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In both clinical and health professions education research, rich pictures, or participant-generated drawings of complex phenomena, are gaining recognition as a useful method for exploring multifaceted and emotional topics in medicine. For instance, two recent studies used rich pictures to augment semi-structured interviews exploring trainees', health care professionals' (HCPs), and parents' experiences of difficult conversations in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)--an environment in which communication is often challenging, anxiety-provoking, and emotionally distressing. In both studies, participants were invited to draw a picture depicting how they experienced a difficult conversation in this setting. As part of the interview process, participants were asked to both describe how they engaged with rich pictures, and to share their perceptions about the affordances and limitations of this research method. Here, their perspectives are reported and the possibilities of using rich pictures to inform pedagogical innovations in health professions education and research are considered.

Existing frameworks to address instances of microaggressions and discrimination in the clinical environment have largely been developed for faculty and resident physicians, creating a lack of resources for medical students. We implemented a workshop to prepare pre-clinical medical/dental students to recognize and respond to microaggressions. Participants in three cohorts from 2018 to 2020 completed pre- and post-workshop surveys assessing the prevalence of exposure to clinical microaggressions and the workshop's effect on mitigating commonly perceived barriers to addressing microaggressions. Of 461 first-year medical and dental students who participated, 321 (69.6%) provided survey responses. Over 80% of students reported experiencing microaggressions, with women and URM students over-represented. After the workshop, participants reported significant reductions in barriers to addressing microaggressions and discrimination, including recognizing incidents, uncertainty of what to say or do, lack of allies, lack of familiarity with institutional policies, and uncertainty of clinical relevance. The workshop was similarly effective in-person and virtual formats. Most medical/dental student respondents reported experiencing microaggressions in the clinical setting, particularly female and URM students. Our workshop mitigated most perceived challenges to responding to microaggressions. Future interventions across institutions should continue to equip students with the tools they need to address and respond to microaggressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study of a 15-day-old infant male who was referred to tertiary care center to investigate crusted, necrotic lesions forming a partial circumferential ring on his parieto-occipital scalp. It mentions that the Halo scalp ring is a form of localized alopecia in the neonatal period which is thought to be secondary to unusually prolonged pressure on the scalp by the cervical os in utero, either during or before delivery, resulting in compromised blood flow.

Background: The pulsatile nature of the arterial pulse induces a pulsatile perfusion pattern which can be observed in human cerebral cortex with non-invasive near-infrared spectroscopy. The present study attempts to establish a quantitative relation between these two events, even in situations of very weak signal-to-noise ratio in the cortical perfusion signal. The arterial pulse pattern was extracted from the left middle finger by means of plethesmographic techniques. Changes in cortical perfusion were detected with a continuous-wave reflectance spectrophotometer on the scalp overlying the left prefrontal cortex. Cross-correlation analysis was performed to provide evidence for a causal relation between the arterial pulse and relative changes in cortical total hemoglobin. In addition, the determination of the statistical significance of this relation was established by the use of phase-randomized surrogates. Results: The results showed statistically significant cross correlation between the arterial and perfusion signals. Conclusions: The approach designed in the present study can be utilized for a quantitative and continuous assessment of the perfusion states of the cerebral cortex in experimental and clinical settings even in situations of extremely low signal-to-noise ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]