Does Faculty Experience Count? A Quantitative Analysis of Evidence-Based Testing Practices in Baccalaureate Nursing Education.

AIM: This study explored evidence-based testing practices of nurse faculty teaching in baccalaureate programs. BACKGROUND: Faculty-developed examinations are important for determining progression in nursing programs. Little is known about faculty who implement such practices most often. METHOD: A causal comparative study with a convenience sample of 177 was used to answer the research question. Participants were grouped according to level of teaching experience based on Benner's novice to expert theory. Individual/group means were calculated for the best practices in test development survey; one-way analysis of variance was used to identify significant differences between groups. RESULTS: Expert faculty had higher overall mean scores than the other four groups, with significantly higher scores than both the advanced beginner (p = .007) and proficient (p = .020) groups. CONCLUSION: Faculty with more experience seem to implement evidence-based testing practices most often. This information can be used to guide faculty development and peer-mentoring initiatives within nursing programs.

Transcriptional upregulation of c-MET is associated with invasion and tumor budding in colorectal cancer.

c-MET and its ligand HGF are frequently overexpressed in colorectal cancer (CRC) and increased c-MET levels are found in CRC liver metastases. This study investigated the role of the HGF/c-MET axis in regulating migration/invasion in CRC, using pre-clinical models and clinical samples. Pre-clinically, we found marked upregulation of c-MET at both protein and mRNA levels in several invasive CRC cells. Down-regulation of c-MET using RNAi suppressed migration/invasion of parental and invasive CRC cells. Stimulation of CRC cells with rh-HGF or co-culture with HGF-expressing colonic myofibroblasts, resulted in significant increases in their migratory/invasive capacity. Importantly, HGF-induced c-MET activation promoted rapid downregulation of c-MET protein levels, while the MET transcript remained unaltered. Using RNA in situ hybridization (RNA ISH), we further showed that MET mRNA, but not protein levels, were significantly upregulated in tumor budding foci at the invasive front of a cohort of stage III CRC tumors (p < 0.001). Taken together, we show for the first time that transcriptional upregulation of MET is a key molecular event associated with CRC invasion and tumor budding. This data also indicates that RNA ISH, but not immunohistochemistry, provides a robust methodology to assess MET levels as a potential driving force of CRC tumor invasion and metastasis.