PURPOSE: Standardized patients (SPs) tend to rate medical students’ communication skills subjectively and comprehensively, in contrast to such objective skill set defined in the clinical performance examination (CPX). Meanwhile, medical school instructors have a different approach in their evaluation of students’ communication skills. We aim to analyze medical students’ verbal communication skills using objective methods, and to determine the contributing factors of a patient–physician interaction (PPI) score. METHODS: Students with high- and low-ranking scores for PPI in CPX were selected. The Roter interaction analysis system was used to compare verbal communication behaviors of the students and SPs. Patient-centeredness scores (PCSs), physician’s verbal dominance, and number of utterances were compared between the two groups. RESULTS: PCSs and physician’s verbal dominance had no difference between the groups. The number of utterances during the limited time of 5 minutes of CPX was higher for the high-ranking students. They tended to employ more paraphrase/check for understanding, and closed questions for psychosocial state and open questions for medical condition. The SPs interviewed by high-ranking students gave more medical information and requested for more services. CONCLUSION: In the case of the routine checkup, smooth conversations with more frequent utterances were detected in the high-ranking students. More medical information exchange and requests for services by SPs were higher for the high-ranking students. Medical communication instructors should keep in mind that our results could be indicators of a high PPI score.
Education, Medical ; Health Information Exchange ; Humans ; Schools, Medical ; Students, Medical ; Verbal Behavior

PURPOSE: The current study reports the clinical results of total elbow arthroplasties (TEA) which were Performed on patients with poor clinical and radiological results after initial surgeries for elbow fractures or dislocations. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The clinical outcomes of twelve consecutive patients who underwent TEA after failed surgeries for elbow fractures or dislocations from january, 1995 to December, 2005 were evaluated. The initial diagnoses were distal humeral fractures in 8 cases and fracture-dislocations in 4 cases. The Mean period from the initial operations to the TEAs was 12 months. The mean folloow up period after TEA was 43 months. RESULTS: The mean range of motion, in terms of active extension, activeflexion, supination, and pronation, improved from 14.2degrees, 96.7degrees, 50.8degrees and 53.3degrees to 5.4degrees, 122.1degrees, 63.3degrees and 67.5degrees, respectively (p<0.05).RAdiolucent lines were found in 3 cases, which were 1 case of type 3, and 2 cases of type 4. All three loosening cases underwent revision TEAs. The mean postoperative Mayo elvow performance score was 79 point. There were 6 cases of excellent, 2 cases of good, and 4 cases in poor. CONCLUSION: Good clinical results were obtained after TEA performed in failed surgeries for elbow fractures of dislocations.
Arthroplasty* ; Diagnosis ; Dislocations* ; Elbow* ; Humans ; Humeral Fractures ; Pronation ; Range of Motion, Articular ; Supination ; Tea

Nuclear factor I-C (NFI-C) plays a pivotal role in various cellular processes such as odontoblast and osteoblast differentiation. Nfic-deficient mice showed abnormal tooth and bone formation. The transplantation of Nfic-expressing mouse bone marrow stromal cells rescued the impaired bone formation in Nfic(-/-) mice. Studies suggest that NFI-C regulate osteogenesis and dentinogenesis in concert with several factors including transforming growth factor-β1, Krüppel-like factor 4, and β-catenin. This review will focus on the function of NFI-C during tooth and bone formation and on the relevant pathways that involve NFI-C.
Animals ; Bone Development* ; Dentinogenesis ; Mesenchymal Stromal Cells ; Mice ; NFI Transcription Factors* ; Odontoblasts ; Osteoblasts ; Osteogenesis ; Osteoporosis ; Tooth*

PURPOSE: Empathy in medical practice is related to medical communication and clinical competence. In previous studies, low quality of life and other factors play an integral role in low empathy among physicians. We evaluated the relationships between empathy, quality of life, and other factors among Korean emergency physicians. METHODS: The survey was conducted using email to emergency physicians. The respondents completed a questionnaire including demographic information, the Jefferson Scale of Empathy, and the Brief version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life assessment instrument. Correlation analyses were performed, along with sub-analyses according to gender. RESULTS: A total of 180 questionnaires were analyzed. The median value of the empathy scale was 89.0, and quality of life 64.8. Empathy was positively correlated with quality of life, age, and work experience as a specialist in total samples and males. Only work experience as a specialist showed correlation with empathy in females. Quality of life showed no association with age, work experience, and work load. However, quality of life showed negative correlation with age and work experience in female physicians. CONCLUSION: The more experienced specialist emergency physicians are, and the better quality of life they have, the higher level of empathy scale they have. Therefore, good quality of life could lead to good empathy, and vice versa. Good quality of life and good empathy could lead to the better outcome in emergency care. However, because the female physicians show different patterns of empathy and quality of life, further study is needed.
Clinical Competence ; Electronic Mail ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Medical Services ; Empathy* ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Quality of Life* ; Specialization ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; World Health Organization

