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Biomedical subjects

J R Ferreira

Publications and source records attributed to J R Ferreira.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1986

Effect of dietary beta-carotene on the survival of young and old mice.

Feeding 0.5% beta-carotene in the diet for life beginning at 29 days of age improved the average life span of C57BL/6J male mice by 5.0% but decreased the life span of mice started at 608 days of age by 11.5%. Neither difference, however, proved to be statistically significant. Feeding beta-carotene increased the concentration of beta-carotene in the serum by 60% but did not change the beta-carotene content of heart, liver or kidney. We conclude that singlet oxygen, which is very efficiently quenched by beta-carotene, is an important factor in senescence only if it is produced at organ sites not accessible to serum beta-carotene. Since we have found that beta-carotene feeding is not a useful means for increasing tissue concentrations of beta-carotene, other more sophisticated means must be developed for accomplishing this purpose. It is also clear that while dietary beta-carotene is not an effective means for prolonging life span, it is nontoxic when fed continuously at high concentrations.

Absorption↗
PubMed1986

[Prospective analysis of medical education].

Measuring the quality of the medical education imparted in a school or faculty requires a conceptual frame of reference that take account of the socioeconomic and political context and the structure and standards of the health services in the country considered. Quality must be judged by the extent to which medical training responds not only to current but also to future needs and expectations. Hence the determination of quality also requires a prospective study. A study is made of the situation in the medical schools of Latin America with a view to establishing how medical education was and is in the Region and those characteristics are taken as a yardstick for a school that can meet the demands of the future, preferably toward the year 2000, the horizon year for the world health goals. The author builds a detailed "objective-image" model of medical education in the year 2000, from which he derives four attributes or indicators that can be used to evaluate the education process in any institution. These indicators relate to four salient aspects of medical education: context, structure, function and integration.

Education, Medical↗
PubMed1986

[Teaching-service integration and primary health care].

The concept of the integration of teaching with service focuses on the social setting of health and is always discussed at the level of the internal functioning of the health professions and health systems and at the external level of society. The article describes the development of the concept and of its application in practice, which have been expanding since the fifties. At first, this integration was considered an isolated activity whose proper place was the department of preventive and social medicine. Today its expansion to the entire health manpower training institution is proposed, with the participation of the teaching staff, the student from the moment of his enrollment, and health services personnel. In articulation with the primary care strategy, the strategy of integrating teaching with service is an arrangement for service to the community and not just an innovative approach to personnel training. In this service, the scientific method must be broadened in order to bring about a qualitative transformation of health practice. Research will be pursued in response to health problems and will feed back to the education and service processes.

Community Medicine↗
PubMed1984

[The role of support elements in medical education].

There is a definite and inexorable trend in medical schools toward changes in the training of physicians. This transformation of medical education is being seen in the most traditional schemes, which predominate in the medical schools of Latin America, and the most modern and complex approaches, even though they are relatively a minority phenomenon in many countries. This article examines the support facilities needed at each stage of this evolution: libraries, communication media, teaching and physical resources and technologies, and hospital and laboratory facilities. It also describes the influence of each of them on the physician's training. The author is of the view that the common denominator among all aspects of medical education, from the student's physical environment to the sophisticated resources embodied in computers, must be the interpersonal relationship. The ideal situation in which the healthy professions can profit fully from the rationalization and management of knowledge in the medical school setting is one of rapprochement between the transmitters (teachers) and receivers (students) of information, whether medical or in any other subject.

Computer-Assisted Instruction↗
PubMed1983

[Training of human resources for medicine in the year 2000].

During the 17 years that remain till the year 2000, by which it is aspired to have achieved the goal of Health for All, medical manpower training will have to be redesigned to meet the purposes of that goal and to prepare the health service team for the challenges that await it in that no longer so distant future. The writer analyzes the Region's demographic, socioeconomic, technological and health situations and trends, and the parts played by the physician and the health services, and comes to the conclusion that, in addition to rationalizing the utilization of resources, primary care involves a profound transformation of the physician's social function and working situation; in other words, that the function of the physician, how services are used, and the technologies to be applied will have to be redefined for the year 2000. In relation to the outlook for professional practice, the article stresses that, to provide primary care to the entire population, the health services will need multiskilled and multidisciplinary personnel and the full participation of the community, and the preponderant role will fall to the general practitioner. Accomplishing all this will require greater emphasis on training the general practitioner (or family doctor), though without neglecting the specialist, a thoroughgoing and independent review of the study programs of the Latin American medical schools carried out by themselves in a spirit of self-criticism with a view to arriving at their own solutions, and the promotion of a closer physician-patient relationship, in a manner consistent with the political and social structure of each country.

Education, Medical↗
PubMed1981

[Need for effective collaboration between medical education and the health services].

