J Postgrad Med
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The McNamara fallacy refers to the tendency to focus on numbers, metrics, and quantifiable data while disregarding the meaningful qualitative aspects. The existence of such a fallacy in medical education is reviewed in this paper. Competency-based medical education (CBME) has been introduced in India with the goal of having Indian Medical Graduates competent in five different roles - Clinician, Communicator, Leader and member of the health care team, Professional, and Lifelong learner. ⋯ This can be done by using various workplace-based assessments, choosing tools based on educational impact rather than psychometric properties, using narratives and descriptive evaluation, giving grades instead of marks, and improving the quality of the questions asked in various exams. There are challenges in adopting qualitative assessment starting with being able to move past the objective-subjective debate, to developing expertise in conducting and documenting such assessment, and adding the rigor of qualitative research methods to enhance its credibility. The perspective on assessment thus needs a paradigm shift - we need to assess the important rather than just making the assessed important; and this would be crucial for the success of the CBME curriculum.
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Trigeminal neuralgia (TGN) is considered a sensory neuropathy. However, reports of pain on chewing/speaking suggest a masticatory myofascial involvement. ⋯ Decisive relief of TGN by USGDN suggests neuromyalgia involving masticatory muscles. Prospective, controlled studies could confirm these findings.
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The primary objective of the present study was to evaluate the economic burden of limited English proficiency (LEP) by estimating its direct, indirect, and intangible costs. A secondary objective was to assess the impact of variables on the economic burden. ⋯ LEP is a cost-intensive condition (indirect > intangible > direct costs). Non-medical costs are the costliest component of direct costs. Parental loss of earnings is the costliest component of indirect costs.
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Acquired lens colobomas secondary to ocular surgeries are scarcely described in the literature. We describe two cases of acquired lens coloboma in two infants with glaucoma who underwent ocular surgery. ⋯ The coloboma in the second case was noticed during examination under anesthesia after scleral buckling and cryopexy for retinal detachment. The cause for coloboma development in this case could be disruption of the lens zonules because of stretching of the globe after scleral buckle surgery or because of injury to zonules during scleral buckling and the cryopexy procedure.
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To evaluate questions asked during the informed consent process by adult participants in a COVID-19 vaccine regulatory study conducted at our center in 2020. ⋯ The majority of the questions asked by the participants were about study-related procedures and vaccine safety. No association was found between any of the independent variables and the number of questions asked. However, there were differences in the demographics of the trial participants between the pandemic and pre-pandemic era.