Sleep Patterns of Resident Physicians and the Effect of Heartfulness Meditation.

BACKGROUND: Medical residents are vulnerable to poor sleep quality due to intense work shifts and academic load. Studies objectively quantified with sleep quantity and quality among resident physicians are limited. Meditation techniques have been shown to improve sleep but are rarely studied in this population. The aim of the present study is to evaluate sleep patterns of internal medicine residents and the effect of a structured Heartfulness meditation program to improve sleep quality. METHODS: A total of 36 residents participated in a pre-post cohort study from January 2019 through April 2019. Sleep was monitored during a one-week outpatient rotation with two validated assessment tools, namely consensus sleep diary and actigraphy. After four intervening weeks, when the residents returned to the same rotation, Heartfulness meditation was practiced and the same parameters were measured. At the end of the study period, an anonymous qualitative feedback survey was collected to assess the feasibility of the intervention. RESULTS: All 36 residents participated in the study (mean age 31.09 years, SD 4.87); 34 residents (94.4%) had complete pre-post data. Consensus sleep diary data showed decreased sleep onset time from 21.03 to 14.84 min (P = .01); sleep quality and restfulness scores increased from 3.32 to 3.89 and 3.08 to 3.54, respectively (P < .001 for both). Actigraphy showed a change in sleep onset time from 20.9 min to 14.5 min (P = .003). Sleep efficiency improved from 83.5% to 85.6% (P = .019). Wakefulness after initial sleep onset changed from 38.8 to 39.9 min (P = .682). Sleep fragmentation index and the number of awakenings decreased from 6.16 to 5.46 (P = .004) and 41.71 to 36.37 (P = .013), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Residents obtained nearly 7 h of sleep during outpatient rotation. Findings suggest a structured Heartfulness meditation practice to be a feasible program to improve subjective sleep onset time and several objective measures among resident physicians.

Transposon tagging in diploid strawberry.

Fragaria vesca was transformed with a transposon tagging construct harbouring amino terminally deleted maize transposase and EGFP (Ac element), NPTII, CaMV 35S promoter (P35S) driving transposase and mannopine synthase promoter (Pmas) driving EGFP (Ds element). Of 180 primary transgenics, 48 were potential launch pads, 72 were multiple insertions or chimaeras, and 60 exhibited somatic transposition. T1 progeny of 32 putative launch pads were screened by multiplex PCR for transposition. Evidence of germ-line transposition occurred in 13 putative launch pads; however, the transposition frequency was too low in three for efficient recovery of transposants. The transposition frequency in the remaining launch pads ranged from 16% to 40%. After self-pollination of the T0 launch pads, putative transposants in the T1 generation were identified by multiplex PCR. Sequencing of hiTAIL-PCR products derived from nested primers within the Ds end sequences (either P35S at the left border or the inverted repeat at the right border) of T1 plants revealed transposition of the Ds element to distant sites in the strawberry genome. From more than 2400 T1 plants screened, 103 unique transposants have been identified, among which 17 were somatic transpositions observed in the T0 generation. Ds insertion sites were dispersed among various gene elements [exons (15%), introns (23%), promoters (30%), 3' UTRs (17%) as well as intergenically (15%)]. Three-primer (one on either side of the Ds insertion and one within the Ds T-DNA) PCR could be used to identify homozygous T2 transposon-tagged plants. The mutant collection has been catalogued in an on-line database.

Training the person of the therapist in an academic setting.

Drexel University's Couple and Family Therapy Department recently introduced a formal course on training the person of a therapist. The course is based on Aponte's Person-of-the-Therapist Training Model that up until now has only been applied in private, nonacademic institutes with postgraduate therapists. The model attempts to put into practice a philosophy that views the full person of therapists, and their personal vulnerabilities in particular, as the central tool through which therapists do their work in the context of the client-therapist relationship. This article offers a description of how this model has been tested with a group of volunteer students, and subsequently what had to be considered to formally structure the training into the Drexel curriculum.