The article reviews the health manpower training problems involved in the commitment of all countries to extend the coverage of their health services to the entire population by the year 2000. The author points out that the number of physicians in Latin America will double in seven or eight years, and doubts that they can all be absorbed by the labor market unless they are given a well-defined part to play in primary health care, which is the key to that goal. Necessary changes in medical practice--among them regionalization of the services--should, he feels, be accompanied by appropriate changes in the medical education process. Since the physician practicing at the primary care level stands at the point of entry to the regionalized health system, his training should be slanted toward dealing with the prevalent pathology, and particularly toward the care of the groups at highest risk: mothers and children. In addition, he will have to be ready to take the lead on a team consisting of the auxiliary staff and the members of the community itself. He admits that the breadth of the range of subjects studied in medical training today may have to be traded off for more intensive concentration on the basic fields of internal medicine, general surgery, obstetrics and pediatrics. Other essential changes include closer coordination between the medical school and the health services not only in the framing of policies and programs, but also in routine work; the provision of incentives to improve the geographic distribution of health personnel, and determining the contribution required of each discipline at the different training levels and in operating the services.

Community Health Services↗
PubMed1980

Gas-liquid chromatographic determination of organophosphorus insecticide residues in fruits and vegetables.

A method intended for regulatory purposes is described for the determination of organophosphorus insecticide residues in fruits and vegetables. Eighteen organophosphorus insecticides, azinphos-ethyl, chlorpyrifos, diazinon, dichlorvos, dimethoate, ethion, ethoate-methyl, fenitrothion, fenthion, formothion, malathion, methidathion, mevinphos, parathion, phosalone, phosphamidon, thiometon, and trichlorphon, and 7 metabolites, fenitrooxon, fenthion sulfoxide, fenthion sulfone, malaoxon, desethylphosphamidon, thiometon sulfoxide, and thiometon sulfone, were extracted from different crops with acetone and partitioned into hexane or ethyl acetate, according to their polarities. The hexane extract was cleaned up by eluting from a Florisil column with acetone-hexane (4+96). The ethyl acetate extract needs no cleanup. The concentrated extracts were analyzed by gas-liquid chromatography using thermionic detectors. Recoveries conducted at fortification levels ranging from 0.1 to 2 mg/kg were in most cases above 80%. The limit of sensitivity is less than 0.1 mg/kg.

Chromatography, Gas↗
PubMed1980

[Training in health services management].

Since the beginning of this century, countless efforts have been made to give adequate training to those who will be responsible for administering the health services. Yet, despite numerous recommendations and initiatives promoted by PAHO, private foundations, and the governments themselves, the situation with respect to medical care administration remains critical. In view of the status of health administration in the Region, the authors propose that different academic institutions join with the health services in the organization of courses based on a multidisciplinary approach (as shown in the annex), which would enable the students to acquire knowledge and skills in different areas so that they can take over the management of the complex health services and programs required in the world of today.

Allied Health Personnel↗
PubMed1976

[International strategies in medical education: technical assistance and technical cooperation].

This article reviews the evolution of international activity for national development in general and for medical education in particular. The concepts of traditional technical aid and the new method of technical cooperation are studied. That method appeared just before the beginning of this decade as a response to needs existing at the time to coordinate development with the emerging international economic order. This article discusses the emphasis given to strategy in this new concept of international activity. Strategy, in this sense, consists of a clear definition of goals and objectives by the countries themselves, mobilization of local resources, and full participation of national personnel in all phases of the process. The projects promoted by the Pan American Health Organization in applying technical cooperation to the field of health manpower training are discussed. Such activities include: coordinating the above mentioned training, providing overall support for institutional development, training professors and administrators, developing educational technology, creating and developing a network of biomedical information, developing social sciences as applied to medicine, and encouraging medical, epidemiological, social, and operational research.

Education, Medical↗
PubMed1976

[The role of the hospital in the light of the new trends of medical education].

This article sets forth an innovative concept of the hospital's role today in keeping with both contemporary medical education and various national health service needs. After pointing out that the groundwork for a proper integration of training and service goals lies in the principles of medical preparation, the author emphasizes that although health care is provided in the home, in health centers, in outpatients clinics, and in general and specialized hospitals, the future physician's education is primarily the responsibility of universities, medical schools, and departments, which during the clinical phase of training become demonstration clinics atypical of the conditions at the many levels of health services. The combining of teaching and service-essential for the training of a better prepared professional, ready to handle any problem that might arise in the course of his career-is the keystone of this new approach. In other words, the author stresses "early student involvement in all levels of medical care within a particular health region, especially primary care, and a relatively lengthy period of work in direct relationship with the community hospital, supplemented by short periods in specialized hospitals or reference units."

Delivery of Health Care↗