ABSTRACT
Podcasting has become a popular means of transferring knowledge in higher education through making lecture contents available to students at their convenience. Accessing courses on media players provides students with enhanced learning opportunities. Development of teaching methods able to cope with ever-changing nature of medicine is crucial to train the millennium students. Pharmacology education in Tehran University of Medical Sciences has been based on lectures so far; our aim was to implement a pilot study to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of offering the course contents as podcasts as well as evaluating whether such program can be feasible in our educational program. 46% of students downloaded the podcast according to our download center. 48% favored usage of both internet and DVD-ROM concurrently. Overall 96% of students perceived that podcasting had a positive impact on their learning in pharmacology course. Our results indicate that most of attendants proposed the positive yields of podcasting despite low usage of it, mainly as a pre-class preparing tool
ABSTRACT
Postoperative relapse is a common feature of Crohn's disease [CD] in Western countries but its frequency and risk factors have not been studied in the Middle East where there is a rapid upsurge in the incidence of CD. This study aims to research the frequency and risk factors of its recurrence after surgery among 566 Iranian patients with CD in Tehran, Iran. All 566 patients diagnosed with Crohn's disease that enrolled in Digestive Diseases Research Center [DDRC] Inflammatory Bowel Disease [IBD] from April 1991 until November 2011 were included in our study. We reviewed clinical data that included time of surgery, possible risk factors and follow up after surgery. Multivariate regression analysis was performed to seek possible risk factors for early postoperative recurrence. The mean age of patients was 30.85 [range: 12-88] years at the onset of enrollment. During a mean follow up of 55 months, 139 [24.5%] out of 566 Crohn's disease patients underwent at least one surgery while 32 [23%] required additional surgery during the period after their first surgical intervention. Cigarette smoking was a risk factor for both initial [p=0.001] and additional surgery [p<0.0001]. The penetrating behavior of Crohn's disease, in addition to its effect on surgery [p<0.001], showed a significant influence on disease recurrence [p<0.0007] along with perianal involvement which was significantly associated with relapse [p=0.001]. Although disease duration of more than ten years was a significant risk factor for surgery [p=0.043] its effect on recurrence was insignificant [p=0.059]. The rate of initial and additional surgery is much lower in this region of the world, which is partially due to the relatively new occurrence of Crohn's disease in the Middle East. Cigarette smoking, disease duration over ten years, penetrating behavior of CD, and perianal disease were the main risk factors for surgery.