The use of role-play in the learning of medical terminology for online and face-to-face courses.

Student engagement while learning a new, unfamiliar vocabulary is challenging in health science courses. A group role-play activity was created to teach students medical terminology and learn why its correct usage is important. This activity brought engagement and relevance to a topic traditionally taught through lecture and rote memorization and led to the development of an undergraduate and a stand-alone introductory course to teach students medical terminology. The undergraduate course was designed to be a fully online medical terminology course for health science students and a face-to-face course for first-year dental students founded in active learning and group work. The course's centerpiece learning activity focused on using published case studies with role-play. In this group activity, students are challenged to interpret a published patient case study as one of the members of a healthcare team. This course models the group work inherent in modern health care to practice building community and practicing professional skills. This approach gives students the capacity to work asynchronously in a team-based approach using our learning management system's wiki tool and requires students to take responsibility for their learning and group dynamics. Students practice identification, writing, analyzing, and speaking medical terms while rotating through the roles. Students in both classes self-reported a 92% to 99% strong or somewhat agreement using a five-point Likert scale that the course pedagogy was valued and helpful in their learning of medical terminology. Overall, this method has proven to be an engaging way for students to learn medical terminology.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Role-play can engage students and encourage learning in identification, pronouncing, writing, and understanding medical terminology in multiple course formats.

Nicotine-related misperceptions among faculty and students at a Midwestern dental school.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: To determine the perceptions about the ill-effects of nicotine in students and faculty at a Midwestern dental school. This information will help inform the school and improve teaching on this subject during a time when electronic nicotine delivery systems are increasingly popular. METHODS: An online survey of dental students and faculty of a Midwestern dental school was deployed in November, 2020 to determine their level of misperception about the ill effects of nicotine. An online Qualtrics survey was administered to approximately 212 predoctoral students at a dental institution and approximately 100 part- and full-time faculty at the same school. RESULTS: The response rate for faculty was 55.1% and that for students was 37.5%. The majority of faculty and students "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that nicotine causes cancer, birth defects, cardiovascular disease, oral inflammation, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. CONCLUSIONS: Dental school faculty and students linked the risks of smoking tobacco to nicotine. Based on the results of this study, we feel our institution's curriculum should consider including information specific to nicotine in addition to tobacco in general.

An activated-zinc oral rinse reduces pro-inflammatory cytokine secretion and promotes proliferation in Porphyromonas gingivalis LPS-challenged gingival tissues - A pilot study.

OBJECTIVES: The use of adjunct post-treatment mouth rinses containing chlorhexidine (CHX) for periodontitis patients is associated with side effects that reduce patient compliance. Our aim was to evaluate the proinflammatory and cell proliferation effects of an activated-zinc mouth rinse (SM) that has been suggested as an alternative post-treatment therapeutic. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Tissue models of gingival epithelium were used to simulate periodontal disease and compare inflammatory reactions after treatment with CHX or SM. Tissues were exposed to Porphyromonas gingivalis LPS and wounded to simulate periodontal disease. Tissues were treated and incubated for 6, 12, or 24 h. Inflammatory cytokines were measured in culture medium by ELISA and local expression of Toll-like receptor (TLR)-4 and proliferation marker Ki-67 was visualized by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: SM and CHX treatments decreased secretion of IL-1ß and IL-8 into culture media at all time points. IL-1ß secretion levels were further decreased by SM compared to CHX treatment at all time points. TLR-4 expression appeared significantly increased 12 h post-treatment in the CHX tissues but remained relatively low in SM tissues at all time points. Ki-67 results suggest that cell proliferation was increased in the SM tissues earlier than CHX tissues. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that SM may reduce inflammation in gingival tissues.

Diet modulates proteinuria in heterozygous female dogs with X-linked hereditary nephropathy.

Young adult heterozygous (carrier) female dogs with X-linked hereditary nephropathy (XLHN) have glomerular proteinuria but are otherwise healthy. Because data regarding dietary influences on the magnitude of proteinuria in dogs with spontaneous glomerular disease are not available, 12 such dogs were studied in a double crossover experiment intended to determine effects of altering dietary protein intake for up to 6 weeks. Dogs were blocked by urine protein : creatinine ratio (UPC) and randomly assigned to receive 2 diets: high protein (34.6% dry matter [DM], HP) or low protein (14.1% DM, LP) fed in HP-LP-HP or LP-HP-LP sequence. Food intake was measured daily, body weight (BW) was measured twice weekly, and UPC, plasma creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, phosphorus, albumin, and protein concentrations were measured at 2-week intervals. Nutrient digestibility was measured during the third treatment period. Diet had a significant effect (P < .0001) on all measured variables except plasma phosphorus (P > .5), but unintended differences in digestibility of protein and energy (P < or = .01) prevented assignment of the diet effect exclusively to protein. Proteinuria was greater (UPC 4.7 +/- 2.2 versus 1.8 +/- 1.1, P < .0001) when the HP diet was fed, but the LP diet did not maintain starting BW or plasma albumin concentration within the normal reference range. Diet greatly affects the magnitude of proteinuria in XLHN carrier females. Dietary protein restriction can reduce proteinuria in dogs with glomerular disease, but BW and blood protein concentrations may not be maintained if the restriction is too severe.