Empathy In Caribbean Medical Students Assessed Using The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire

Introduction: Empathy is the emotional process to understand a patient’s state of being and current emotion.Empathy, through humanization of medical students, plays an important role while learning and practicing theart of medicine. Our study aims to quantify empathy as an indicator of humanization, in medical studentsthroughout their education.Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was performed on basic medical and clinicalscience students at Avalon University School of Medicine, Curacao. Standard Toronto Empathy Questionnaire[TEQ] was utilized to quantify the empathy.Results: Average TEQ scores of the basic students in MD1 - MD4 were 51.55 ± 4.16, 49.42±3.58, 46.72±4.60,48.86±6.17 respectively. Overall TEQ scores were slightly higher in basic science students in comparison to theclinical students (48.82 ± 5.12 vs 48.74 ± 4.01, P=0.46).Conclusions: Empathy scores were higher in basic science medical students in comparison to the clinicalstudents. Lack of progression of empathy amongst medical students needs to be addressed. We recommendmedical schools to adapt and instill the virtue of empathy in the course curriculum

Histone H2A isoforms: Potential implications in epigenome plasticity and diseases in eukaryotes

Epigenetic mechanisms including the post-translational modifications of histones, incorporation of histonevariants and DNA methylation have been suggested to play an important role in genome plasticity by allowingthe cellular environment to define gene expression and the phenotype of an organism. Studies over the pastdecade have elucidated how these epigenetic mechanisms are significant in orchestrating various biologicalprocesses and contribute to different pathophysiological states. However, the role of histone isoforms and theirimpact on different phenotypes and physiological processes associated with diseases are not fully clear. Thisreview is focussed on the recent advances in our understanding of the complexity of eukaryotic H2A isoformsand their roles in defining nucleosome organization. We elaborate on their potential roles in genomic complexity and regulation of gene expression, and thereby on their overall contribution towards cellular phenotypeand development of diseases