The elective course was introduced to Inha university college of medicine in clinical clerkship from 1998. In August, 1999, a questionnaire about the change of the curriculum was distributed to 36 senior students and 157 clinical professors in Inha university college of medicine. To the elective course, the students' response was : 41.7% answered 'good', 22.2% answered 'non-judgemental', 36.1% answered 'bad', and the professors' response was : 56.4% answered 'good', 30.9% answered 'non-judgemental', 12.8% answered 'bad'. As for the merit of the elective course, the students' response was : 72.2% answered 'to choose the course they want to study (to provide them study motivation)', 41.7% answered 'to study the subject deeply', 19.4% answered 'to be helpful to choose a course after graduation'. Of the professors' response, 83.0% answered 'to choose the course they want to study (to provide them study motivation)', but 44.7% answered 'self-regulating study attitude'. As for the defect of the elective course, the students' response was : 91.7% answered 'the subjects are restricted', 55.6% answered 'to be too long not efficiently', ?% answered 'to hinder from preparing for Korean medical licensing examination'. And the professors answered in the same order. 55.6% of the students' respond answered 'rarely prepared' even though the term of elective course in each department got longer, but 28.7% of the professors' answered 'prepared very much'. As for the period of elective course, the students' response was : 2 weeks for 6 each subjects (72.2%), 1 week for every subjects(22.2%). But the professors' response was : 3 weeks for 4 each subjects(35.1%), 2 weeks for 6 each subjects(35.1%), over 4 weeks for less 3 each subjects (9.6%). As a conclusion the professors in clinical department must prepare meticulously for the elective course.
Clinical Clerkship* ; Curriculum ; Education, Medical ; Humans ; Licensure ; Surveys and Questionnaires

BACKGROUND: FACES III is a useful instrument for the evaluation of family function. It was translated with evaluation of it's validity and reliability and used in many researches in Korea. But following studies for validity and realiability of FACES III didn't show consistent results. And for the evaluation of family function of middle school students, FACES III can be a useful tool. But it is important to reinvestigate the validity and reliability of FACES III to apply this instrument to them. METHODS: In 1997, self-report instrument FACES III questionnaires were distributed to all members of one boys' middle school students in Inchon. The 1150 questionnaires except incomplete questionnaires from 1249 students were analyzed. RESULTS: The Cronbach's alpha coefficients for internal consistency reliability were 0.71 for adaptability and 0.80 for cohesion. The Pearson's correlation coefficient between cohesion and adaptability for construct validity was 0.59. Correlations between total scores and each item scores were moderate to strong, correlations between items in subcategory were weak. In factor analysis, there were many items that were not compatible with factors according to concept of FACES III. CONCLUSION: The validity and reliability of FACES III can not be guaranteed when applied to the evaluaton of middle school students' family function.
Humans ; Incheon ; Korea ; Reproducibility of Results* ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: To evaluate the clinical features and treatment outcomes of smartphone overusers with acute acquired comitant esotropia. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients ≥ 15 years of age who used a smartphone for > 4 hours a day for > 1 year, and who were diagnosed with acute acquired comitant esotropia from May 2011 to January 2016. We analyzed sex, age at the time of manifestation and duration of esotropia, refractive error, deviated angle at the first and final visits, and the results of refraining from smartphone use, use of the Fresnel prism, and surgery for esotropia. RESULTS: A total of 13 patients were studied, including 8 males and 5 females. The mean age at development of esotropia was 22.7 ± 9.7 years. The mean duration of esotropia before the first visit was 28.0 ± 33.0 months, and the mean follow-up period was 16.4 ± 16.4 months. The mean angle of esotropia was 21.8 ± 7.0 prism diopters (PD) at distance and 22.2 ± 7.9 PD at near. There were eight myopic patients; the other patients were emmetropia. The esotropia of all patients did not improve after refraining from smartphone use. There was no improvement in five patients who were wearing the Fresnel prism for ≥ 4 months. A total of six patients were treated with bilateral medial rectus recession; only one patient remained orthotropic at postoperative 6 months, three patients were undercorrected, and two had a recurrence. CONCLUSIONS: Esotropia persisted after refraining from smartphone use or wearing a Fresnel prism in acute acquired comitant esotropia patients who were smartphone overusers, and the surgical prognosis of these patients was relatively poor.
Emmetropia ; Esotropia ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Male ; Medical Records ; Prognosis ; Recurrence ; Refractive Errors ; Retrospective Studies ; Smartphone

