The Unintentional Effects on Body Donation Programs of a Competency-Based Curriculum in Postgraduate Medical Education

As medical programs place increasing importance on competency-based training and surgical simulations for residents, anatomy laboratories, and body donation programs find themselves in a position of adapting to changing demands. To better assess the demand for “life-like” cadaveric specimens and evaluate the possible impacts that competency-based medical education could have upon the body donation program of McGill University, Canada, the authors tracked, over the course of the last 10 years, the number of soft-embalmed specimens, along with the number of teaching sessions and the residents enrolled in competency-based programs that are using cadaveric material. The results reveal that the number of soft-embalmed specimens used within residency training increased from 5 in 2009 to 35 in 2019, representing an increase from 6% of bodies to 36.5% of the total number of body donors embalmed in this institution. Correspondingly, the number of annual teaching sessions for residents increased from 19 in 2012 to 116 in 2019. These increases in teaching are correlated with increasing number of residents enrolled in competency-based programs over the last 3 years (Pearson r ranging from 0.9705 to 0.9903, and R² ranging from 0.9418 to 0.9808). Those results suggest that the new skill-centered curricula which require residents to perform specific tasks within realistic settings, exhibit a growing demand for “life-like” cadaveric specimens. Institutions’ body donation programs must, therefore, adapt to those greater need for cadaveric specimens, which presents many challenges, ranging from the logistical to the ethical.     

The resilience of scientific publication: From elite ancient academies to open access

• Scientific publication has been a key part of the scientific method since the inception of Philosophical Transactions in 1665.
• The scientific publications industry has grown exponentially along with science, incorporating technological innovations along the way, and adapting journal processes and practices to changing needs of science as it matured.
• Of all the technological innovations over more than 300 years, the move to online journals may be the most significant, making open access to content practical for the first time.
• The open‐access movement is disrupting the economics of journal publishing, which is hoped will make the industry more competitive: the ability of the publications industry to adapt to open access will be a measure of its resilience.
• The demand for articles published in reputable journals continues to grow as readers trust the credibility of peer reviewed journal articles, and good authors value the prestige of publishing in the best journals.
• It is difficult to predict what new functionalities may be included in articles of the future or what additional services publishers and editors will provide, but there is every reason to believe that scientific journal articles are here to stay.

     

能实现垂直缠绕攀爬的蛇形机器人

垂直缠绕攀爬的蛇形机器人是基于模块化的P_R(pitch_roll)关节,以串行总线舵机作为关节驱动装置,其控制系统采用协调级和执行级配合的二级结构,以空间三连杆组成的蠕动爬行作为基本步态,实现了蛇形机器人具有垂直缠绕攀爬的功能。     

欧洲阅读联盟(EURead)推广阅读活动与启示

[目的/意义]欧洲阅读联盟是欧洲社会力量开展阅读活动的母平台，联盟成员所开展的阅读活动既有差异，也有共性，社会影响力大。通过对欧洲阅读联盟成员所办阅读活动及其规律的分析，可为我国公共图书馆主导与开展阅读活动提供借鉴。[方法/过程]概述欧洲阅读联盟，对其成员类型进行解析，并对每一成员的阅读项目进行共性分析，凝练出阅读活动的经验及规律。[结果/结论]我国应建立多级阅读推广力量，建立政府购买阅读服务长效机制，开放图书馆的阅读活动空间，提升阅读活动频率，开发多样化、差异化的阅读活动。     

Constructing inside-ness to physics: how matter comes to matter in physics identity work

Cultural Studies of Science Education - In this paper, I engage with arguments put forth by Anna Günther-Hanssen in her article “A swing and a child: How scientific phenomena can come to...     

A Bioethos for Bodies: Respecting a Priceless Resource

The value that willed body donors provide to medical education is priceless. Their precious gift helps to teach anatomy, spatial relationships between morphological structures, anatomical variation, and professionalism to medical students in a way that plastic models, podcasts, and lectures cannot. They are also an important resource for medical research and a wide variety of postgraduate training opportunities. While many body donation programs throughout the world are nonprofit organizations, there are body donation companies in the United States that sell donors for-profit. These “body brokers” have accumulated large profits from this business. It is incongruous that others would profit from such a priceless, freely donated gift. To prevent this incongruity, it is proposed that the international anatomical community develop a normative culture (a bioethos) for body donation programs. This would involve the conscious and systematic development of ethical principles for the day-to-day policies and practices of institutions that collect and use human bodies. With the development of this bioethos, a cultural shift in how donors are treated would occur and, over time, this would become the normal practice. These principles would become fundamental and foundational for the procurement and use of priceless human tissues.