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The terminology which has been used up until now within interprofessional healthcare has been characterised by a certain definitional weakness, which, among other factors, has been caused by an uncritical adoption of language conventions and a lack of theoretical reflection. However, as terminological clarity plays a significant role in the development and profiling of a discipline, the clarification and definition of commonly-used terminology has manifested itself as a considerable objective for the interprofessional research community. One of the most important journals for research in the area of interprofessional education and care, the Journal of Interprofessional Care, has expanded its author guidelines relating to terminology, modeled after the conceptual considerations of the research group around Barr et. a l and Reeves et al. A German translation of the suggested terms therein has been presented in this contribution, and discussed in light of the challenges to a possible adaptation for the German-speaking world. The objective is to assist communication in practice and research in becoming clearer, while promoting an increasing awareness to and the transparency of determined definitions and terminologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Information extraction techniques that get structured representations out of unstructured data make a large amount of clinically relevant information about patients accessible for semantic applications. These methods typically rely on standardized terminologies that guide this process. Many languages and clinical domains, however, lack appropriate resources and tools, as well as evaluations of their applications, especially if detailed conceptualizations of the domain are required. For instance, German transthoracic echocardiography reports have not been targeted sufficiently before, despite of their importance for clinical trials. This work therefore aimed at development and evaluation of an information extraction component with a fine-grained terminology that enables to recognize almost all relevant information stated in German transthoracic echocardiography reports at the University Hospital of Würzburg.Methods: A domain expert validated and iteratively refined an automatically inferred base terminology. The terminology was used by an ontology-driven information extraction system that outputs attribute value pairs. The final component has been mapped to the central elements of a standardized terminology, and it has been evaluated according to documents with different layouts.Results: The final system achieved state-of-the-art precision (micro average.996) and recall (micro average.961) on 100 test documents that represent more than 90 % of all reports. In particular, principal aspects as defined in a standardized external terminology were recognized with f 1=.989 (micro average) and f 1=.963 (macro average). As a result of keyword matching and restraint concept extraction, the system obtained high precision also on unstructured or exceptionally short documents, and documents with uncommon layout.Conclusions: The developed terminology and the proposed information extraction system allow to extract fine-grained information from German semi-structured transthoracic echocardiography reports with very high precision and high recall on the majority of documents at the University Hospital of Würzburg. Extracted results populate a clinical data warehouse which supports clinical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Our objective was to revise the definition of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) using a conceptual model incorporating reliability and validity, and a novel iterative approach with formal evaluation of the definition. Methods: The European Society of Intensive Care Medicine identified three chairs with broad expertise in ARDS who selected the participants and created the agenda. After 2 days of consensus discussions a draft definition was developed, which then underwent empiric evaluation followed by consensus revision. Results: The Berlin Definition of ARDS maintains a link to prior definitions with diagnostic criteria of timing, chest imaging, origin of edema, and hypoxemia. Patients may have ARDS if the onset is within 1 week of a known clinical insult or new/worsening respiratory symptoms. For the bilateral opacities on chest radiograph criterion, a reference set of chest radiographs has been developed to enhance inter-observer reliability. The pulmonary artery wedge pressure criterion for hydrostatic edema was removed, and illustrative vignettes were created to guide judgments about the primary cause of respiratory failure. If no risk factor for ARDS is apparent, however, objective evaluation (e.g., echocardiography) is required to help rule out hydrostatic edema. A minimum level of positive end-expiratory pressure and mutually exclusive PaO/FiO thresholds were chosen for the different levels of ARDS severity (mild, moderate, severe) to better categorize patients with different outcomes and potential responses to therapy. Conclusions: This panel addressed some of the limitations of the prior ARDS definition by incorporating current data, physiologic concepts, and clinical trials results to develop the Berlin definition, which should facilitate case recognition and better match treatment options to severity in both research trials and clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1920s, the neurosciences in Germany were world-class. Then came Hitler’s regime, and with it 2 distinct changes happened to the research milieus in Berlin and elsewhere. First, the persecution of Jews and others deprived Germany of many of its most outstanding scientists. Second, numerous German and Austrian physicians became active in National Socialist (NS)-euthanasia programs. In recent years, the medical community has become more aware of the ethical burden associated with eponyms derived from scientists of the Third Reich. Yet a list of these eponyms with emphasis on clinical neurology is still missing. This paper therefore reviews 30 neurological eponyms derived from 29 physicians who lived in the Nazi era. Among them are victims who were forced out of the country or murdered in concentration camps, protestors who risked their academic careers and often their lives, beneficiaries who published on brains from ‘euthanized’ children, and collaborators who were directly involved in the planning and execution of NS-euthanasia programs. Copyright © 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Proficiency in medical terminology is an essential competence of physicians which ensures reliable and unambiguous communication in everyday clinical practice. The attendance of a course on medical terminology is mandatory for human and dental medicine students in Germany. Students' prerequisites when entering the course are diverse and the key learning objectives are achieved to a varying degree. Methods: A new learning space, the "TERMInator", was developed at the University Medicine Greifswald to meet the medical students' individual learning needs better. The interactive e-learning course serves as a supplement to the seminars, lectures and tutorials to rehearse and practically apply the course contents at an individual pace. It uses gamification elements and is supplied via the learning platform Moodle. The TERMInator was pilot implemented in two consecutive winter terms (2018/19, 2019/20) and comprehensively evaluated based on the general course evaluations and an anonymous questionnaire covering aspects of content, layout and user friendliness of the TERMInator and questions concerning the students' learning preferences. Results: The TERMInator was rated very positively overall, which was also fed back to the lecturers during the classes. Students appreciate the new e-learning tool greatly and stress that the TERMInator should be further expanded. The handling of the TERMInator was considered to be very easy and, therefore, almost no training time was needed. The tasks were easy to understand and considered a good supplement to the seminar contents. The extent and quality of the images were seen rather critically. The students' learning strategies differ. Although e-learning options were generally rated as very important, student tutorials were considered by far the most important. Conclusions: Medical terminology classes are characterised by heterogeneous learning groups and a high workload within a short time, which can lead to major challenges for the teaching staff. Complementary gamified e-learning tools are promising in view of the students' different knowledge levels and changing learning behaviour. Trial registration: Not applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]