The study compared research activities of men and women from data obtained in a 1982-83 survey of 7,947 medical school faculty in departments of internal medicine. Among findings were that women researchers had significantly fewer National Institutes of Health grants as well as reduced laboratory space. (Author/DB)

A monthly journal club for residents uses detailed discussions and analyses of clinical research articles to teach the important concepts and principles of medical research in a manner useful to the practicing physician. Discussion is structured by a guide for presenting the articles to the group. (Author/MLW)

A discussion of the National Institutes of Health grants peer review system suggests that, while the system is the most effective for assuring support for high-quality medical and nursing research, serious erosion in confidence in the system has occurred and must be resolved within the biomedical research community. (MSE)

The doctrine of informed consent has been enumerated to protect the rights of human subjects involved in biomedical research. The elements of informed consent are summarized along with the changes of emphasis that have evolved. The issue of liability and means for minimizing its impact are discussed. (Author/MLW)

The Association of American Medical Colleges' statement defines misconduct in research, discusses its prevention, and outlines suggested processes and policy for handling allegations of misconduct, appeal and final review, and disciplinary action. (MSE)

This paper presents epidemiologic evidence on the contributions of physical inactivity and reduced cardiorespiratory fitness to risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). The types and dose of physical activity to reduce risk of CHD and plausible biologic mechanisms for the partial protective effect are reviewed. (Author/SM)

The effect of exercise on total and regional bone mineral density (BMD) in postmenopausal women is reviewed. Studies on non-estrogen-replete postmenopausal women show 1-2% changes in regional BMD with 1 year of weight-bearing exercises. Studies of exercise training in the estrogen-replete postmenopausal population suggest large BMD changes.…

Reviews age-related declines in motor performance, examining the known types of sensorimotor deficits in the elderly. The article highlights recent data that show changes in kinematics of arm movements, prehension tasks, and handwriting that reveal why movement becomes slower and less accurate in older adults. (SM)

Summarizes alternatives to using live animals for the teaching of veterinary medicine both currently and over time. Advantages of using teaching alternatives include low cost, accessibility, completeness, psychomotor skill training, ease of repetitive use, and humanness to both the animal and the person. (Author/MDH)

Describes a fully automated approach for indexing documents that is based on associating textwords in a training set of bibliographic citations with the indexing of journals. Discusses the use of journal descriptors (JDs) in the MEDLINE database that could also be used to search other journal articles, monographs, and Web documents. (Author/LRW)

After a continuing effort to improve its grant application process, the department of medical microbiology and immunology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is submitting many more applications and realizing increased funding. The methods and strategy used to make the process more efficient and effective are outlined. (Author/MSE)

Summarizes highlights of a discussion of 12 leaders in the field of child sexual abuse concerning triage and referrals for child-sexual-abuse medical examinations from the sociolegal system. (DB)

Summarizes highlights of a discussion by eight leaders in the field of child sexual abuse on the impact of child sexual abuse examinations on the dependency and criminal systems. (DB)

"MedLine Search Assistant" is a new interface for MEDLINE searching that improves both search precision and recall by helping the user convert a free text search to a controlled vocabulary-based search in a visual environment. Features of the interface are described, followed by details of the conceptual design and the physical design of…

An interview with the former editor of "The New England Journal of Medicine" examines the impact on medical education of corporatization of the health-care system, including pressures to see more patients, less time spent with each patient, financial pressures limiting medical research, issues related to tenure, and concerns that young doctors are…