To evaluate clinical courses at teaching hospitals outside of Osaka City University Hospital, we used a questionnaire to ask instructors and sixth-year students about practical problems immediately after the end of the semester. This course was conducted for 7 weeks during the first semester at 24 hospitals and for 5 weeks during the second semester at 23 hospitals. In each semester about 40% of clinical practice at teaching hospitals was done in the style of clinical clerkships. About 90% of students were mostly or completely satisfied with their instructors and hospitals. Furthermore, about 70% of instructors felt more or less fulfilled by working with students and about 60% of them felt working with students was rewarding. More than 95% of instructors would be willing to teach medical students again. In conclusion, most instructors and students felt that clinical courses at teaching hospitals outside of Osaka City University Hospital were conducted without problems.

A program for early-exposure of first-year medical students to nursing and patient care was started at Osaka City University in 1994. Eighty students completed the program in the 2002 academic year. To improve methods of teaching and evaluation, we analyzed the responses of students and nursing instructors to questionnaires about satisfaction with the program after each practice session. Students were randomized to four settings (university hospital, general hospital, general emergency hospital, and general geriatric hospital). Responses of students and instructors did not differ between settings suggest that early exposure was uniform. Medical students gave higher scores for interest in and significance of early exposure, although nursing instructors did not. The success of the program of early exposure of medical students to nursing care will be used to further improve the curriculum.

PURPOSE: Recently, the clinical application of the forced oscillation technique (FOT) has progressed with the spread of commercially available FOT devices, including the impulse oscillation system and MostGraph. We investigated the usefulness of color 3D imaging of respiratory impedance in asthma using MostGraph. METHODS: Whole-breath and within-breath respiratory system resistance (Rrs) and reactance (Xrs) were measured in 78 patients with asthma. Color 3D images were classified into three patterns: the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)-like pattern (high values of Rrs and Xrs with a marked respiratory cycle and frequency dependence), the asthma pattern (moderately high Rrs over the entire frequency and a respiratory cycle with slight Xrs changes), and a normal-like pattern (low Rrs and Xrs with few within-breath changes). The classification was performed by three researchers, who were unaware of the clinical information, and the clinical characteristics were compared among the three groups. RESULTS: Color 3D imaging provided a COPD-like pattern in 25 patients, an asthma pattern in 39 patients, and a normal-like pattern in 14 patients. Patients with the COPD-like pattern were predominantly female with a higher body mass index, lower forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC), and higher Rrs and Xrs values (whole-breath and within-breath variation). Those with the normal pattern had higher FEV1 and FVC, and a lower single-breath nitrogen washout slope. There were no differences in asthma control or exhaled nitric oxide levels among the three groups. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that color 3D imaging of respiratory impedance may show asthma phenotypes.
Asthma ; Body Mass Index ; Electric Impedance ; Female ; Forced Expiratory Volume ; Humans ; Nitric Oxide ; Nitrogen ; Phenotype ; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive ; Respiratory System ; Vital Capacity

Objective: “Drug Guide for Patients” (DGP) is a drug information tool designated as one of the routine risk minimization activities in risk management plan (RMP) developed by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. However, patients and their families hardly recognize DGP. Therefore, we administered a questionnaire on drug consultation service of pharmaceutical companies that provide DGP with an aim to collect their views, elucidate problems when they prepare DGPs and examine effective utilization of DGP in the future.Methods: We sent a questionnaire by letter for 127 drug consultation service of pharmaceutical companies, and received questionnaire results using “Questant” that is web questionnaire making software. The results were examined using Fisher’s exact test or Pearson’s chi-squared test.Results: We obtained responses from 84 (66.1%) companies out of 127. As for the question of the published situation of DGP on their website, the most companies responded “Not published” with 47.6% and subsequently 41.7% for “Published for healthcare professionals”. The combined rate of “Published for Patients (3.6%)” and “Published for both healthcare professionals and patients (7.1%)” was only 10.7%. On the other hand, regarding the burden of companies making DGP, we found that more than 60% of pharmaceutical companies (63.5%) felt burdensome, whereas only 36.5% responded “Not burdensome.” Regarding the question on the role of DGP in RMP, pharmaceutical companies answered that the role is “sufficient” 3.6%, 29.8% “not sufficient”, and 66.6% “unknown”.Conclusion: Our results suggested that it is difficult for patients to get DGP from website of pharmaceutical companies and pharmaceutical companies felt burdensome in making DGP, and they recognized that DGP was not very much utilized by patients. Therefore, it would be necessary to improve the creation criteria of DGP. Furthermore, we felt it necessary to have the DGP known and utilized widely by (consumers and) patients.