A rare case of Goldenhar syndrome with radial aplasia.

Goldenhar syndrome (GS) is a well-recognised condition characterised by variable degree of uni- or bilateral involvement of craniofacial structures involving first and second branchial arches manifesting ocular and auricular anomalies and also vertebral defect. This syndrome presents at birth and its exact aetiology is still unknown. The affections of the neural crest cells may have some role in the multiple malformations of the GS. We present a teenaged female case who attended the Orthopaedic Outpatient Department to receive handicapped certificate in Bankura Sammilani Medical College and Hospital. She had multiple skeletal abnormalities, which included hemifacial microsomia, vertebral malformations in the form of scoliosis, distorted pelvis, but the most striking feature was the absence of thumb and aplasia of radius of left side. She did not suffer from any ocular or auricular abnormalities, neither from any cardiological, urogenital or gastroenteric ones. Radial defects associated with GS might represent a subset within this spectrum. Our case probably belongs to this subset, therefore is a very rare one.

Attitude of medical students about different teaching aids used in lectures in anatomy.

Nowadays medical teachers use different audiovisual (AV) aids of teaching in their classes to make the subject more interesting and understandable. To assess the impact of three common lecture delivery methods, viz Blackboard (BB), Transparency and Over Head Projector (OHP) and Powerpoint Presentation (PP), a questionnaire based study was carried out among first year MBBS students of R.G.Kar Medical College, Kolkata. One hundred fouty students of academic session 2010-2011 were exposed to different aids of teaching, viz. Black Board (BB), Over Head Projector (OHP), power point presentation (PP) for ten months. They were taught Anatomy by different teachers who used all the three AV aids in their lectures. Then they were asked to respond to a questionnaire regarding these three AV aids of teaching. The students preferred Black Board teaching over OHP and result was statistically significant (p value < 0.0001). BB teaching was also preferred over PP presentations (p < 0.02). But in comparison to OHP, students preferred PP though the difference is not statistically significant (p < 0.10). Most of the students still prefer Black Board teaching to other modern AV aids like OHP and PP. For better understanding of a subject by students and improvement of their performance, a teacher should match the lectures with preferred AV aids and use the AV aids prudently.