The American Board of Orthodontics was founded in 1929 and is the oldest specialty board in dentistry. It was initiated by Dr Albert Ketcham and several colleagues who believed that the specialty of orthodontics should have a certifying body. The certificate issued by the Board was then and has continued to signify a certification of attainment. It does not confer any legal qualification, privi...

A GOOD DOCroR NEVER GRADUATES! MAY I present Dr. Obsolescing Smith and Dr. Competent Smith ? Both are qualified and registered to practise the healing art on the basis of existing legal requirements. Fifteen years ago both completed the first phase of their medical education and received their respective medical degrees. Dr. 0. Smith graduated finally and irrevocably. With joyous abandon he sev...

This paper focuses on dualities in both the process and outcomes of participation in work. The process of participation in work activities and interactions is held to draw on the contributions of both individuals and the social world in ways that are interdependent, yet relational. The affordances of workplaces shape the array of experiences able to be accessed by individuals and, they in turn,...

The use of the Internet as a medium for distance education requires students to transmit large amounts of socio-emotional information to people who are often total strangers. This can make people feel vulnerable, so they limit the amount of this type of information they transmit across the Net, which in turn creates a barrier to effective communication. This study assessed the quality of the co...

BACKGROUND Although the problem-based learning (PBL) emerged in 1969 and was soon widely applied internationally, the rapid development in China only occurred in the last 10 years. This study aims to compare the effect of PBL and lecture-based learning (LBL) on student course examination results for introductory Chinese undergraduate medical courses. METHODS Randomized and nonrandomized contr...

The capacity to train public health professionals is far from sufficient to meet urgent global needs. Foreign aid programs hold much promise to deal with this challenge. A case study from Norway illustrates the possibilities. Since the early 1960s, Norwegian universities have offered English-taught masters and doctoral degree programs, with sufficient financial support that all Third World stud...

Roughly 40% of the nearly 3 million registered nurses (RNs) in the United States have an associate's degree (ADN) as their highest level of nursing education. Yet even before the recent Institute of Medicine report on The Future of Nursing, employers of RNs have increasingly preferred baccalaureate-prepared RNs (BSNs), at least anecdotally. Data from the American Community Survey (2003-2013) we...

In this issue’s Education and debate section Evans and Greaves describe two educational developments in medical humanities. These initiatives appear to raise two important issues in the context of developing the humanities in medical education. Evans and Greaves describe their master’s programme as being “philosophy looking at humanities disciplines looking at medicine”. This acknowledgement of...

PURPOSE To describe educational practices of physician assistant (PA) programs regarding spirituality and religion discussions during patient encounters. Patients want their health care provider to be aware of their spiritual and religious beliefs. This topic is addressed in physician and nursing education but may not be included in PA programs. METHODS Data regarding curriculum were collecte...

The passage of a photon density wave through random media has been investigated extensively for medical imaging based on the diffusion approximation. In this paper, the photon density wave is studied based on the exact time-dependent vector radiative transfer theory. Both continuous and pulse photon density waves are analysed in a plane parallel medium using Mie scattering and the discrete ordi...