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。     

我国高校体育科研论文选题存在的问题

对我国1986~2005年20年间5 963篇普通高校体育老师的论文进行了分析。结果发现普通高校体育科研领域分布特点:一是覆盖17个体育研究领域;二是学校体育仍成为热点研究领域。但是,在论文选题、内容、观点存在重复现象,理论和实际难以统一,定量和定性难以结合,数学、计算机应用、运动生物力学三门基础课程理论单薄等,都是今后高校体育科研中要特别重视的问题。提出了学校体育研究要注意“三统一”,即改革内容和国家意志的统一;改革方案和办学体制的统一;成果推广和客观环境的统一等建议。     

我国体育类核心期刊田径运动各项目科研论文研究现状分析

通过运用专家访谈、数理统计和文献计量学的方法对1998-2002年间我国11种体育类核心期刊田径运动各项目科研论文进行分类、分项统计处理,并针对数据的分布以及其间的关系分析我国田径运动研究的发展现状及一些规律特征.结果表明:基金资助项目研究是制约田径运动发展的主要因素;基础人体科学的研究较少并不利于我国田径运动的合理发展和运动成绩的提高;我国田径教学研究在教学内容上没有开创性的发展.     

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。     

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。