Skills for breaking bad news (BBN) at the medical interview station were evaluated with the advanced objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). To clarify performances at this station, we compared the scores at this station with those of the Common Achievement Tests OSCE controlled by the Common Achievements Test Organization (CATO). The subjects were a group of students tested at an interval of 1 year 4 months during their clinical clerkships.1) Raters (mostly postdoctorate fellows) played simulated patients after they had been trained to ensure standardization.2) Students who had high scores for BBN skills on the advanced OSCE also had high scores for both the behavior part and the knowledge part of the total evaluation.3) In contrast, students who had high scores for BBN skills on the advanced OSCE did not always have high scores on the Common Achievement Tests OSCE, suggesting the importance of clinical clerkships between these 2 OSCEs.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is now a pandemic. Although several treatment guidelines have been proposed for patients who have both inflammatory bowel disease and COVID-19, immunosuppressive therapy is essentially not recommended, and the treatment options are limited. Even in the COVID-19 pandemic, adjuvant adsorptive granulocyte and monocyte apheresis may safely bring ulcerative colitis (UC) into remission by removing activated myeloid cells without the use of immunosuppressive therapy. Our patient was a 25-year-old Japanese male with UC and COVID-19. This is the first case report of the induction of UC remission with granulocyte and monocyte apheresis treatment for active UC associated with COVID-19.