PURPOSE: The laparoscopic appendectomy has been a basic part of the principal of a more complex laparoscopic technique for the surgical trainee. As the number of laparoscopic appendectomies performed by surgical trainees has increased, we are trying to check the stability of, which is controversial, and the learning curve associated with a laparoscopic appendectomy. METHODS: We studied the demographics, histologic diagnoses, operative time, the number of complicated cases, and hospital duration of one hundred and three patients who underwent an open appendectomy (group A, 53) or a laparoscopic appendectomy (group B, 50) retrospectively through a review of their medical records. The learning curve for the laparoscopic appendectomy was established through the moving average and ANOVA methods. RESULTS: There were no differences in the operative times (A, 64.15 +/- 29.88 minutes; B, 58.2 +/- 20.72 minutes; P-value, 0.225) and complications (A, 11%; B, 6%; P-value, 0.34) between group A and group B. Group B was divided into group C who underwent the operation in the early period (before the learning curve) and group D who underwent the operation in the later period (after the learning curve). The average operative time for group C was 66.83 +/- 21.55 minutes, but it was 45.25 +/- 10.19 minutes for group D (P-value < 0.0001). Although this difference was statistically significant, no significant difference in the complication rate was observed between the two groups. CONCLUSION: A laparoscopic appendectomy, compared with an open appendectomy, performed by a surgical trainee is safe. In this study, the learning curve for a laparoscopic appendectomy was thirty cases.
Appendectomy ; Demography ; Humans ; Laparoscopy ; Learning ; Learning Curve ; Medical Records ; Operative Time ; Retrospective Studies

The Surgery Treatment Modality Committee of the Korean Gynecologic Oncologic Group (KGOG) has determined to develop a surgical manual to facilitate clinical trials and to improve communication between investigators by standardizing and precisely describing operating procedures. The literature on anatomic terminology, identification of surgical components, and surgical techniques were reviewed and discussed in depth to develop a surgical manual for gynecologic oncology. The surgical procedures provided here represent the minimum requirements for participating in a clinical trial. These procedures should be described in the operation record form, and the pathologic findings obtained from the procedures should be recorded in the pathologic report form. Here, we focused on radical hysterectomy and lymphadenectomy, and we developed a KGOG classification for those conditions.
Classification* ; Female ; Gynecologic Surgical Procedures ; Humans ; Hysterectomy* ; Lymph Node Excision* ; Manuals as Topic ; Research Personnel

Purpose: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a prodromal stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Brain atrophy in this disease spectrum begins in the medial temporal lobe structure, which can be recognized by magnetic resonance imaging. To overcome the unsatisfactory inter-observer reliability of visual evaluation, quantitative brain volumetry has been developed and widely investigated for the diagnosis of MCI and AD. The aim of this study was to assess the prediction accuracy of quantitative brain volumetry using a fully automated segmentation software package, NeuroQuant®, for the diagnosis of MCI. Materials and Methods: A total of 418 subjects from the Korean Brain Aging Study for Early Diagnosis and Prediction of Alzheimer’s Disease cohort were included in our study. Each participant was allocated to either a cognitively normal old group (n = 285) or an MCI group (n = 133). Brain volumetric data were obtained from T1-weighted images using the NeuroQuant software package. Logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were performed to investigate relevant brain regions and their prediction accuracies. Results: Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that normative percentiles of the hippocampus (P < 0.001), amygdala (P = 0.003), frontal lobe (P = 0.049), medial parietal lobe (P = 0.023), and third ventricle (P = 0.012) were independent predictive factors for MCI. In ROC analysis, normative percentiles of the hippocampus and amygdala showed fair accuracies in the diagnosis of MCI (area under the curve: 0.739 and 0.727, respectively). Conclusion Normative percentiles of the hippocampus and amygdala provided by the fully automated segmentation software could be used for screening MCI with a reasonable post-processing time. This information might help us interpret structural MRI in patients with cognitive impairment.

