Biomedical subjects

L J Gross

Publications and source records attributed to L J Gross.

25 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed1989

Relationship between test performance in ocular therapeutics and year of graduation.

Practitioner performance on a national, standardized examination in ocular therapeutics was analyzed. The majority of the practitioners were from one state and had graduated from the same college of optometry. The homogeneity of their background fostered an analysis of the relationship between year of graduation and test performance. The data indicated that less recent graduates did not perform as well as more recent graduates, but that the best performance was attained by practitioners with considerable clinical experience.

Education, Medical, Continuing↗

PubMed1982

Continuing education and competency: some critical unresolved issues.

There are numerous dilemmas and contradictory philosophies that the health professions face in planning programs and goals for continuing education and competency. Among the issues that are discussed are: (1) whether learning should be based on prescriptive or felt needs; (2) whether the ultimate objectives should be toward fostering practitioner safety or competence; and (3) whether the focus of assessment should be at the entry or advanced level. The discussion points out that continuing education does not, by its mere presence, assure continuing competency, and several suggestions are offered. First, there is no satisfactory definition of clinical competence to use in structuring program objectives or assessing their attainment. For example, if incompetence is considered to be the manifestation of patient harm, how serious must the harm be and how many patients must be harmed? This is an extremely difficult and complex issue, but one that must be faced. Second, the consuming public should be better informed and educated in identifying marginal practitioners. This is seen as an important, although currently lacking, component of voluntary approaches to continuing competency. Finally, reference is made to the potential of criterion-referenced testing for defining acceptable skill thresholds.

Clinical Competence↗

PubMed1979

Time course of photosynthetic response to changes in incident light energy.

The response of whole leaf photosynthetic rate in Fragaria virginiana to sudden changes in photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) is described. Two components of the response, consisting of a time lag and time constant, are estimated under varying PAR changes for plants grown under two different light regimes. Both the time lag and time constant are found to vary with PAR but not with growth light regime. A model of Thornley for leaf photosynthetic response is refuted and an alternative form is discussed.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1975

Drug-induced handwriting changes: an empirical review.

Since handwriting is a highly complex, coordinated motor activity, handwrits of pharmacological agents. Its potential has been most evident in research involving therapeutic administrations of anti-psychotic an anti-Parkinsonian drugs, from which consistent and systematic handwriting changes have been observed. This relationship has been found to be particularly significant among the anti-psychotics, since the onset of these graphomotor alterations appear to mark the optmal dose of the drug. Consistent and systematic handwriting changes have not been as evident in inivestigations of drugs used in a nontherapeutic atmosphere. Psychiatric assessments of subjects in ths type of research provided data which indicated that psychological stability may be a factor influencing the susceptibility of one's handwriting to drug induced changes.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Analysis of the intermolecular contacts within sickle hemoglobin fibers: effect of site-specific substitutions, fiber pitch, and double-strand disorder.

An atomic model of the sickle hemoglobin (HbS) fiber was synthesized by combining the molecular coordinates of the fiber (obtained from electron microscopy) with atomic coordinates of the sickle hemoglobin double strand (obtained from X-ray crystallography). The model is stereochemically acceptable. The majority of polymerization-sensitive HbS mutants are located at fiber contact sites and the majority of the mutants that do not affect polymerization are not located at contact sites. The residues at intermolecular contacts in the fiber model are reported. We have searched the coordinate space in the vicinity of the EM reconstructions to find models with alternative sets of coordinates that satisfy the mutant data, contain 5-A contacts between double strands, and are stereochemically acceptable. This involved a systematic examination over 297 different models. The alternative fiber models were generated with a range of fiber pitch, double-strand positions, and double-strand polarity. Models which had unacceptably close contacts between atoms, failed to satisfy the mutant data, or did not have 5-A contacts between double strands were considered unacceptable. None of the acceptable alternative fiber models improved the agreement between the polymerization behavior of HbS mutants and their contact site location. However, several models could account for the polymerization data equally well. Residue locations for single-site HbS mutations that could discriminate between alternative fiber models are proposed. The twist of HbS fibers varies in an apparent random manner with an average rotation of 7.8 +/- 2.5 degrees per molecule and a maximum rotation of 16 degrees per molecule. The number of interdouble-strand contacts as a function of fiber twist shows a broad maximum around 9 degrees and may account for the observed range of fiber pitch. This study shows that the upper limit on the fiber twist could result from a loss of axial contacts and repulsive van der Waals interactions between residues involved in interstrand contacts. The loss of axial contacts limits the radial growth of the fiber. In the appendix we analyze the methodology used by I. Cretegny and S. J. Edelstein [(1993) J. Mol. Biol. 230, 733-738] to build a model of the fiber. Our examination reveals shortcomings in the methodology of Cretegny and Edelstein. One result of these shortcomings is that the model synthesized by Cretegny and Edelstein is not stereochemically acceptable because it gives rise to a large number of excessively close (less than 1.4 A) atom-atom contacts, suggesting interpenetration of the molecular envelopes.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Criterion-referenced competency assessment and the national certification examination in nurse-midwifery.

The paper presents an overview of the recent change from norm-referenced to criterion-referenced score interpretation for the ACNM certification examination for entry level practice in nurse-midwifery. The advantages of criterion-referenced interpretation are presented. A successful adaptation of the Nedelsky method for the calculation of the minimum pass index, based on the identification of acceptable error, is discussed. Implications for the nurse-midwifery profession and for the national certification examination in nurse-midwifery are considered.

Certification↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Examination adaptation: translating the national nurse-midwifery/midwifery certification examination.

The national certification examination in nurse-midwifery/midwifery was adapted to the Puerto-Rican Spanish language. Specific attention was paid to creating a version of the examination that was both culturally and linguistically relevant, while remaining appropriately representative of national standards of practice. The procedures used in translation and cultural adaptation are described. The process used in review of the examination followed usual and customary practice. This included consideration of item critiques received from candidates (qualitative data) and the computation of standard measures of item performance, including item difficulty indices and the standard error of measurement (quantitative data). Additional analyses conducted for this specific purpose included the calculation of an index of differential item performance between both language versions. All measures of assessment indicated that the adapted language version was of high quality and psychometrically equivalent to the English language version, which was the comparison standard.

Certification↗