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Biomedical subjects

J McGee

Publications and source records attributed to J McGee.

83 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1977

Sensitizing medical students to impression formation processes in the patient interview.

Medical students in a course that included instruction in patient interviewing participated in an experiment devised to alert them to sources of bias which might influence their judgements and management of patients. Students were randomly assigned to one of four groups and exposed to either a videotaped or audiotaped interview of the same patient presented as either normal weight or overweight. Questionnaire responses of students in the two audio groups indicated no detectable differences in the sound tracks of the overweight and normal weight versions of the interview, and these groups were combined for subsequent analysis. A discriminant analysis indicated that students exposed to the overweight video version formed impressions and assessed patient treatment and outcome differently from those exposed to either the video normal or audio versions of the interview. Implications of these findings for medical education are discussed, and suggestions are made for incorporating such sensitization experiments in the medical curriculum.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1976

A case of veno-occlusive disease of the liver in Britain associated with herbal tea consumption.

Veno-occlusive disease of the liver with clinical and pathological features similar to those of the condition occurring in the Caribbean is described in a young woman resident in Britain. The diagnosis was made from liver biopsies and hepatic venography and was confirmed at necropsy. Small amounts of pyrroliziding alkaloids were recovered from a sample of mate (Paraguay) tea, owned by the patient, to which she was addicted. It seems probable that the consumption of large amounts of this tea over a period of years was the cause of the hepatic disease.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Frequency selectivity in the auditory periphery: similarities between damaged and developing ears.

Single fiber tuning curves (stimulus frequency versus neural threshold curves) were obtained from 198 auditory nerve fibers in 24 kittens between birth and the 16th postnatal day and from 74 auditory nerve fibers in adult cats. Three developmental stages during which adult-like frequency-resolving capacity was acquired were identified. During the early stage of postnatal development, all auditory nerve fibers were essentially untuned and responded to a narrow range of low to middle frequency tone bursts presented at intensities exceeding 110 dB sound pressure level (SPL) re 20 muPa. In the intermediate stage, which occurred during the second postnatal week, auditory nerve fibers tuned to low- and mid-range frequencies acquired adult-like frequency-resolving capacity. Fibers tuned to high frequencies, which were recorded later in development than those tuned to lower frequencies, were as sharply tuned as their adult counterparts, but exhibited a low contrast between thresholds at characteristic frequency (tip) and lower (tail) frequencies (ie, low tip-to-tail ratios). Adult-like tuning curves were observed during the third stage, primarily as a consequence of the acquisition of adult-like tip-to-tail ratios. Our understanding of the cochlear mechanism(s) by which frequency selectivity is produced in adult animals has recently been enhanced by a combined anatomy and physiology investigation conducted by Liberman and Dodds, in which clear anatomic foci of cochlear damage were identified in cats with functionally characterized hearing loss. Similarly, descriptions of anatomic differentiation in the feline auditory end-organ correlate with functional measures of peripheral auditory system development. In this report, anatomic and physiologic similarities between developing and damaged ears are considered in an attempt to better characterized the process whereby normal frequency selectivities and thresholds are developed. Our findings support the notion that anatomic changes in the cochlea during development, primarily the development of adult-like anatomic relations between the tectorial membrane and sensory cells, underlie the acquisition of adult-like auditory nerve fiber tuning.

Age Factors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Partner notification and the control of human immunodeficiency virus infection. Two years of experience in San Francisco.

To evaluate partner notification of opposite-sex sexual partners of AIDS patients as a means of limiting sexual and vertical transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the authors examined the first 27 months of their experience with partner notification. Overall, of 145 AIDS patients eligible to participate, 51 (35%) were interviewed and identified 135 opposite-sex sexual partners. Of the 135 partners, 59 (44%) were interviewed and 34 (25%) were tested, resulting in the diagnosis of 7 (5%) HIV-infected partners. Refusal rates for index patients and partners were low (9% and 12%, respectively). Costs for the program were $454 per partner interviewed and $2,203 per seropositive partners identified. The authors conclude that although partner notification is more expensive than more widely targeted AIDS prevention and education efforts, its ability to target case finding, education, and counseling to women at highest risk of infection makes it potentially cost-effective for prevention of vertically transmitted HIV infection.

Contact Tracing↗