Status of nutrition education in Canadian dental and medical schools.

To investigate the present status of nutrition education for dentists and physicians in Canada, we conducted a survey of the nutrition education programs in 10 Canadian dental and 16 medical schools in the academic year 1982-83. Seven of the dental schools and seven of the medical schools had a separate course in nutrition. The average duration of these courses was 22 hours for the dental schools and 26 hours for the medical schools. Nutrition education was integrated with another discipline in 4 of the dental schools and 11 of the medical schools. The average duration of this type of instruction was 14 hours for the dental schools and 18 hours for the medical schools. Six of the dental schools and eight of the medical schools employed a nutritionist/dietitian to provide instruction in nutrition. We recommend that courses in basic and applied clinical nutrition be incorporated throughout the curricula of Canadian dental and medical schools, and that personnel trained in clinical nutrition be employed to provide instruction in this area.     

Universities and medical schools: reflections on a half-century of Canadian medical education.

After 50 years of accelerated development, universities and medical schools have entered a period of uncertainty and instability. The Flexnerian paradigm of medical education, rooted in biomedical science and conducted under the aegis of a university, reached its apotheosis by the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Fuelled by the introduction of comprehensive, government-sponsored health care insurance and advances in technology, the demand for health care professionals and for access to facilities increased sharply. Medical education, research and advanced clinical services expanded dramatically aided by the emergence of academic health sciences centres and accompanied by a wave of medical curriculum reform. Now medical schools must strike a dynamic balance in responding to the continued expansion of knowledge and technology, the demand for social equity and the exigencies of prolonged fiscal constraint. They must also balance the biological and sociological approaches to medicine in establishing the foundations for the future development of Canadian medical education.     

Pharmacogenetics place in modern medical science and practice

Pharmacogenetic evidence-based treatment strategies will have major implications for all aspects of the product pipeline, including drug discovery, high throughput target screening protocols, lead optimization, and drug formulation to produce series of medicines for a particular disease which will meet the efficacy needs of the majority of patients. The initial proof of principle experiments involves whole genome screening for DNA variants and determination of specific patterns of variants associated with adverse events of marketed products [SNP Print(sm)]. Pharmacogenetics has the potential of changing the pipeline model of drug discovery, clinical development, and mass customization marketing.     

Canada's medical schools

A 20-year-old man with a 10-year history of glomerulonephritis presented with a purpuric rash on his legs. A renal biopsy specimen obtained when he was 11 years old had shown mesangial glomerulonephritis; staining 9 years later for IgA had negative results. A second renal biopsy, performed when the rash was present, revealed mesangial glomerulonephritis and mesangial deposits of IgA; biopsies of the involved skin showed leukocytoclastic vasculitis. In this case isolated glomerulonephritis appeared to change to a multisystem illness, with a different immunologic character, through one of several possible pathogenetic mechanisms.