Norman A. Desbiens

Available evidence suggests that international medical graduates have improved the availability of U.S. health care while maintaining academic standards. We wondered whether studies had been conducted to address how international graduates were treated in the post-graduate selection process compared to U.S. graduates.

Background: Residency programs must demonstrate resident and faculty involvement in scholarly activity. One acceptable method is delivering presentations at scientific meetings. Description: A prospective database and retrospective search of all prior presentations. Evaluation: Prior to 1997, residents made less than 5 presentations per year. After inception, they made an average of 35, increasing from 12 in 1998 to 80 in 2006; 180 submissions were presented 335 times (1.9 presentations per unique work). The majority were based on case reports, whereas 11% were research. In the last 2 years, 36% were accepted as oral presentations, the remaining as posters. Total program cost for 2006 was $39,184 ($490 per presentation). Conclusion: The program has succeeded in increasing scholarly activity for faculty and residents at an acceptable cost. Most secondary goals were also met, including increasing the number of departmental publications

The algorithms provided for advanced cardiac life support by the American Heart Association and the European Resuscitation Council Guidelines for Resuscitation for the diagnosis and treatment of pulseless electrical activity (PEA) correctly stress the importance of searching for potentially treatable causes, and suggest contributing factors that should be considered. This study sought evidence to support the factors that they mention in the algorithms. Human and animal studies in MEDLINE. Putative causes of PEA along with the string “AND (PEA OR pulseless electrical activity OR electromechanical dissociation OR EMD)”. Human studies documenting association and causation. Qualitative. Documentation for most putative causes is weak. Based on current documentation, a simplified rule is offered to direct resuscitators to treatable precipitants of PEA. It emphasizes the documented causes of PEA, has good pedagogical qualities, guides treatment, and is testable. Studies need to be performed to identify the best diagnostic and treatment strategies for PEA.

There is confusion in the medical literature as to whether statistics should be reported in survey studies that query an entire population, as is often done in educational studies. Our objective was to determine how often statistical tests have been reported in such articles in two prominent journals that publish these types of studies.