Our results indicate that the PBL curriculum fosters better teacher-student relationships during the pre-clinical years. They also suggest that an unacceptably large number of medical students are taught by physicians who seem to lack compassion and caring in their interactions with patients. This study questions the adequacy of medical faculty as role models for the acquisition of caring competence by medical students.
Selective silver staining demonstrated that autosomal bivalents containing transcriptively active nucleolar organizers associated with the sex vesicle during pachytene of mouse spermatocytes. Later in pachytene, the nucleolar organizers covered the portion of the sex vesicle furthest from the attachment to the nuclear envelope. Hybridization in situ revealed the presence of rDNA in the silver-positive material. The nucleolus, formed from an autosomal bivalent, exhibited a large fibrillar center surrounded by an electron-opaque fibrillar zone. The nucleolar association with the sex vesicle was studied at early, middle, and late pachytene by hybridization in situ, NOR silver staining, and electron microscopy. These observations enabled us to further define the relationships of the nucleolar components with the X-Y pair.
In adult Sertoli cells of most strains of mice, all the centromeric heterochromatin is condensed in two chromocenters, one on each side of a single, large nucleolus. In a random-bred Swiss OF-1 strain, however, the nucleus has a different structural organization. Part of the heterochromatin Is seen as chromocenters in contact with the nucleolus; the rest of it is dispersed in granules of unequal size in the nucleoplasm. Such an unusual spatial arrangement of heterochromatin in interphase nucleus cannot be explained either by a difference in the nucleolar organizing regions or by a polymorphism of the C-banding of metaphase chromosomes.
Many medical schools are shifting to a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum, some without any transition period, others using periods of parallel-track curricula. The authors report on and discuss a third strategy for implementing PBL: using a pilot course as a model to facilitate the transition. After the Université de Montréal Faculty of Medicine chose to switch PBL, one course in the third year of the traditional curriculum was changed to PBL format 11 months before the new curriculum was to start in September 1993. This was done to develop local expertise, to gain confidence, to test the feasibility of the method, to produce a showcase, to assess more accurately the resources required, and to provide a practice ground for the curriculum planners and managers and the faculty-development training team. The authors discuss the planning of the pilot course, the training of the faculty in various aspects of PBL (writing problems, tutoring methods, etc.), the course implementation, and the course evaluation. Overall, the pilot course was well received by both the faculty and the students and provided much beneficial information that assisted the university in its transition to a new PBL curriculum.
The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa has recently developed a French-language undergraduate medical education stream in order to train physicians for the francophone minority population of the province of Ontario. This new program was planned with the following societal requirements in mind: the need to receive health care in one's mother tongue, the need to have physicians who know the community, and the expectation of receiving good medical care in an ambulatory setting. A systematic educational planning model was used in order to develop three educational innovations in response to these needs and expectations: a communication skills laboratory; early student exposure to the ambulatory, primary care setting for development of clinical skills; and clerkship rotations in a francophone community hospital. Program developers provided ongoing faculty development activities in order to prepare francophone faculty for their new roles. They also considered student participation in program development an essential element of its success. The program has positive outcomes both within and outside the Faculty of Medicine. These include an enrichment effect on the English-language stream, an increased interest in medical education, student satisfaction with their community hospital clerkship rotations, and the recognition of the educational program as a national resource for francophone minority groups. Medical schools that serve minority population groups may benefit from the experience gained at the University of Ottawa.
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