Correlation between prior exercise and present health and fitness status of entering medical students.
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Four hundred forty-one students were tested for strength, agility, flexibility, and endurance as well as for body fat, heart rate, and blood pressure. Questionnaires estimated prior exercise, sleep, diet, and leisure habits. Students were more fit than published norms. Their reported prior exercise habits correlated positively with estimated VO2max. Positive results of endurance tests correlated with better eating habits and lower blood pressure. Strong correlation existed between reported exercise and lower body fat, heart rate, and diastolic blood pressure. Blood pressure was in the hypertensive range in 57 individuals, and high blood pressure correlated with higher body weight, percent body fat, and resting heart rate. The authors concluded that most incoming medical students are fit and physically active. Positive correlations exist between prior exercise habits, performance on fitness tests, and indicators of reduced health risks. There was high correlation between risk factors for heart disease and measured blood pressure. (+info)
A primary care approach to comprehensive care of patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus.
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Early screening of patients at high risk for type 1 or type 2 diabetes mellitus is key to early diagnosis and comprehensive treatment. Because osteopathic physicians predominantly practice primary care, they are well positioned to serve a leadership role in the fight against the dual epidemics of obesity and diabetes. This overview provides some important and helpful practice "jewels" to guide a primary care approach to screening, diagnosis, and treatment of diabetes. (+info)
Development of the Attitudes Toward Osteopathic Principles and Practice Scale (ATOPPS): preliminary results.
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Little empirical work has been done to examine how osteopathic medical students' attitudes toward osteopathic principles and practice (OPP) develop and evolve over the course of their medical education. A major obstacle to conducting this research is the absence of reliable and sensitive instruments to measure students' attitudes toward OPP. The purpose of this project is to develop a sensitive and reliable instrument to measure students' attitudes toward OPP. Face-to-face and telephone interviews were conducted with osteopathic medical students, osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) residents, OMM undergraduate fellows, and three board-certified OMM specialists. These interviews were summarized in a 39-item instrument administered to 127 students at the completion of their core OMM rotation at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth-Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. Factor analysis of student responses to the 39 candidate items yielded two interpretable factors. Factor 1 contained 24 items and accounted for 33% of the item response variance, and factor 2 contained four items and accounted for 5.6% of the item response variance. Based on these results, 14 of the original 39 statements were eliminated and the smaller second factor was dropped. Factor 1 contained items reflecting both positive and negative attitudes toward the application of OPP in patient care, the importance of OPP in medical education, and professional distinctiveness. One of the original 39 candidate items was returned to factor 1 because it was judged by the investigators to be consistent with the underlying construct of the scale and helped balance the number of forward-scored and reversed-scored items in the final instrument. Two internal consistency estimates of reliability were computed for the revised 25-item Attitudes Toward Osteopathic Principles and Practice Scale (ATOPPS): the Spearman-Brown unequal-length corrected coefficient alpha and the split-half reliability coefficients. Estimates for the split-half coefficients were .89 for part 1 and .87 for part 2. The Spearman-Brown coefficient alpha was .93, indicating substantial internal consistency. The 25-item ATOPPS seems to reflect a continuum of positive and negative attitudes toward OPP. This preliminary report documents reliability for the 25-item ATOPPS. With continued support for its construct validity, ATOPPS provides investigators with a reliable tool to assess the development of attitudes toward OPP. (+info)
Productivity outcomes for recent grants and fellowships awarded by the American Osteopathic Association Bureau of Research.
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The objective of the present study was to evaluate productivity outcome measures for recent research grants and fellowships awarded through the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) Bureau of Research. Recipients of grants and fellowships that were awarded between 1995 and 2001 were contacted by mail, e-mail, or telephone and asked to provide information about publications, resulting grant awards, advances in clinical care, or other notable products that were generated from their projects. For grants funded between 1995 and 1998, 76% of principal investigators reported a notable product from their study. By contrast, for grants funded between 1999 and 2001, only 31% reported a notable outcome. This difference most likely can be attributed to the lag time between the awarding of a grant and actual completion of the project, the processing of the data, and the publication of the results. Several recipients of 1999-2001 grants were optimistic about eventually generating a notable product. Most (79%) of the 1995-2001 fellows met the requirements for successful completion of their project. Many fellows exceeded the minimal requirement by publishing their results, continuing research activity, attracting extramural grant monies, or entering an academic position. It appeared that a much larger proportion of osteopathic fellows went on to academic careers than their counterparts who did not have fellowship training. From 1995 to 2001, the AOA Bureau of Research awarded dollars 3,072,140 in research grants and fellowships. To date, these awards have helped the recipients bring an additional dollars 5,659,329 of extramural funds for research at osteopathic institutions. The Bureau of Research grant and fellowship programs have been successful both scientifically and in terms of financial outcomes. (+info)
Manual therapy: a critical assessment of role in the profession of physical therapy.
