To improve hospital quality, the development of authorized clinical instructors is urgently needed. Therefore, we held a workshop to develop clinical instructors. At a monthly meeting of the clinical training committee in June 2014, an agenda for holding a workshop was proposed. At the meeting in July 2014, most committee members said they were reluctant to hold a workshop because of heavy clinical duties. However, the hospital president strongly suggested that a workshop might be a foundation for reforming the stagnated hospital and persuaded committee members to hold a workshop to improve the instructors’ skill in teaching residents. At the September meeting, the workshop schedule was discussed. All members of the taskforce, except the chief coordinator and a lecturer, were selected from hospital physicians, and 3 preparatory meetings and 1 rehearsal were held. With the help of administrative staff, our first workshop for clinical instructors was held at Daido Hospital in February 2014. Our workshop helped create new hopes for improving educational tasks at our teaching hospital and improved the educational skills of participants. We also achieved mutual understanding as a team to accomplish a single goal.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: In clinical practice, colonoscopy has been regarded as the gold standard for the evaluation of disease severity as well as mucosal healing in ulcerative colitis (UC). Some activity indices incorporating patient symptoms as parameters have been shown to reflect the endoscopic activity of UC. The aim of this study was to examine whether self-reported symptoms with visual analog scales (VAS) can predict endoscopic activity. METHODS: A cross-sectional study of 150 UC patients who underwent colonoscopy with submission of VAS scores of 4 symptoms: general condition, bloody stools, stool form, and abdominal pain (0: no symptoms, 10: the most severe symptoms). Each VAS score was compared with colonoscopic activity assessed with the Mayo endoscopic subscore (MES). RESULTS: All VAS scores were significantly correlated with the endoscopic severity (Spearman correlation coefficients of general condition, bloody stools, stool form, and abdominal pain: 0.63, 0.64, 0.58, and 0.43, respectively). Mucosal healing defined as MES 0 alone was predicted by VAS score < 1.5 on general condition or 0 on bloody stools with sensitivity of 0.84 and 0.76 and specificity of 0.66 and 0.76, respectively. Additionally, VAS score < 2.5 on stool form predicted active lesions in distal colorectum alone with sensitivity of 0.67 and specificity of 0.66, suggesting that this item could predict the indication of topical therapy. CONCLUSIONS: Self-reported VAS scores on symptoms were correlated with endoscopic activity of UC. To clarify the relationship between VAS and mucosal healing, further validation studies are needed.
Abdominal Pain ; Colitis, Ulcerative* ; Colonoscopy ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Humans ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Ulcer* ; Visual Analog Scale*