Unprofessional physicians--some correlative data.

In the background of those physicians who have problems in medical practice serious enough to attract attention by the licensing body, there are factors that apparently can help predict such behavior. As a candidate for medical school the applicant more likely to have future problems has the following profile: (1) older than the average applicant with a lower grade point average; (2) more likely to have used tobacco; (3) did not receive a baccalaureate degree; (4) no military service; (5) turned in a sloppy handwritten application form, and (6) received a less than ideal character reference by the college from which applying. Furthermore, after admission to medical school the person more prone to future problems tends to be a poorer student than his peers and to receive a poorer rating in his first postgraduate year. The Loma Linda University graduate who has had such problems is also more likely to have settled in Southern California and to be in general practice.

Ultrastructure of the spleen in malignant histiocytosis.

We examined the ultrastructure of the spleen surgically removed from a patient with the in vivo diagnosis of malignant histiocytosis. The findings showed sinuses greatly dilated and lined by large atypical histiocytic cells. Erythrophagocytosis was prominent. These findings, as well as the histologic features of the bone marrow and later autopsy specimens, confirmed the diagnosis of malignant histiocytosis. The somewhat unusual confinement of histiocytes to sinusoids raised the possibility that this may represent a rare subvariant, histiocytic sinus reticulosis, first described by Robb-Smith in his original paper.