BACKGROUND: Pregnancy considerably alters cardiovascular dynamics, and thereby affects the transition of blood pressure after delivery in women. We aimed to analyze the association between parity and blood pressure in Korean adult women. METHODS: We included 8,890 women who participated in Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2010 and 2012. We divided the population according to the menopause status and analyzed the association between parity and blood pressure by using multiple regression analysis, and on hypertension, by using logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Systolic and diastolic blood pressures were significantly associated with parity in premenopausal women (beta=-0.091 [P<0.001] and beta=-0.069 [P<0.001], respectively). In the analysis that excluded women receiving antihypertensive medication, the systolic and diastolic blood pressure of postmenopausal women were significantly associated with parity (beta=-0.059 [P=0.022] and beta=-0.054 [P=0.044], respectively). Parity was found to prevent hypertension after adjustment for confounders in postmenopausal women (odds ratio, 0.55; 95% confidence interval, 0.310-0.985). CONCLUSION: We found that parity prevented hypertension in Korean women.
Adult ; Blood Pressure* ; Female ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Logistic Models ; Menopause ; Nutrition Surveys* ; Parity* ; Pregnancy

Compared to other organs, the brain has limited antioxidant defenses. In particular, the hippocampus is the central region for learning and memory and is highly susceptible to oxidative stress. Glial cells are the most abundant cells in the brain, and sustained glial cell activation is critical to the neuroinflammation that aggravates neuropathology and neurotoxicity. Therefore, regulating glial cell activation is a promising neurotherapeutic treatment. Quinic acid (QA) and its derivatives possess anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Although previous studies have evidenced QA’s benefit on the brain, in vivo and in vitro analyses of its anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties in glial cells have yet to be established. This study investigated QA’s rescue effect in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced behavior impairment. Orally administering QA restored social impairment and LPS-induced spatial and fear memory. In addition, QA inhibited proinflammatory mediator, oxidative stress marker, and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation in the LPS-injected hippocampus. QA inhibited nitrite release and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) phosphorylation in LPS-stimulated astrocytes. Collectively, QA restored impaired neuroinflammation-induced behavior by regulating proinflammatory mediator and ERK activation in astrocytes, demonstrating its potential as a therapeutic agent for neuroinflammation-induced brain disease treatments.

Direct carotid cavernous fistula (CCF), which is an abnormal communication between the intracavernous carotid artery and the cavernous sinus, is a very rare condition that is generally associated with head trauma, intracavernous aneurysms, and certain connective-tissue diseases. The case of a patient with an infarction in the anterior choroidal artery territory is described herein. Cerebral angiography was performed during consecutive workups to investigate the discrepancy between the magnetic resonance angiography data. An unexpected direct CCF of the ipsilateral side of the infarction was found. It is possible that the CCF had influenced the development of the infarction in the anterior choroidal artery territory.
Aneurysm ; Arteries ; Carotid Arteries ; Cavernous Sinus ; Caves ; Cerebral Angiography ; Cerebral Infarction ; Choroid ; Craniocerebral Trauma ; Fistula ; Humans ; Infarction ; Magnetic Resonance Angiography

Direct carotid cavernous fistula (CCF), which is an abnormal communication between the intracavernous carotid artery and the cavernous sinus, is a very rare condition that is generally associated with head trauma, intracavernous aneurysms, and certain connective-tissue diseases. The case of a patient with an infarction in the anterior choroidal artery territory is described herein. Cerebral angiography was performed during consecutive workups to investigate the discrepancy between the magnetic resonance angiography data. An unexpected direct CCF of the ipsilateral side of the infarction was found. It is possible that the CCF had influenced the development of the infarction in the anterior choroidal artery territory.
Aneurysm ; Arteries ; Carotid Arteries ; Cavernous Sinus ; Caves ; Cerebral Angiography ; Cerebral Infarction ; Choroid ; Craniocerebral Trauma ; Fistula ; Humans ; Infarction ; Magnetic Resonance Angiography

