In December 1987, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) proposed to the Health Care Financing Administration revised criteria for evaluating participating laboratories' performance in proficiency-testing programs. If these criteria are accepted, they will become the minimum standard for all regulatory proficiency-testing programs. To evaluate a laboratory's performance in a clinical chemistry p...

This report is an analysis of results provided to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by participant laboratories in the Model Performance Evaluation Program (MPEP) after they tested the human T-lymphotropic virus types I and II (HTLV-I/II) performance evaluation samples shipped to them in November 2000. Testing results for this analysis were provided by 189 (85.9%) of 220 labo...

AIM To determine attrition and predictors of academic success among medical students at University of Split, Croatia. METHODS We analysed academic records of 2054 students enrolled during 1979-2008 period. RESULTS We found that 26% (533/2054) of enrolled students did not graduate. The most common reasons for attrition were 'personal' (36.4%), transfer to another medical school (35.6%), and ...

BACKGROUND: Bacteriological analysis of cardiac valves might be indicated in patients with suspected endocarditis. METHODS: We report here a prospective study on fifty-three consecutive patients whose native valves were sent to the bacteriological and pathological laboratories, to investigate the performance of direct microscopic examination of imprints and valve culture. RESULTS: On the basis ...

CONTEXT As a patient safety measure, laboratories are required to have a critical values policy by regulatory agencies. Unfortunately, little information is available on repeat critical values for the same analyte(s) on the same patient. OBJECTIVE To investigate the occurrence and distribution of repeat critical values and the relationship between the frequency of such values and patient outc...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to investigate the pattern of distribution of risk factors for stroke and the 10-year probability of stroke by the Framingham risk score in hypertensive patients visiting private clinics vs. tertiary hospitals. METHODS A total of 2,490 hypertensive patients who attended 61 private clinics (1088 patients) and 37 tertiary hospitals (1402 patients) were e...

The Report of the National Research Council entitled “Addressing the Nation’s Changing Needs for Biomedical and Behavioral Scientists” (National Academy Press, Washington, DC 2000) is a thoughtful analysis of the workforce needs of the Biomedical Community in the United States (http://grants.nih.gov/training/nas _report/index.htm). The members of the Committee, chaired by Professor Howard Hiatt...

BACKGROUND In 2004, the Korean government and blood transfusion community deliberated on the issue of a national blood system reform and agreed to implement a 5-year project (2004-2009) to further improve safety measures. Our study delineates the basis of the current national blood program and analyzes the performance of this 5-year project initiated by the Korean government. METHODS A perfor...