.

Your career will most likely change over the course of your life no matter how much career planning you do. That make's it important for you to recognize what you are good at and develop those skills throughout your life. As your interests change you may want to develop new skills.

Good career planning is very important, but it should be done in the context of what you want to do with your life.

CPM leader Jyoti Basu dies at 95

Deepak Ghimire — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:45:18 +0000

The news of CPM leader Jyoti Basu’s death was doing the rounds in major web sites for the last 1 week and finally it has been confirmed that today Jyoti Basu died in Kolkata.

"I have to give you a sad news that Jyoti Basu is no longer with us," Biman Bose, the chairman of the Left Front coordination committee, announced to reporters a little around 1230 hrs.

An emotional Bose said that Jyoti Babu is no longer in this world.

Jyoti Basu was critically ill. On Saturday evening, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Prakash and Brinda Karat, Somnath Chatterjee and Amitabh Bachchan shared moments at room 827 of AMRI Hospitals, Salt Lake, where Basu lay in an extremely critical state after multi-organ failure set in.

Basu's vital organs - brain, kidney, liver, lungs and heart had started sinking on Friday night itself though the dialysis had gone well. But the drop in the vital parameters forced the medical board to do a rethink. From 12.45 pm, Basu was put on slow, low efficiency daily dialysis (SLEDD), an eight-hour process, which couldn't be completed and was stopped 20 minutes before the end.

Ragging in Mumbai's medical college-18 medical students detained

Deepak Ghimire — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:30:17 +0000

At least eighteen students of Seth G S Medical College in central Mumbai here have been arrested by the police on charges of ragging.

The Bhoiwada Police station in the city has filed a First Information Report (FIR) against the students, who were interning with King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital.

“Enquiry is going on and once the investigation is over, we will be able to tell you the details. The students have been handed over to us,” said Vikram B Patil, senior police inspector.

According to the police, the students are accused of physically and mentally harassing their juniors.Earlier on Sunday, Mumbai Mayor Shraddha Jadhav held a meeting with the hospital authorities to discuss the matter.

A first year student had earlier claimed that his seniors at a New Year party ragged him. (ANI)

Do You Have the ‘Right Stuff’ to Be a Doctor?

Deepak Ghimire — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 02:22:58 +0000

By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D. The New York Times

Not long ago, a friend confessed that her son, who spends much of his free time volunteering at a children’s hospital and who is applying to medical school, has been particularly anxious about his future. “His test scores are just O.K.,” my friend said, the despair in her voice nearly palpable. “I know he’d be a great doctor, but who he is doesn’t seem to matter to medical schools as much as how he does on tests.”
Her comment brought me back to the many anxious conversations I had had with friends when we were applying to medical school. Over and over again, we asked ourselves: Do we really need to be good at multiple-choice exams in order to be a good doctor?

We were referring of course to not just any exam, but to the Big One — the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT, the standardized cognitive assessment exam that measures mastery of the premedical curriculum. Back then, as now, American medical school admissions committees required every applicant to sit for the MCAT.

While medical schools have since taken pains to assure applicants that recommendation letters and essays also weigh heavily, many candidates continue to believe, erroneously or not, that the MCAT can make or break one’s chances. Competition to get into medical school remains fierce, with over 42,000 highly qualified individuals vying for just a few more than 18,000 slots at medical schools across the country.

With those kinds of statistics and no reliable standardized way to evaluate personality, it is inevitable that the MCAT will have a crucial role in medical school admissions. But does that guarantee that the applicants admitted are also destined to become the best doctors?

Maybe not.

According to a recent study in The Journal of Applied Psychology, there is another kind of exam that may be more predictive of how successful students will be in medicine: personality testing.

For nearly a decade, three industrial and organizational psychologists from the United States and Europe followed more than 600 medical students in Belgium, where premedical and medical school curriculums are combined into a single seven-year program. As in the United States, the early portion of their education is focused on acquiring basic science knowledge through lectures and classroom work; the latter part is devoted to mastering clinical knowledge and spending time with patients.

At the start of the study, the researchers administered a standardized personality test and assessed each student for five different dimensions of personality — extraversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. They then followed the students through their schooling, taking note of the students’ grades, performance and attrition rates.

The investigators found that the results of the personality test had a striking correlation with the students’ performance. Neuroticism, or an individual’s likelihood of becoming emotionally upset, was a constant predictor of a student’s poor academic performance and even attrition. Being conscientious, on the other hand, was a particularly important predictor of success throughout medical school. And the importance of openness and agreeableness increased over time, though neither did as significantly as extraversion. Extraverts invariably struggled early on but ended up excelling as their training entailed less time in the classroom and more time with patients.

“The noncognitive, personality domain is an untapped area for medical school admissions,” said Deniz S. Ones, a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota and one of the authors of the study. “We typically address it in a more haphazard way than we do cognitive ability, relying on recommendations, essays and either structured or unstructured interviews. We need to close the loop on all of this.”

Some schools have tried to use a quantitative rating system to evaluate applicant essays and letters of recommendation, but the results remain inconsistent. “Even with these attempts to make the process more sophisticated, there is no standardization,” Dr. Ones said. “Some references might emphasize conscientiousness, and some interviewers might focus on extraversion. That nonstandardization has costs in terms of making wrong decisions based on personality characteristics.”

By using standardized assessments of personality, a medical school admissions committee can get a better sense of how a candidate stands relative to others. “If I know someone is not just stress-prone, but stress-prone at the 95th percentile rather than the 65th,” Dr. Ones said, “I would have to ask myself if that person could handle the stress of medicine.”

