Clinical Competence: The capability to perform acceptably those duties directly related to patient care.Self-Evaluation Programs: Educational programs structured in such a manner that the participating professionals, physicians, or students develop an increased awareness of their performance, usually on the basis of self-evaluation questionnaires.Certification: Compliance with a set of standards defined by non-governmental organizations. Certification is applied for by individuals on a voluntary basis and represents a professional status when achieved, e.g., certification for a medical specialty.Specialty Boards: Organizations which certify physicians and dentists as specialists in various fields of medical and dental practice.Educational Measurement: The assessing of academic or educational achievement. It includes all aspects of testing and test construction.Models, Educational: Theoretical models which propose methods of learning or teaching as a basis or adjunct to changes in attitude or behavior. These educational interventions are usually applied in the fields of health and patient education but are not restricted to patient care.Education, Medical: Use for general articles concerning medical education.Education, Medical, Continuing: Educational programs designed to inform physicians of recent advances in their field.Videotape Recording: Recording of visual and sometimes sound signals on magnetic tape.Internal Medicine: A medical specialty concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the internal organ systems of adults.Curriculum: A course of study offered by an educational institution.DNA Transformation Competence: The ability of bacterial cells to take up exogenous DNA and be genetically transformed by it.Transformation, Bacterial: The heritable modification of the properties of a competent bacterium by naked DNA from another source. The uptake of naked DNA is a naturally occuring phenomenon in some bacteria. It is often used as a GENE TRANSFER TECHNIQUE.Professional Competence: The capability to perform the duties of one's profession generally, or to perform a particular professional task, with skill of an acceptable quality.Mental Competency: The ability to understand the nature and effect of the act in which the individual is engaged. (From Black's Law Dictionary, 6th ed).Cultural Competency: Cultural and linguistic competence is a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals that enables effective work in cross-cultural situations. Competence implies the capacity to function effectively as an individual and an organization within the context of the cultural beliefs, behaviors, and needs presented by consumers and their communities.Oocytes: Female germ cells derived from OOGONIA and termed OOCYTES when they enter MEIOSIS. The primary oocytes begin meiosis but are arrested at the diplotene state until OVULATION at PUBERTY to give rise to haploid secondary oocytes or ova (OVUM).Transformation, Genetic: Change brought about to an organisms genetic composition by unidirectional transfer (TRANSFECTION; TRANSDUCTION, GENETIC; CONJUGATION, GENETIC, etc.) and incorporation of foreign DNA into prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells by recombination of part or all of that DNA into the cell's genome.Medical Staff Privileges: Those rights or activities which are specific to members of the institution's medical staff, including the right to admit private patients.Nephrology: A subspecialty of internal medicine concerned with the anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the kidney.Williams Syndrome: A disorder caused by hemizygous microdeletion of about 28 genes on chromosome 7q11.23, including the ELASTIN gene. Clinical manifestations include SUPRAVALVULAR AORTIC STENOSIS; MENTAL RETARDATION; elfin facies; impaired visuospatial constructive abilities; and transient HYPERCALCEMIA in infancy. The condition affects both sexes, with onset at birth or in early infancy.History, 20th Century: Time period from 1901 through 2000 of the common era.Foundations: Organizations established by endowments with provision for future maintenance.Personal Autonomy: Self-directing freedom and especially moral independence. An ethical principle holds that the autonomy of persons ought to be respected. (Bioethics Thesaurus)Decision Making: The process of making a selective intellectual judgment when presented with several complex alternatives consisting of several variables, and usually defining a course of action or an idea.Alzheimer Disease: A degenerative disease of the BRAIN characterized by the insidious onset of DEMENTIA. Impairment of MEMORY, judgment, attention span, and problem solving skills are followed by severe APRAXIAS and a global loss of cognitive abilities. The condition primarily occurs after age 60, and is marked pathologically by severe cortical atrophy and the triad of SENILE PLAQUES; NEUROFIBRILLARY TANGLES; and NEUROPIL THREADS. (From Adams et al., Principles of Neurology, 6th ed, pp1049-57)Dementia: An acquired organic mental disorder with loss of intellectual abilities of sufficient severity to interfere with social or occupational functioning. The dysfunction is multifaceted and involves