Using entertainment television to build a context for prevention news stories.

UNLABELLED: OBJECTIVE. A nationally syndicated television news series called "Following ER" was developed to educate viewers about the health issues dramatized on "ER," NBC's award-winning medical drama. This study investigated the impact of this prime-time link on viewer attention, satisfaction, information recall, and perceptions about the uses and gratifications delivered by a news story. METHODS: A total of 458 municipal jurors participated in a randomized 2 ("ER" tie-in vs no tie-in) x 2 (familiar vs novel story topic) experiment. The four experimental news stories required by this design were developed using footage of previously aired local newscasts. RESULTS: In the case of the familiar topic story, the "ER" tie-in enhanced the attention and satisfaction of viewers. Participants reported that the prime-time link added value by elevating the importance and relevance of the commonplace topic. However, the "ER" tie-in did not generate any beneficial effects when paired with the novel topic story. CONCLUSIONS: Framing news stories about familiar health concerns in the context of television drama represents a viable strategy for legitimizing them as important and timely topics for public consumption and debate.

Continuing medical education habits of US women physicians.

OBJECTIVES: To quantify the time women physicians spend on continuing medical education (CME) in total and by type of activity and to assess the impact of various demographic and professional characteristics on CME practices. METHODS: We analyzed CME habits among 4501 female physicians (a 59% response rate) using a 1994 national questionnaire-based survey, the Women Physicians' Health Study. RESULTS: US women physicians reported spending a monthly mean of 12.5 hours on CME, including 5.1 hours reading medical journals, 3.1 reading medical textbooks, 3.7 attending live CME lectures, 0.7 listening to CME audio tapes, and 0.4 watching medical television or videos. They also spent 0.9 hours per month learning from lay health media. Physicians with subspecialty training, medical school employment, and a non-US birthplace reported significantly (p < 0.05) more CME hours; age, ethnicity, region, specialty type, practice locale, career satisfaction, and board certification did not significantly predict reported CME hours. CONCLUSIONS: US women physicians reported spending an average of one-half hour each work day on CME, including about one hour per week reading medical journals, their most commonly reported CME activity.

Spontaneous internal jugular vein thrombosis associated with leiomyosarcoma of the omentum.

A case of spontaneous internal jugular vein thrombosis associated with distant malignancy is presented. This unusual manifestation of a hypercoagulable state was associated with a low-grade epithelioid leiomyosarcoma of the omentum. It was discovered on a gynecologic oncology service in a patient explored for a pelvic abdominal mass.