While standardized tests like the MCAT and the SAT have been criticized for putting certain population groups at a disadvantage, the particular personality test used in this study has been shown to work consistently across different cultures and backgrounds. “This test shows virtually none or very tiny differences between different ethnic or minority groups,” Dr. Ones noted. Because of this reliability, the test is a potentially invaluable adjunct to more traditional knowledge-based testing. “It could work as an additional predictive tool in the system,” she said.

One perennial question that personality testing could help to answer is whether hard work can make up for differences in cognitive ability. “Some of our data says yes,” Dr. Ones said. “If someone is at the 15th percentile of the cognitive test but at the 95th percentile of conscientiousness, chances are that the student is going to make it.” That student may even eventually outperform peers who have higher cognitive test scores but who are less conscientious or more neurotic and stress-prone.

But these standardized tests, personality or cognitive, can be useful only after medical schools, and the public they serve, decide what characteristics are most important for the next generation of doctors. “If a medical school is all about graduating great researchers, then I would tell them not to weigh the results of the personality test that heavily,” Dr. Ones said. “But if you want doctors who are practitioners, valued members in terms of serving greater public, then you have to pay close attention to these results.”

She added: “When you ask your friends, they will describe you in terms of your personality. Rarely will you get a description of your cognitive ability. Personality is what makes us who we are.”

Cosmetic Procedures for the Perfect San Diego Body

Dr. Nojan Talebzadeh — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:35:07 +0000

The next great thing to having the perfect swim suit is having the perfect body to go with it. If you are like many of the women living in San Diego liposuction was an option considered after diet and exercise could go no further. With the help of liposuction many women and even some men living in and around San Diego, where able to achieve their goals and finally have the look they always wanted.

Another procedure rising in popularity is a breast augmentation to either enhance the breast size, or reduce it. For many women in San Diego breast augmentation procedures where used to either lift the breast, reduce the size of the breast, if the breasts had gotten too large or to enhance the size of the breasts.

It’s no surprise that with the advances of technology our wants to record our every moment in either photographs or video, has also increased. And with the growing desire to look our very best we may even consider having cosmetic surgery to enhance our looks. For the women of San Diego cosmetic surgery may be the only option left to regain their youthful looks or even to control their aging bodies that are otherwise healthy. If you have been considering how cosmetic surgery can help you achieve the perfect body, then you may be at a better advantage at reaching your goals today then ever before.

More and more plastic surgeons are now able to offer packages and payment options including financing. If your health insurer may not be able to pay for your procedure you may have other options. For many plastic surgeons operating in San Diego tummy tuck procedures along with other common procedures, can be performed in a state of the art medical facility that also includes a comfortable bed for recovery.

Short Course On Clinical Cardiovascular Genetics

Pradeep — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 07:48:26 +0000

CENTRE FOR HUMAN GENETICS
Bangalore
Short Course on Clinical Cardio-vascular Genetics
30 - 31 January 2010

Faculty

Ruth Newbury-Ecob (Bristol, UK), Dhavendra Kumar (Cardiff, Wales), Perry Elliott (London, UK), Krishna Kumar (AIMS, Kochi), G R Chandak and K Thangaraj (CCMB, Hyderabad), Jayarama Kadandale and Meenakshi Bhat (CHG, Bangalore) and others

Provisional Programme

Day 1 Saturday, January 30, 2010

Epidemiology of congenital heart disease: magnitude & clinical spectrum; Development of the human heart & blood vessels; Cardiac management in CHD syndromes; Genetic counselling in CHD syndromes; Pregnancy and CHD: maternal infections & teratogens; Fetal cardiology and prenatal diagnosis; Challenges in management of the adult with CHD; Inherited cardiomyopathies; Molecular diagnosis of inherited cardiomyopathies; Metabolic workup of inherited cardiomyopathies.

Day 2 Sunday, January 31, 2010

Cardiac phenotypes in RAS/MAPK/PTPN-related multiple malformation syndromes; Marfan syndrome and TGFBR-related malformation syndromes; Challenges of sudden cardiac death; Molecular heterogeneity in inherited arrhythmias; Management of familial arrhythmias; Genetic diagnostic services in cardio-vascular genetics in India; Cardiac manifestations in TBX gene- related disorders; Cardiac involvement in lysosomal disorders: Indian experience; Familial hyper-cholesterolaemia: genetics and management; Micro-nutrients and cardiovascular disease in India

Applications will be received until January 20, 2010

Registration information and other details can be obtained from:

Meenakshi Bhat, MD, MRCP
Centre for Human Genetics
Email: bhat.meena@gmail.com

Jayarama Kadandale, PhD
Centre for Human Genetics
Email: jayaram@ibab.ac.in

This course is supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and the Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi.

thank you

angeleyes27719 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:22:29 +0000

thank you deepak but I passed with out the help I went to a book store and bought a review book with a practice exam in it. from Kaplan it helped out a whole lot but again thanks for trying.

HELP ME PLEASE

angeleyes27719 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:48:30 +0000

Hello I was wondering if you could possibly help me out I'm looking for a copy of the RMA exam so I can study it I only have three days till I take mine. I have looked all over and haven't gotten lucky yet. So maybe your the aswer to my prayers.

I-surgery notebook

isurgery — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:59:20 +0000

New iphone app .. great for tracking and keeping notes and pic's of cases.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=335508801&mt=8