Purpose: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a prodromal stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Brain atrophy in this disease spectrum begins in the medial temporal lobe structure, which can be recognized by magnetic resonance imaging. To overcome the unsatisfactory inter-observer reliability of visual evaluation, quantitative brain volumetry has been developed and widely investigated for the diagnosis of MCI and AD. The aim of this study was to assess the prediction accuracy of quantitative brain volumetry using a fully automated segmentation software package, NeuroQuant®, for the diagnosis of MCI. Materials and Methods: A total of 418 subjects from the Korean Brain Aging Study for Early Diagnosis and Prediction of Alzheimer’s Disease cohort were included in our study. Each participant was allocated to either a cognitively normal old group (n = 285) or an MCI group (n = 133). Brain volumetric data were obtained from T1-weighted images using the NeuroQuant software package. Logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were performed to investigate relevant brain regions and their prediction accuracies. Results: Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that normative percentiles of the hippocampus (P < 0.001), amygdala (P = 0.003), frontal lobe (P = 0.049), medial parietal lobe (P = 0.023), and third ventricle (P = 0.012) were independent predictive factors for MCI. In ROC analysis, normative percentiles of the hippocampus and amygdala showed fair accuracies in the diagnosis of MCI (area under the curve: 0.739 and 0.727, respectively). Conclusion Normative percentiles of the hippocampus and amygdala provided by the fully automated segmentation software could be used for screening MCI with a reasonable post-processing time. This information might help us interpret structural MRI in patients with cognitive impairment.

The Beijing family of Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been emerging in the world. However, there are few nationwide data of genotypic distribution in Korea. This study aimed to identify the genotypic diversity of clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis and to demonstrate the population of Beijing family in Korea. We collected 96 clinical M. tuberculosis isolates from 11 university hospitals nationwide in Korea from 2008 to 2009. We observed 24 clusters in IS6110-RFLP analysis and 19 patterns in spoligotyping. Seventy-five isolates were confirmed to be Beijing family. Two isolates of the K strain and 12 isolates of the K family strain were also found. We found that drug resistance phenotypes were more strongly associated with Beijing family than non-Beijing family (P=0.003). This study gives an overview of the distribution of genotypes of M. tuberculosis in Korea. These findings indicate that we have to pay more attention to control of M. tuberculosis strains associated with the Beijing family.
Drug Resistance, Bacterial ; Genotype ; Humans ; Microbial Sensitivity Tests ; Mycobacterium tuberculosis/*classification/genetics/isolation & purification ; Phenotype ; Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length ; Republic of Korea ; Tuberculosis/*epidemiology/genetics/microbiology

BACKGROUND: The ongoing Multicenter Prospective Cohort Study of Active Surveillance on Papillary Thyroid Microcarcinoma (MAeSTro) aims to observe the natural course of papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC), develop a protocol for active surveillance (AS), and compare the long-term prognosis, quality of life, and medical costs between the AS and immediate surgery groups. METHODS: This multicenter prospective cohort study of PTMC started in June 2016. The inclusion criteria were suspicious of malignancy or malignancy based on fine needle aspiration or core needle biopsy, age of ≥18 years, and a maximum diameter of ≤1 cm. If there was no major organ involvement, no lymph node/distant metastasis, and no variants with poor prognosis, the patients were explained of the pros and cons of immediate surgery and AS before selecting AS or immediate surgery. Follow-up visits (physical examination, ultrasonography, thyroid function, and questionnaires) are scheduled every 6 months during the first 2 years, and then every 1 year thereafter. Progression was defined as a maximum diameter increase of ≥3, ≥2 mm in two dimensions, suspected organ involvement, or lymph node/distant metastasis. RESULTS: Among 439 enrolled patients, 290 patients (66.1%) chose AS and 149 patients (33.9%) chose immediate surgery. The median follow-up was 6.7 months (range, 0.2 to 11.9). The immediate surgery group had a larger maximum tumor diameter, compared to the AS group (7.1±1.9 mm vs. 6.6±2.0 mm, respectively; P=0.014). CONCLUSION: The results will be useful for developing an appropriate PTMC treatment policy based on its natural course and risk factors for progression.
Biopsy, Fine-Needle ; Biopsy, Large-Core Needle ; Cohort Studies* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Prognosis ; Prospective Studies* ; Quality of Life ; Risk Factors ; Thyroid Gland* ; Thyroid Neoplasms ; Ultrasonography