The increase of female physicians and its undeveloped supporting system can be one of the causes of physicians' shortage. Although physicians' marriage/family perceptions and their influences on career choices have been extensively studied, those of medical students are not fully understood. An anonymous questionnaire survey was conducted involving male/female medical students in years 2 and 5 at Gifu University School of Medicine. The results showed that many male/female students hoped to get married, have children, and continue to work in the future, but different perceptions were demonstrated between the sexes with regards to the partners' occupation, working style, and influences of family/marriage perceptions on students' specialty choice. The results suggest the presence of sex-related differences in perceptions among medical students. The survey indicates the necessity of early undergraduate education for a better mutual understanding of gender issues.

Dialysis hypotension is one of the most common complications observed during hemodialysis. As it may be due to vasodilatation, vasoconstrictors are usually given to patients to control blood pressure. Howerver, there are some patients who are resistant to the medication with vasoconstrictors. Recently, it has been reported that as one of the treatments of dialysis hypotension, the cooling of dialysate is effective in inducing vasoconstriction via stimulating the sympathetic nerve system. Also, the application of the interaction of citrus juices with some kinds of drugs to the treatment of dialysis hypotension has been reported effective. In the present study, we examined the effectiveness of those two methods in nine hemodialysis patients in whom dialysis hypotension had not been improved with vasoconstrictors. Dialysate temperatures were lowered from 36.0 to 35.0 C during hemodialysis and/or 100m1 of citrus juice (grapefruit juice) were given to the patients before hemodialysis in addition to vasoconstrictors. Lowering dialysate temperaturse reduced the incidence of intradialytic hypotension and helped improve the patients' quality of life after hemodialysis therapy. Body temperature remained unchanged between before and after hemodialysis. However, we observed cramps in two patients and an impairment of consciousness in one patient during hemodialysis. Thus, we concluded due caution should be exercise against the side effects during hemodialysis when dialysate temperatures are lowered. Meanwhile, the intake of grapefruit juice before hemodialysis was not effective for the improvement of intradialytic hypotension and the patients' quality of life.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the behavioral intention scale for end-of-life discussions. Methods: The scale items were developed according to the Theory of Planned Behavior. The drafts of the scale were created by Item-Level Content Validity Index (I-CVI) and a preliminary test. In the main study, we administered a cross-sectional questionnaire on the web to the participants 20–79 years of age (n=860), living in Tokyo and six surrounding prefectures, and a retest one week later (n=665). We examined item analysis, calculation of a reliability coefficient (intraclass correlation coefficient, Cronbach's alpha coefficient), construct validity, and concurrent validity of the scale. Results: Six factors identified by an exploratory factor analysis were; outcome evaluation, perceived power, control beliefs, motivation to comply, normative beliefs, and behavioral beliefs. The alpha coefficient of the overall scale was .96. The effect size that was determined based on known-groups validity and the correlation coefficient determined on the basis of concurrent validity were moderate. Conclusions: The reliability and validity of the scale were generally confirmed.