ABSTRACT
Most of today Ìs medical knowledge of current advances in medicine are based on autopsy findings and patological studies conducted during the 19th century. At the end of the 60s, autopsies began to decline in many countries, for multivariate reasons. Nowadays, autopsies are almost no longer performed unless legal reasons are present. The so important and didactic Pathological Anatomy Meetings are not being held anymore either. These instances played a particularly important role, bringing together and gathering experts and apprentices from different medical areas and disciplines. Unfortunately they have been disappearing from hospitals. However, physicians still seem to need them, as many times there is urgent need to get reliable information about the etiology of thepatients' symptoms and the ultimate causes that led him or her to death. The relevance of this information for generating new knowledge and proposing new diagnostic or therapeutic tools for continuous improvement, both in the field of healthcare and training is indisputable. Unfortunately, we still face situations in which a patient dies in the midst of many doubts regarding the ultimate cause of death. At the University of Chile Clinical Hospital, a so-called Adverse Event Meetings have been held every Thursday for several years. A lot of time is spent trying to elucidate what could have happened, in an attempt to detect errors that could have been corrected A team of doctors, midwives and nurses, analyze all the adverse events reported, step by step. In spite of this, there are situations where doubts still persist, once the meeting is over. Currents advances in imaging, immune-histochemistry, molecular and genetic study techniques can make possible today to obtain most important information without the need for a traditional autopsy. These technologies, appear then as a substitute for traditional autopsies, since the realization of some of these post-mortem studies would allow to elucidate many diagnostic doubts, improving diagnostic and / or therapeutic procedures in case we are faced to similar cases in the future. The idea of performing the so called "virtual autopsies" in the University of Chile Clinical Hospital, is not very original, as others have been performing this procedure, in other hospital around the world. They already exist in several countries under the name of virtual autopsies or "virtuopsias". It is not an innovation of ours. This Virtual Autopsy Program does not imply to discard the classic autopsy, which probably should still be the first option for legal or very difficult cases, without a clear cause of death. The indication of performing virtual autopsies should be considered in all those circumstances where there is an important clinical doubt and when a classic autopsy is difficult to perform, whatever the reason for this is. (AU)
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Female , Autopsy/methods , Autopsy/trends , Cause of DeathABSTRACT
Myocardial infarction is a highly prevalent condition. Its early recognition could have a high impact on prognosis. A quick and accurate interpretation of the electrocardiogram (EKG) is crucial to improve the diagnostic and therapeutic processes. Nevertheless, medical literature shows lack of competencies for autonomous and reliable EKG interpretation on both medical students and general practitioners, in many countries. The aim of the present study is to assess the level of self-confidence that medical students from the University of Chile have in their own skills to interpreter EKG rapidly and correctly. With that purpose, an online survey was designed and applied to all medical students from third to 7th year (final). resUlts:From a total of 1.000 surveys sent, only 206 were completely answered and returned. 77.2 percent of these students show very limited self-confidence in their own skills and competences to reliably interpret an EKG without anybody elses help. On the other hand, only 20.9percent of them declare to have a high level of self-confidence in this area. We did not find statistically significant differences associated with: gender, educational level, previous academic performance, or campus. conclusions: Most of our medical students have a low self-confidence level regarding their own capabilities for correctly and quickly read an EKG. These findings suggest the need for redesigning the educational strategies currently being used for this purpose, in the undergraduate Cardiology Program, incorporating new teaching methodologies to achieve the desirable competences needed for correct EKGs reading.
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Adult , Female , Young Adult , Education, Medical/trends , Electrocardiography/trends , Students, Medical/psychologyABSTRACT
The Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile has developed a program, where students play an important role colaborating with their teachers in research. Traditionally it has been related to basic and/or clinical research. We present here an innovation: the participation of students in educational research. Medical students from different learning stages participated actively planning and performing this research, and they were indeed crucial for its success. The study shown here, is intended to favour the development of a Continous Joint Educational Research Program, which main goal would be to identify eventual teaching problems in order to develop prompt and adecuate solutions to continously improve the quality of medical education. The diagnosis made by the students opinions is only the first step of this project. Teachers opinions need to be considered also in a second stage. Learning outcomes evaluation was identified by medical students as being one of the most problematic areas. A great number of them confess traumatic experiences in this field, some of which are described here as a mean of making teachers aware of the problem, leading them to seek for teaching and evaluation methodologies capacitation.
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Adult , Female , Young Adult , Educational Measurement , Schools, Medical , Students, Medical/psychology , Faculty, Medical , Chile , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
The principal and basic mission of the university is to fulfill the requirements and demands of the community it serves. We are currently living a period which is both, fascinating but also veryworrisome. During the last decades, amazing changes have taken place in the world especially in the telecommunications and transportation areas. Internet, globalization and extreme liberalism applied indiscriminately, have generated substantial changes, most of them very useful and positive, but others quite dangerous and deleterious. Mental and physical barriers have been broken, generating major transformations in our culture. Certainly, almost everything seems to be changing, but unfortunately not necessarily for good. We have become citizens of the world, and knowledge is now considered the most valuable trade. Along with this, though, many new problems have appeared. Individualism, super specialization and dehumanization are just a few of them. This selfish culture has the risk of auto self distraction. Todays universities have not yet assumed the role they should in this new Society of Knowledge. It seems that the XXI thcenturys universities, instead of helping resolve these problems, are in fact, contributing to them.Superior education has become overcrowded. This factor generates new problems by itself,such as the need to certify the quality of the new educational institutions. Employment availabilityhas not expanded accordingly to the new graduates needs. This has reinforced individualism.Additionally, as technological investigation is now mainly coming from the business and industrialworld in response to their particular interests, the university has lost leadership in this area.Essential changes should take place within this institution, to generate a positive change, a stepup in the evolution towards a new society, where all human beings could have equal opportunities...