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.     

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。     

室内健身场所空气质量及路径健身器械生物性污染的调查与研究

为了解室内健身场所及路径健身器械环境卫生状况,采用公共场所卫生标准检验方法,对郑州市3家大型健身房内空气质量及社区路径健身器械生物性污染现状进行了检测。结果显示,3所健身房内的CO2浓度和细菌总数随着开馆时间延长而增高,与开馆前相比超标5.6%且差异有统计学意义;室内、室外健身器械均受到不同程度的生物性污染,其中社区路径健身器械细菌的检出率分别高于室内健身器械,且差异显著。健身房内空气质量、器械及社区路径健身器械均受到不同程度的污染,健身场所的环境卫生对健身人群的健康直接或间接构成了危害。建议加强公共健身场所的卫生管理工作,制定切实可行的清洁、消毒制度,做好经常性的卫生监督工作,给广大城市居民提供一个清洁卫生的健身环境。     

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。     

医学论文题名的写作

论文题名的主要功能是高度概括、准确揭示论文主题,指导读者阅读,用于储存及检索.题名应包含论文的主题、方法和结论,文字要恰当、简明.医学论文题名的常见结构形式有5种,分别包括1至5种要素.     

发表评论--提高医学期刊质量的另一种方式

国外部分医学期刊发表专家或用户对论文的评论，受到读者的欢迎。国内这方面的尝试不多。发表评论可间接培训作者群、吸引和挖掘优秀稿件、增强期刊的可读性，从而提高期刊质量。建议医学期刊积极探索这一方式。     

国家队专项器材管理系统的研制与应用

为提高国家队专项器材管理效率,依据<国家队专项器材暂行管理办法>,在调研建立国家队专项器材配置标准基础上,利用COM 组件技术,开发研制了"国家队专项器材管理系统"软件,该软件在2004年的试用、2005年的全面推广应用中,取得了较好的效果,基本满足了国家体育总局经济司、16个运动项目管理中心、财务结算和审计中心、体育器材装备中心等部门在国家队专项器材预算、计划、审批、购置等方面的信息化工作需求,首次尝试性实现了国家体育总局系统内基于因特网技术的一站式服务,创新性地实现了多角色同步操作和管理者的实时监控工作局面,有力支持了国家队备战北京奥运会的保障工作.