This first in a series of columns regarding distance education identifies existing offerings and introduces conceptual issues. Continuing professional education can be achieved through a variety of means, but university-based distance education degree programs offer particularly valuable attributes. Although a growing number of universities are offering such programs, few pertain specifically to infection control, hospital epidemiology, and health-service quality improvement. This first installment concludes by asking whether the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America should be partnering or otherwise collaborating with universities to maintain its leadership position in bringing high-quality educational opportunities to infection control practitioners and healthcare epidemiologists.

Canada↗

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Systems are changing: where can they be improved?

Wide-ranging changes of unprecedented scale throughout the delivery of healthcare services are producing consequences we cannot ignore. A need to collaborate to improve healthcare systems is evident. The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and the Health Care Division of the American Society for Quality are responding in jointly sponsoring this symposium concerning problems with medical devices. This presentation and those that follow will explore the quality of management of managed-care corporations; the important threat to out primary source of innovation in medical technology posed by behaviors of consolidated corporations; the impact of these changes on roles of hospital epidemiologists; and measures to ensure proper design, production, delivery, and use of safe medical products. Our profession and SHEA have made significant research-based contributions that document their potential value, but we have not always done as well as we could to market epidemiology as an important asset for sound management decisions in this era of change. We should ally ourselves with related disciplines in order to succeed as we undertake new challenges on a broadening field.

Epidemiology↗

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Mos oncogene expression in human ovarian tumors.

The expression of the mos proto-oncogene was investigated in frozen sections from 15 ovarian adenocarcinomas, 1 seminoma, 1 immature teratoma and 2 benign stromal tumors by in situ RNA/RNA hybridization with a [35S] labeled mos probe. The presence of mos transcripts was detected in one germ cell tumor and three ovarian carcinomas. The putative role of the mos proto-oncogene activation is discussed.

Adenocarcinoma↗

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Tumorigenicity assay of the human mammary carcinoma cell line MCF-7.

A tumorigenicity assay was performed using DNA extracted from the human mammary carcinoma cell line MCF-7. Seven nude mouse tumors were obtained and were analyzed for the presence of human sequences and known activated oncogenes. The c-erbB.2/neu gene was identified in two tumors and two ras oncogenes in two other tumors. In order to characterize the mechanism of activation of the c-erbB.2/neu oncogene, we isolated and analyzed this gene from one of the tumors. The cloned gene did not present any rearrangement. c-erbB.2/neu transcripts from the nude mice tumors were of normal size. In one case overexpression was observed.

Animals↗

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