Covid-19: Emerging Considerations for Body Sourcing and Handling. A Perspective View from Nigeria

The current Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic has spread to about 220 countries of the world and has resulted in a significant number of deaths globally. Infections are still on the rise, and the impact on the global death rate could be devastating. There are fears over the likely impact of a large number of deaths on body sourcing and handling of cadavers for teaching and research. Historically, epidemics come with several challenges and have often led to some level of negligence of ethical practices and health and safety regulations associated with body sourcing and handling. The authors highlighted some emerging problems in this article, focusing on Africa and Nigeria in particular. These problems include a higher risk of coronavirus exposure for body handlers, shortage of cadavers for teaching and learning, a lack of standard regulations leading to unethical body sourcing and handling, and a lack of monitoring and collaboration needed for a well-coordinated Covid-19 pandemic response strategy. If these issues are ignored, the previous gains made in anatomical ethical practices may be destroyed. Some useful recommendations for policymaking geared toward prevention or curtailing these emerging issues have been instilled in this article.     

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.     

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.     

协同搜索过程中用户交流内容与模式研究

[目的/意义]旨在分析协同搜索用户在信息搜索任务过程中的交流内容与模式,从而理解协同搜索用户的关注重点与搜索过程。[研究设计/方法]基于书籍交互检索平台(CLEF-Social Book Search)设计实验,共招募18名被试完成两种搜索任务,通过录音记录对话并对其进行编码和分析,总结交流内容特征和模式。结合任务类型、认知类型组合、服务器记录的搜索交互行为日志以及问卷收集的搜索体验进行了探索分析。[结论/发现]从交流内容上看,协同搜索用户主要理解与评判书目信息、商讨搜索任务计划;比起认知类型不同的用户,相同认知类型的用户在操作交互方面交流更多,在评判决策方面交流较少。交流模式依据讨论内容比重可分为理解评判型、评判主导型、均衡交流型三种,评判主导型用户的任务完成满意度最高。[创新/价值]协同搜索用户的交流反映出搜索过程中需要与同伴商讨协同的焦点,也是需要系统提供协助的重点,给协同搜索系统设计提供一定参考。本研究针对协同搜索的交流内容设计的编码系统对相关的协同交流研究也有借鉴意义。     

奇效骨伤散在治疗老年运动性骨损伤中的应用

老年运动性骨损伤是近期逐渐增多的疾患 ,本门诊部近 1年半以来接诊此类病人 38例 ,应用外敷自拟奇效骨伤散为主进行治疗 ,可迅速使骨折端达到牢靠连接 ,解除制动进行功能锻炼 ,肢体功能恢复快。与常规骨损伤疗效相比 ,疗程显著缩短 ,具快捷安全、方便经济、适用范围广等特点。优良率达 10 0 % ,且无明显并发症及后遗症。     

信息时代的医学资料室与人文精神

针对信息时代技术主义的上亢和医疗行业中一些有违人愿的现象，认为医学资料室在高扬人文精神的同时应倡导医学人道精神、善美人格精神、敬业奉献精神和开拓、进取、创新精神。     

生命活性分子与金属离子配合行为的极谱研究——Cu(II)二元配合物(I)

通过脉冲极谱法研究了以生命活性分子(Serine,Cysteine,Salicylic acid等)作为配体与Cu(II)形成多元配合物的极谱行为。在模拟生理条件μ=0.1(NaNO3)、T=310±0.2K下,发现电极过程为准可逆;通过对二元配合物稳定常数的测定表明,不同配体与金属离子配合的能力显著不同,配合物稳定性差异较大;同时还研究了各配合物的形态分布、引起稳定性差异的原因及影响因素。     

"非典"前后城镇居民的体育行为

对“非典”前后城镇居民体育行为进行调查分析。结果表明,“非典”前后城镇居民体育行为变化主要有4种类型:终身型、继发终身型、波动型、游离型,具有明显的职业特征、年龄特征、学历特征和性别特征。     

大学生饮食行为与营养教育

采用简单随机抽样和分层抽样相结合的方法对师范类和综合性院校大一至大三男女大学生进行抽样调查。结果发现:我国大学生营养健康知识和饮食行为总体表现尚可,近半数学生具有荤素营养搭配的饮食观念及习惯,饮食较有规律,对营养素的态度及行为较正确。但存在着一些不健康的饮食行为,如主食摄入量过少、不重视早餐、挑食、膳食不平衡等,这与营养知识缺乏和健康知识的认知水平有关。建议在高校体育课程中增加营养教育内容,鼓励大学生多渠道获取营养知识和提高健康认知能力,改变不良生活行为,促进大学生的身心健康全面发展。     

循证医学和医学论文中统计学问题编辑鉴定的必要性

介绍循证医学这一新兴学说及其对21世纪临床医学的影响，指出为适应这一转变，开展医学论言语中统计学问题的编辑鉴定研究的必要性，开展此项研究可以：1）普及医学统计知识，2）提高临床与科研水平，3）提高作者撰写与阅读能力，4）提高医学期刊质量，5）丰富编辑学研究的内涵，并指出了编辑鉴审研究的初步思路。