Challenges of measuring a faculty member activity in medical schools

One of the features of Mission Based Management is measuring the activities of faculty members and departments and their contributions to the school's mission. As it is important to assess the school's readiness for such a system, in this study we assessed the view points of Tehran Medical School's department chairs about faculty members' activities. We used focus group technique to identify participants' view points. We divided 30 department chairs into homogenous groups of 4-6. After a brief introduction, the moderator presented questions to determine the participants' idea and a secretary recorded them. We categorized view points into main themes and subthemes. Ninety three percent of chairs participated in the sessions. Department chairs' view points were categorized into 3 main themes: "system is effective and should not be implemented". Subthemes included chairs' concerns, views, fears and reasons. The results of the study provided reliable information about department chairs' concerns and reactions to this system. Finally, we determined points of strengths and anticipated threats for developing a faculty member activity measurement system

[Assessment of Schwann cell purity cultured in autologous human serum for spinal cord injury repair]

Background: Purity of cultured Schwann cell is very important in patients' outcome. The purpose of this study was evaluation of cell purity in a culture without nerve growth factors and fetal bovine serum

Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, for culture of human Schwann cells, nerve growth factors and fetal bovine serum were replaced by human autologous serum. Obtaining a consent from the close relative, nerve grafts were harvested and transported to processing unit where they were cultured in DMEM upon aseptic condition. Then the cultured cells were evaluated with S100 antibody staining for both morphology and purity

Results: Cell purity range was from 97% to 99% [mean=98.11+/-0.782%]. Cell count was 14055.56+/-2480.479 per microliter. There was not significant correlation between cell purity with either the culture period or the age of donors [P>0.05]. The Spearman correlation coefficient for the cell purity with the culture period and the age of donors was -0.21 and -0.09, respectively

Conclusion: We found that the replacement of nerve growth factors and fetal bovine serum with human autologous serum improves the cultured Schwann cells for clinical use with more safety and minimum reagents