The Need for More Sophisticated Simulation Applications to Teach and Assess Expert Judgment

How can educators use simulation applications to teach and assess surgical judgment?

Surgical simulation applications have been largely limited to the acquisition and assessment of technical skills. Current teaching and assessment of surgical judgment is nonsystematic and prone to error. Interest in methods to enhance the acquisition and assessment of knowledge-based (judgment) skills for intraoperative decision making has led to the application of cognitive task analysis (CTA)...

Improving outcomes from community-acquired pneumonia: we need to be more sophisticated about cause and effect.

In the current issue of the European Respiratory Journal, MENÉNDEZ et al. [1] publish their analysis of the relationship between various measures of quality of care in patients with CAP and clinical outcomes in a large multicentre Spanish study. The three quality measures they focused on were: adherence to antibiotic guidelines, delivery of the first dose of antibiotics within 6 h of presentati...

Sophisticated Indexes for Implementing Probabilistic Expert Systems

Indexes are crucial for the efficient implementation of probabilistic expert systems. However, the indexes previously proposed, and the methods for applying them, are somewhat elementary. Moreover, recent experiments involving large Bayesian networks have resulted in the computer running out of memory. This further emphasizes the importance of indexes for probabilistic inference involving secon...

Concerning the need for more sophisticated animal models in sensory behavioral toxicology.

It is necessary but not sufficient to develop laboratory animal models in sensory behavioral toxicology for screening toxic substances and for the analysis of sensory impairment at threshold levels of stimulation. It is important to develop more thorough and quantitative tests of impairment which in their greater complexity more accurately reflect the conditions and environmental demands of day...

Addiction Studies in Iran Neuroscientists Need to Do More