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Interest in manual therapy appears to continue to grow among physical therapy clinicians and educators throughout the world even though the underlying concepts and techniques have not been justified by a knowledge base. The purposes of this article are to critically assess the role of manual therapy within the physical therapy profession and to provide an introduction to the other articles in this special issue. Eisner's model of explicit, implicit, and null curricula is used as a framework for our analysis and our discussion of manual therapy. The explicit area of manual therapy includes discussions of the definition and the role of manual therapy, the scientific rationale for manual therapy, and manual therapy in education and a comparison of manual therapy evaluative frameworks. The implicit area deals with the role of clinical decision making and critical thinking in manual therapy in education and rehabilitation. In the null (unaddressed) area of manual therapy, we suggest directions for future development and research. (+info)
A prospective study of osteopathic medical students' attitudes toward use of osteopathic manipulative treatment in caring for patients.
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Two computer-assisted clinical case SOAP (subjective, objective, assessment, plan) note exercises were used for second-year osteopathic medical students, and a standardized patient was used during third year to measure recording behaviors regarding structural examinations and osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT). Students were questioned before leaving campus for clinical rotations and at pregraduation to determine their attitudes toward use of these skills. Ninety-one percent of the students recorded structural examination findings in both computer-assisted clinical case SOAP notes, and 61% suggested OMT be given on their basic science SOAP (pneumonia). All of the students in the osteopathic theory and methods exercise suggested OMT. On a standardized patient with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 11% of the students performed a structural examination, and 0.7% suggested OMT. Preclinically, 73% of the students believed they were prepared to conduct structural examinations, and 71% believed they were prepared to use OMT. Between 64% and 73% of pregraduation students, however, reported they had few opportunities to use these skills during clinical rotations. Most of the students believed they would use palpatory diagnosis and OMT for fewer than 25% of their future patients and primarily for patients with musculoskeletal problems. (+info)
Presence of Chapman reflex points in hospitalized patients with pneumonia.
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The authors undertook a case control study to determine whether hospitalized patients with pneumonia had reflex points in the anterior chest wall as described by Frank Chapman, DO, specifically those classified as relating to the lung. Sixty-nine hospitalized patients were enrolled in the study. Patients with an admitting diagnosis of pneumonia were compared to those without pneumonia as their admitting diagnosis. All patients were examined to determine if Chapman reflex points for the lungs were present. The study controlled for potential confounding diagnoses by excluding patients with lung pathology other than pneumonia. Results demonstrated a statistically significant relationship between the presence of Chapman reflex points and pneumonia in hospitalized patients. (+info)
Relations between academic performance by medical students and COMLEX-USA Level 2: a multisite analysis.
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The Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination-USA (COMLEX-USA) is a national medical licensing examination for physicians earning the doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO) degree. Little has been published regarding the validity of this relatively new, high-stakes examination. The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of COMLEX-USA Level 2, which is given to fourth-year osteopathic medical students and focuses on clinically relevant content. Nineteen osteopathic medical schools were asked to submit Level 2 scores and associated academic information, including predictions by deans or deans' representatives regarding whether each student would pass the examination. Twelve of the 17 schools that had students eligible to take the Level 2 examination provided data for 1254 (80%) of 1577 first-time test takers in March 2000. The overall mean score of study participants was 533.35, with a pass rate of 91.98%. The highest average correlation with COMLEX-USA Level 2 performance was with COMLEX-USA Level 1 scores (r = 0.76), followed by basic science grade point average (GPA) (r = .66), total GPA as a fourth-year student (r = .65), and clinical GPA (r = .36). Students identified as being at highest risk received the lowest mean score (427.54) and were most likely to fail Level 2. COMLEX-USA Level 2 scores are moderately to highly related to academic achievement in osteopathic medical schools. (+info)