memory, behavior, personality, judgment, attention, spatial relations, language, abstract thought, and other executive functions. The intellectual decline is usually progressive, and initially spares the level of consciousness.American Heart Association: A voluntary organization concerned with the prevention and treatment of heart and vascular diseases.Cardiac Imaging Techniques: Visualization of the heart structure and cardiac blood flow for diagnostic evaluation or to guide cardiac procedures via techniques including ENDOSCOPY (cardiac endoscopy, sometimes refered to as cardioscopy), RADIONUCLIDE IMAGING; MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING; TOMOGRAPHY; or ULTRASONOGRAPHY.Cardiology: The study of the heart, its physiology, and its functions.National Academy of Sciences (U.S.): A United States organization of distinguished scientists and engineers established for the purpose of investigating and reporting upon any subject of art or science as requested by any department of government. The National Research Council organized by NAS serves as the principal operating agency to stimulate and support research.Societies, Medical: Societies whose membership is limited to physicians.Documentation: Systematic organization, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of specialized information, especially of a scientific or technical nature (From ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, 1983). It often involves authenticating or validating information.Health Information Management: Management of the acquisition, organization, retrieval, and dissemination of health information.Information Management: Management of the acquisition, organization, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of information. (From Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors, 1994)Professional Review Organizations: Organizations representing designated geographic areas which have contracts under the PRO program to review the medical necessity, appropriateness, quality, and cost-effectiveness of care received by Medicare beneficiaries. Peer Review Improvement Act, PL 97-248, 1982.Medical Record Administrators: Individuals professionally qualified in the management of patients' records. Duties may include planning, designing, and managing systems for patient administrative and clinical data, as well as patient medical records. The concept includes medical record technicians.Credentialing: The recognition of professional or technical competence through registration, certification, licensure, admission to association membership, the award of a diploma or degree, etc.Medical Records Systems, Computerized: Computer-based systems for input, storage, display, retrieval, and printing of information contained in a patient's medical record.Anesthesiology: A specialty concerned with the study of anesthetics and anesthesia.Internship and Residency: Programs of training in medicine and medical specialties offered by hospitals for graduates of medicine to meet the requirements established by accrediting authorities.Biometric Identification: A method of differentiating individuals based on the analysis of qualitative or quantitative biological traits or patterns. This process which has applications in forensics and identity theft prevention includes DNA profiles or DNA fingerprints, hand fingerprints, automated facial recognition, iris scan, hand geometry, retinal scan, vascular patterns, automated voice pattern recognition, and ultrasound of fingers.Computer Security: Protective measures against unauthorized access to or interference with computer operating systems, telecommunications, or data structures, especially the modification, deletion, destruction, or release of data in computers. It includes methods of forestalling interference by computer viruses or so-called computer hackers aiming to compromise stored data.Anesthesia Department, Hospital: Hospital department responsible for the administration of functions and activities pertaining to the delivery of anesthetics.Students, Nursing: Individuals enrolled in a school of nursing or a formal educational program leading to a degree in nursing.Nurses: Professionals qualified by graduation from an accredited school of nursing and by passage of a national licensing examination to practice nursing. They provide services to patients requiring assistance in recovering or maintaining their physical or mental health.Licensure, Nursing: The granting of a license to practice the profession of nursing.Education, Nursing, Graduate: Those educational activities engaged in by holders of a bachelor's degree in nursing, which are primarily designed to prepare them for entrance into a specific field of nursing, and may lead to board certification or a more advanced degree.Education, Nursing: Use for general articles concerning nursing education.Pediatric Nursing: The nursing specialty concerning care of children from birth to adolescence. It includes the clinical and psychological aspects of nursing care.Medical Laboratory Science: The specialty related to the performance of techniques in clinical pathology such as those in hematology, microbiology, and other general clinical laboratory applications.