Kaohsiung J Med Sci
-
Kaohsiung J Med Sci · Jul 2008
ReviewCurrent trends in developing medical students' critical thinking abilities.
Health care is fallible and prone to diagnostic and management errors. The major categories of diagnostic errors include: (1) no-fault errors--the disease is present but not detected; (2) system errors--a diagnosis is delayed or missed because of the imperfection in the health care system; and (3) cognitive errors--a misdiagnosis from faulty data collection or interpretation, flawed reasoning, or incomplete knowledge. Approximately one third of patient problems are mismanaged because of diagnostic errors. ⋯ However, this task is challenging since both medical problem-solving and the learning environments are complex and not easily understood. There are many interacting variables including the motivation of the medical student (e.g. deep versus surface learning), the acquisition and evolution of declarative and conditional knowledge (e.g. reduced, dispersed, elaborated, scheme, and scripted), problem-solving strategies (e.g. procedural knowledge-guessing, hypothetical deductive, scheme inductive, and pattern recognition), curricular models (e.g. apprenticeship, discipline-based, body system-based, case-based, clinical presentation-based), teaching strategies (e.g. teaching general to specific or specific to general), the presented learning opportunities (PBL versus scheme inductive PBL), and the nature of the learning environment (e.g. modeling critical thinking and expert problem-solving). This paper elaborates on how novices differ from experts and how novices can be educated in a manner that enhances their level of expertise and diagnostic abilities as they progress through several years of medical training.
-
Kaohsiung J Med Sci · Dec 2006
Review Case ReportsSubcutaneous emphysema and pneumomediastinum secondary to dental extraction: a case report and literature review.
Here, we present the case of a woman who suffered from acute dyspnea and right cheek and neck swelling during molar extraction. The use of a high-speed dental drill may introduce air into the soft tissue and lead to subcutaneous emphysema and pneumomediastinum. ⋯ We report this case because physicians in the emergency department may misdiagnose the symptoms as an allergic reaction. Dentists should be more aware of air leak during dental extraction.
-
Kaohsiung J Med Sci · Feb 2005
Review Case ReportsAcute respiratory distress syndrome after early successful primary percutaneous coronary intervention therapy in acute myocardial infarction: a case report.
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is characterized by acute-onset dyspnea, diffuse bilateral pulmonary infiltration, low pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP), and an arterial oxygen tension/inspired oxygen fraction (PaO2/FiO2) ratio of less than 200 mmHg. Acute myocardial infarction (AMI), whether complicated by circulatory arrest, cardiogenic shock, and hypotension or not, was reported as an etiologic factor in the development of ARDS in the prethrombolytic era. In the thrombolytic era, two cases of AMI complicated with ARDS have been reported. ⋯ No usual causes of ARDS such as infection, aspiration, trauma, shock, or drug reactions were noted. We assumed that, in this particular patient, the systemic inflammatory response syndrome frequently induced by AMI might have caused this episode of ARDS. This may imply that AMI itself is a possible etiology of ARDS.
-
Kaohsiung J Med Sci · Jul 1998
ReviewGenetic epidemiology of schizophrenia: review and reassessment.
When a rigorous methodological approach is utilized, a substantial majority of recent studies provide evidence for the familial transmission of schizophrenia. Although the absolute rates of schizophrenia among relatives of schizophrenics tend to be lower than those reported in the earlier studies due to the restrictiveness of contemporary definitions of schizophrenia, the risk to relatives compared to that of controls has remained quite consistent. This observation that relatives of schizophrenics have an elevated risk for schizophrenia compared to controls is consistent with theories of both genetic and environmental transmission. ⋯ Genetic linkage analysis promised to clarify the mechanisms of transmission, but early positive reports were subsequently overturned and, to date, there are no consistently replicated positive linkage findings for schizophrenia. There is now a world-wide search for the location of the genes on specific chromosomes which are responsible for schizophrenia. The clinical implications of current work to the future of locating a schizophrenic gene or genes will be discussed.