Rinsho byori. The Japanese journal of clinical pathology
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In 1999, the 4th report of the discussion group on 21st century medicine and health care proposed that it was necessary to establish in medical education a core curriculum emphasizing carefully selected basic content and to greatly expand the number of subjects that students might take electively. Following this report, a model core curriculum was made by the research and development project committee for medical educational programs in 2001. Similarly, the necessity of establishing a standardized postgraduate training curriculum and system has been discussed for many years. ⋯ All graduates are required to enter a full rotation program including general disciplines for two years. In addition to this basic curriculum, an elective curriculum will be added, providing attractive training programs based on medical trainees' needs. The training program in Laboratory Medicine is administered in the 2nd year as an elective program.
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Urate, a purine metabolite, is a cause of gout(hyperuricemia), which is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Urate is a scavenger of reactive oxygen radicals that are involved in numerous diseases. ⋯ We identified the long-hypothesized urate transporter in the human kidney (URAT1, encoded by SLC22A12), a urate anion exchanger regulating blood urate levels and targeted it with uricosuric and antiuricosuric agents. Moreover, we demonstrated that patients with renal hypouricemia have mutational defects in SLC22A12.
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Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura(TTP) is a multisystem disorders characterized by thrombocytopenia, microangiopathic hemolytic anemia associated with red cell fragmentation, and neurological and renal symptoms. Plasma of patients with TTP has been shown to contain unusually large von Willebrand factor(vWF) multimers that may cause platelet agglutination in vivo. Recently, a metalloprotease responsible for cleavage of vWF multimers has been isolated from normal human plasma and was found to be deficient in some patients with TTP. ⋯ After extensive plasma exchange and FFP infusion followed by corticosteroid therapy, normal vWF-CP was recovered in plasma from 2 acquired TTP patients. Among BMT patients, plasma from 4 BMT-TMA showed normal vWF-CP activities as 55-111%, whereas plasma from 2 BMT-VOD revealed low vWF-CP activity, as 24% and 37%, respectively. Thus, measurement of vWF-CP is crucial to predict differentiation of primary forms of TMA to establish the pathogenesis in varied endothelial dysfunction.
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A model core curriculum for medical education is proposed to serve as the essential basis of material to be mastered at present and as a reference for curricula to be constructed by individual universities. The author carried out a questionnaire in departments of clinical laboratory medicine in the national universities in order to clarify the actual conditions of countermeasures of this education program for clinical laboratory medicine. As a result, 50% of universities satisfied this program's objectives and the remainder were insufficient. ⋯ In the Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University, general clinical laboratory education is administered in the first semester of the 4th year. In clinical training, all the members should study compulsory fundamental laboratory technique in first semester of the 5th year and, in addition, 6th graders in the last 2 months should be able to choose an advanced clinical training course. To this basic curriculum addition of an elective curriculum will be required, providing individual or unique training programs based on student needs and the educational principles of each university.
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This is a time of considerable uncertainty about the future of the postgraduate medical education policy of the Japanese government. Strong and visionary academic leadership of laboratory physicians in private medical schools is needed. The medical schools must not only adapt to a changing health care system, but also maintain excellence in education, patient care, and clinical research. ⋯ For continuity of care and containment of costs, a year or two of general professional training after graduation preceded by a broad medical education is an invaluable investment. All medical graduates, whatever their intended or unintended final destination (even if not clinical), should spend more than six months in medicine and four or five months in surgery, at least half of each to be spent in the general disciplines, including responsibilities for acute emergency admissions. As certified laboratory physicians we must attempt to attract graduates into laboratory medicine by developing imaginative training programs including common laboratory procedures such as Gram's stain, Wright-Giemsa stain and point of care testing at the patient's bedside or in ambulatory clinics, not only in central clinical laboratories.