Faculty development program: a guide for medical schools in Arabian Gulf (GCC) countries.

The effective faculty development (FD) program is the most essential component for creating successful educational innovation. The purpose of having any FD program is to enable faculty to accomplish their goals, and through accomplishing these goals, the missions of their departments, colleges, and universities would be accomplished. FD programs will need to provide an extensive set of developmental-educational skills and strategies in order to serve faculty members who come from various disciplines and at different stages of their careers, have different faculty responsibilities, backgrounds, appointments, and bring unique personal circumstances to their work. Although, there are quite a large number of medical schools in Arabian Gulf (GCC) countries, still the FD programs are extremely lacking. To analyze the situation in Gulf medical schools with regards to FD programs, we would emphasize the following needs: (1) FD committees or departments; (2) formal programs in FD for new or junior and for also senior and established faculty members; and (3) funding support has to be devoted to improve the skills of faculty members in academia. This aimed at presenting a proposed FD program to be considered as a tool for qualitative improvement in medical schools of GCC countries.

Histopathology and biochemistry analysis of the interaction between sunitinib and paracetamol in mice.

BACKGROUND: Sunitinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor to treat GIST and mRCC may interact with paracetamol as both undergo P450 mediated biotransformation and P-glycoprotein transport. This study evaluates the effects of sunitinib-paracetamol coadministration on liver and renal function biomarkers and liver, kidney, brain, heart and spleen histopathology. ICR male mice (n = 6 per group/dose) were administered saline (group-A) or paracetamol 500 mg/kg IP (group-B), or sunitinib at 25, 50, 80, 100, 140 mg/kg PO (group-C) or coadministered sunitinib at 25, 50, 80, 100, 140 mg/kg PO and paracetamol IP at fixed dose 500 mg/kg (group-D). Paracetamol was administered 15 min before sunitinib. Mice were sacrificed 4 h post sunitinib administration. RESULTS: Group-A serum ALT and AST levels were 14.29 ± 2.31 U/L and 160.37 ± 24.74 U/L respectively and increased to 249.6 ± 222.7 U/L and 377.1 ± 173.6 U/L respectively in group-B; group-C ALT and AST ranged 36.75-75.02 U/L and 204.4-290.3 U/L respectively. After paracetamol coadministration with low sunitinib doses (group-D), ALT and AST concentrations ranged 182.79-221.03 U/L and 259.7-264.4 U/L respectively, lower than group-B. Paracetamol coadministration with high sunitinib doses showed higher ALT and AST values (range 269.6-349.2 U/L and 430.2-540.3 U/L respectively), p < 0.05. Hepatic histopathology showed vascular congestion in group-B; mild congestion in group-C (but lesser than in group-B and D). In group-D, at low doses of sunitinib, lesser damage than in group-B occurred but larger changes including congestion were observed at high sunitinib doses. BUN levels were higher (p < 0.05) for group-B (33.81 ± 5.68 mg/dL) and group-D (range 35.01 ± 6.95 U/L to 52.85 ± 12.53 U/L) compared to group-A (15.60 ± 2.17 mg/dL) and group-C (range 17.50 ± 1.25 U/L to 26.68 ± 6.05 U/L). Creatinine remained unchanged. Renal congestion and necrosis was lower in group-C than group-B but was higher in group-D (p > 0.05). Mild cardiotoxicity occurred in groups B, C and D. Brain vascular congestion occurred at high doses of sunitinib administered alone or with paracetamol. Hepatic and renal biomarkers correlated with histopathology signs. CONCLUSIONS: Paracetamol and sunitinib coadministration may lead to dose dependent outcomes exhibiting mild hepatoprotective effect or increased hepatotoxicity. Sunitinib at high doses show renal, cardiac and brain toxicity. Liver and renal function monitoring is recommended.

Biomarkers of oxidative stress in women with pre-eclampsia.

AIM: The potential role of oxidative stress in the pathophysiology of pre-eclampsia has been reported in the literature. There are only a few studies that have investigated changes in malondialdehyde (MDA), vitamin E and total blood glutathione together in pre-eclampsia. Therefore, the aim of this study was to measure the levels of MDA, vitamin E and total glutathione as putative circulatory markers of oxidative stress for the early detection of pre-eclampsia. PATIENTS & METHODS: In this case-control study, blood samples were collected from 40 pre-eclamptic and 80 normal pregnant females at the department of obstetrics and gynecology at King Abdulaziz Medical City (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) between February 2009 and January 2010. Circulating markers of oxidative stress were evaluated, including MDA, total glutathione and vitamin E, by high-performance liquid chromatography. RESULTS: Markers of oxidative stress including serum MDA, total glutathione and vitamin E were found to be significantly different in both groups. CONCLUSION: MDA, vitamin E and blood total glutathione are possible candidate markers to predict pre-eclampsia.