Can a Relationship of Trust Be Built Between Student Doctors and Patients Through Remote Interviews During COVID-19?

INTRODUCTION: Clinical clerkships could not be conducted as usual in 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a questionnaire survey of medical students and patients to determine whether remote medical interviews conducted in such a scenario could build a trusting relationship between the two. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifth-year students at Tokai University School of Medicine conducted tablet-based medical interviews (remote medical interviews) with patients as part of their clinical clerkship of breast endocrine surgery. Later, both the patients and students had to rate the trustworthiness of their relationship and their preference for remote/face-to-face medical interviews in a questionnaire survey. Forty-three students and 42 patients took part in the survey. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: All the patients and students agreed that a trusting relationship had been established. The results showed that most of the students preferred remote medical interviews, but patients were very divided in their preferences between face-to-face and remote medical interviews. Overall, we may conclude that remote medical interviews could be a safe tool for clinical practice in the future.

Survey of Attitudes of Japanese Women Toward Genetic/Genomic Research.

Previous surveys have suggested that elderly Japanese women have the lowest scientific interest and literacy within the Japanese population and among populations across Western countries. Because recent tremendous advances in genome analysis are likely to be incorporated into standard biomedical assessments throughout the world, we conducted surveys to investigate the attitudes toward genetic/genomic research of Japanese women aged between 55 and 65 years. Current surveys indicate that obtaining adequate informed consent from elderly Japanese women is complicated. The limitation is especially relevant to participants' literacy in genetics and genomic studies. Results of the surveys also indicate that even after the informed consent is obtained, researchers must continue to supply updated study information to the study subjects, which enables them to obtain additional information on the use of their samples and genetic/genomic information. Failure to consider these obligations may lead to a loss of the public's trust and thus affect research progress on medical genomics.

Kinetics of nuclear status and kinase activities during in vitro maturation of canine oocytes.

In contrast to those of other mammals, canine oocytes are ovulated at the germinal vesicle (GV) stage and then progress to the metaphase II (MII) stage in the oviduct. In other species, oocytes at the MII are widely used for in vitro fertilization or as recipients in somatic cell nuclear transfer. Many researchers have tried to improve the in vitro maturation (IVM) of canine oocytes. However, the proportion of MII oocytes remains low, resulting in poor efficiency of embryogenesis in vitro. This leads us to the possibility that the in vitro cytoplasmic maturation of canine oocytes is insufficient. Furthermore, the optimal culture period for IVM of canine oocytes is controversial, and physiological evaluation is required to improve canine IVM. We show here the time-dependent changes in mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and p34(cdc2) kinase activities in canine oocytes during IVM, since it is well known that both MAPK and p34(cdc2) kinase are activated following meiotic progression and show high activities in the MII stage in other species. Immediately after collection from ovaries, most oocytes were arrested at the GV stage, which was maintained until 24 h of culture. At 48 h of culture, more than half of the oocytes had progressed beyond the MI stage. A higher proportion of MII oocytes were observed with 72 h of culture compared with other culture periods. MAPK activity was found to increase in a time-dependent manner and reached a plateau at 72 h of culture. The level of p34(cdc2) kinase activity also increased in a time-dependent manner, with its maximal level observed after 72 h of culture. Activity was decreased with 96 h of culture, although there was no significant difference in the proportion of MII oocytes between 72 and 96 h. Our data thus show that the optimal culture period for IVM of canine oocytes is 72 h because both MAPK and p34(cdc2) kinase showed high activities at that time.