PURPOSE: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) are similar genetic disorders whose patterns of mutation and disease phenotypes might be expected to show differences among different countries. We analyzed multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) data in a large number of Korean patients with DMD/BMD. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We obtained 130 positive MLPA results (86 DMD, 27 BMD, and 17 female carriers) from 272 candidates (237 clinically suspected patients and 35 possible female carriers) who took part in this study. We analyzed the mutation patterns among 113 patients diagnosed by MLPA and calculated deletion/duplication percentages from a total of 128 patients, including 15 patients who were diagnosed using methods other than MLPA. We also analyzed hot spot locations among the 130 MLPA-positive results. RESULTS: Most mutations were detected in a central hot spot region between exons 44 and 55 (80 samples, 60.6%). Unlike previous reports, a second frequently observed hot spot near the 5'-end was not distinctive. MLPA detected deletions in specific exons in 92 patients with DMD/BMD (71.8%) and duplications in 21 patients (16.4%). CONCLUSION: Our MLPA study of a large number of Korean patients with DMD/BMD identified the most frequent mutation hot spot, as well as a unique hot spot pattern. DMD gene mutation patterns do not appear to show significant ethnic differences.
Exons ; Female ; Humans ; Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction* ; Muscular Dystrophies* ; Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne ; Phenotype

PURPOSE: Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can proliferate for a prolonged period and differentiate into cardiomyocytes in vitro. Recent studies used bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) to generate cardiomyocytes from hESCs, however, all those studies used early embryoid bodies (EBs) and did not retrieve cardiomyocytes with a high yield. In this study, we treated long-term cultured EBs with BMP2 in order to promote differentiation into cardiomyocytes from hESCs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: hESC lines, including SNUhES3 and SNUhES4, were used in this study. Undifferentiated hESC colonies were detached to form EBs and cultured for up to 30 days. These long-term cultured EBs were differentiated into cardiomyocytes in serum-containing media. In our protocol, BMP2 was applied for 5 days after attachment of EBs. Cardiac specific markers, beating of differentiated cells and electron microscopic (EM) ultrastructures were evaluated and analyzed. RESULTS: Compared to 10-day or 20-day EBs, 30-day EBs showed a higher expression level of cardiac specific markers, Nkx2.5 and a-myosin heavy chain (alphaMHC). Treatment of BMP2 increased expression of cardiac troponin (cTn) I and a-actinin when evaluated at 20 days after attachment of 30-day EBs. Beating of differentiated cells was observed from 7 to 20 days after attachment. Moreover, EM findings demonstrated fine structures such as Z bands in these differentiated cardiomyocytes. These long-term cultured EBs yielded cardiomyocytes with an efficiency of as high as 73.6% when assessed by FACS. CONCLUSION: We demonstrated that the use of long-term cultured EBs may enhance differentiation into cardiomyocytes from hESCs when treated with BMP2.
Bone Morphogenetic Protein 2/*pharmacology ; Cell Culture Techniques ; *Cell Differentiation ; Cell Line ; Cell Proliferation ; Embryonic Stem Cells/cytology/*drug effects ; Humans ; Myocytes, Cardiac/*cytology ; Pluripotent Stem Cells/cytology/drug effects ; Signal Transduction

The herbal formula, DF-02, consisting of Ephedra intermedia and Rheum palmatum are used for the treatment of the metabolic diseases such as obesity and liver fibrosis in Korean local clinics. We aimed to develop the simultaneous analytical conditions for four standards, (+)-pseudoephedrine (PSEP) and (−)-ephedrine (EP) for E. intermedia, and aloe-emodin (AE) and chrysophanol (CP) for R. palmatum using HPLC-UV techniques. The validated conditions yielded the high precision (relative standard deviation (RSD) < 3.65%) and the recoveries (94 – 106%) using the calibration curves with high linearity (R² > 0.9994). As a result, four standards of DF-02 were simultaneously determined under the developed method, which will be utilized for the quality control or evaluation of DF-02 and many herbal preparations containing E. intermedia and R. palmatum.
Calibration ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; Ephedra ; Liver Cirrhosis ; Metabolic Diseases ; Methods ; Obesity ; Plant Preparations ; Quality Control ; Rheum