Publications

AIM

The Primary Medical Education (PRIME) program is an outpatient-based, internal medicine residency track nested within the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) categorical medicine program. Primary Medical Education is based at the San Francisco Veteran's Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), 1 of 3 teaching hospitals at UCSF. The program accepts 8 UCSF medicine residents annually, who differentiate into PRIME after internship. In 2000, we implemented a novel research methods curriculum with the dual purposes of teaching basic epidemiology skills and providing mentored opportunities for clinical research projects during residency.

SETTING

Single academic internal medicine program.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The PRIME curriculum utilizes didactic lecture, frequent journal clubs, work-in-progress sessions, and active mentoring to enable residents to "try out" a clinical research project during residency.

PROGRAM EVALUATION

Among 32 residents in 4 years, 22 residents have produced 20 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 1 paper under review, and 2 book chapters. Their clinical evaluations are equivalent to other UCSF medicine residents.

DISCUSSION

While learning skills in evidence-based medicine, residents can conduct high-quality research. Utilizing a collaboration of General Internal Medicine researchers and educators, our curriculum affords residents the opportunity to "try-out" clinical research as a potential future career choice.

The mouse is increasingly important as a subject of vestibular research. Although many studies have focused on the vestibular responses of mice to angular rotation, the geometry of their semicircular canals has not been described. High-voltage X-ray computed tomography was used to measure the anatomy of the semicircular canals of two strains of mice, C57Bl/6J and CBA/CaJ. The horizontal plane of a stereotaxic coordinate system was defined by the midpoints of the external auditory meati and the point where the incisors emerge from the maxilla. The centroids of the lumens of the bony canals were calculated, and planes that describe the canals were fit using a least-squares regression analysis to the resulting points. Vectors normal to each regressed plane were used to represent the corresponding canal's axis of rotation, and angles of these vectors relative to skull landmarks as well as to each other were calculated. The horizontal canal of the mouse was found to be angled anteriorly upward 17.8 degrees for CBA/CaJ and 32.6 degrees for C57Bl/6J from the reference horizontal plane. Angles between ipsilateral canals deviated up to 12.3 degrees from orthogonal, and angles between contralateral synergistic canals (left anterior-right posterior, right anterior-left posterior, and horizontal-horizontal) deviated from parallel by up to 14.8 degrees. The orientations of the canals within the head as well as the orientations of the canals relative to each other were significantly different between the two strains, suggesting that care must be taken in the design and interpretation of developmental and physiologic studies involving different mouse strains.