March 5, 2019 e1 WRITING GROUP MEMBERS Emelia J. Benjamin, MD, ScM, FAHA, Chair Paul Muntner, PhD, MHS, FAHA, Vice Chair Alvaro Alonso, MD, PhD, FAHA Marcio S. Bittencourt, MD, PhD, MPH Clifton W. Callaway, MD, FAHA April P. Carson, PhD, MSPH, FAHA Alanna M. Chamberlain, PhD Alexander R. Chang, MD, MS Susan Cheng, MD, MMSc, MPH, FAHA Sandeep R. Das, MD, MPH, MBA, FAHA Francesca N. Delling, MD, MPH Luc Djousse, MD, ScD, MPH Mitchell S.V. Elkind, MD, MS, FAHA Jane F. Ferguson, PhD, FAHA Myriam Fornage, PhD, FAHA Lori Chaffin Jordan, MD, PhD, FAHA Sadiya S. Khan, MD, MSc Brett M. Kissela, MD, MS Kristen L. Knutson, PhD Tak W. Kwan, MD, FAHA Daniel T. Lackland, DrPH, FAHA Tené T. Lewis, PhD Judith H. Lichtman, PhD, MPH, FAHA Chris T. Longenecker, MD Matthew Shane Loop, PhD Pamela L. Lutsey, PhD, MPH, FAHA Seth S. Martin, MD, MHS, FAHA Kunihiro Matsushita, MD, PhD, FAHA Andrew E. Moran, MD, MPH, FAHA Michael E. Mussolino, PhD, FAHA Martin O’Flaherty, MD, MSc, PhD Ambarish Pandey, MD, MSCS Amanda M. Perak, MD, MS Wayne D. Rosamond, PhD, MS, FAHA Gregory A. Roth, MD, MPH, FAHA Uchechukwu K.A. Sampson, MD, MBA, MPH, FAHA Gary M. Satou, MD, FAHA Emily B. Schroeder, MD, PhD, FAHA Svati H. Shah, MD, MHS, FAHA Nicole L. Spartano, PhD Andrew Stokes, PhD David L. Tirschwell, MD, MS, MSc, FAHA Connie W. Tsao, MD, MPH, Vice Chair Elect Mintu P. Turakhia, MD, MAS, FAHA Lisa B. VanWagner, MD, MSc, FAST John T. Wilkins, MD, MS, FAHA Sally S. Wong, PhD, RD, CDN, FAHA Salim S. Virani, MD, PhD, FAHA, Chair Elect On behalf of the American Heart Association Council on Epidemiology and Prevention Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee

Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics—2019 Update: A Report From the American Heart Association

Secret History: Return of the Black Death Channel 4, 7-8pm In 1348 the Black Death swept through London, killing people within days of the appearance of their first symptoms. Exactly how many died, and why, has long been a mystery. This Secret History documentary follows experts as they pick through the evidence and reveal why the plague killed on such a scale. And they ask, what might be coming next?

Medscape

Background: The American Heart Association, in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health, annually reports on the most up-to-date statistics related to heart disease, stroke, and cardiovas...

Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics—2020 Update: A Report From the American Heart Association

Pedagosko i psiholosko testiranje i procjenjivanje spadaju među najvažnije doprinose znanosti o ponasanju nasem drustvu i pružaju temeljna i znacajna poboljsanja u odnosu na ranije postupke. Iako se ne može ustvrditi da su svi testovi dovoljno usavrseni niti da su sva testiranja razborita i korisna, postoji velika kolicina informacija koje ukazuju na ucinkovitost kvalitetnih instrumenata u onim situacijama u kojima je njihovo koristenje potkrijepljeno validacijskim podacima. Pravilna upotreba testova može dovesti do boljih odluka o pojedincima i programima nego sto bi to bio slucaj bez njihovog koristenja, a također i ukazati na put za siri i pravedniji pristup obrazovanju i zaposljavanju. Međutim, losa upotreba testova može dovesti do zamjetne stete nanesene ispitanicima i drugim sudionicima u procesu donosenja odluka na temelju testovnih podataka. Cilj Standarda je promoviranje kvalitetne i eticne upotrebe testova te uspostavljanje osnovice za ocjenu kvalitete postupaka testiranja. Svrha objavljivanja Standarda je uspostavljanje kriterija za evaluaciju testova, provedbe testiranja i posljedica upotrebe testova. Iako bi evaluacija prikladnosti testa ili njegove primjene trebala ovisiti prvenstveno o strucnim misljenjima, Standardi pružaju okvir koji osigurava obuhvacanje svih relevantnih pitanja. Bilo bi poželjno da svi autori, sponzori, nakladnici i korisnici profesionalnih testova usvoje Standarde te da poticu druge da ih također prihvate.

Standards for educational and psychological testing

Background: The American Heart Association, in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health, annually reports the most up-to-date statistics related to heart disease, stroke, and cardiovascul...

Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics-2021 Update: A Report From the American Heart Association.

The present investigation was carried out to assess genetic variation and trait inter-relationship in QPM inbred lines in Vindhyan region of Eastern Uttar Pradesh for 18 characters during Rabi 2018-19. Analysis of variance showed significant differences for all the characters at 1 per cent level of significance, indicating that considerable genetic variability was present among different QPM inbred lines. The less difference between GCV and PCV revealed that there was a very low influence of environment on the expression of various characters. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent mean was depicted by for cob weight with sheath followed by cob weight without sheath and tassel length. Plant height followed by kernels per row, cob height, cob weigh twith sheath, tassel length, cobs per plant, cob weight without sheathand cob length showed positive significant correlation with grain yield and days to 50 per cent silking, followed by kernels per row,biological yield, harvest index, tassel length, cob length, anthesis silkinginterval, cobs per plant and cob weight without sheath hadshown the positive direct effect on grain yield per plant. Therefore, these characters may be used as selection indices for genetic improvement of QPM inbred lines. 

Assessment of genetic variation and trait inter-relationship in QPM inbred lines in Vindhyan region of Eastern Uttar Pradesh

Simulation is a tool that has been utilized for many decades in the surgical arena, from the advent of fracture fixation workshops, anatomy classes on cadavers, and practice of live animal models. The past two decades has seen an exponential growth in scientific data to support the role and impact of simulation in the surgical domain, within technical, team-based, and non-operative settings. In order to integrate simulation into surgical curricula, at student, resident, and practitioner levels, the tools, processes, and scientific outcomes of simulation need to be translated into clinical implementation, through deliberate engagement at the level of clinical departments, health systems, and professional bodies. This process needs to be underpinned by rigorous data collection and evaluation of the impact, challenges, and ongoing opportunities, for simulation in surgery to be a robust tool for health systems improvement, at a systems level.

Simulation in Surgical Education

We thank the readers for their careful consideration and review of our study and are encouraged by their sincere feedback. To update the readers, we are now preparing the next iteration of a curricular resident training protocol and have expanded the training beyond the base of tongue resection already published. We expect to provide the community with additional publications and updates when the next iteration is complete and results are available. In addition, our methods (and even equipment and resources where possible) are now available to the research community. Our work has also been reviewed by the Minimally Invasive Robotic Association Fundamentals of Robotic Surgery workgroup, and we have provided didactic input to that effort, which might someday be the accepted credentialing platform across specialties. In addition, we continue to mine our data for additional insights. With respect to the specific suggestions made by the readers, they are good advice for any research study. However, the presented study was well controlled for the effects of additional instruction. No instruction for the specific training tasks was provided during the training modules, and no additional disclosures are needed. We do agree that reviewing the design for needed controls and sources of bias is sound advice for any research study. We disagree with the interpretation and commentary on interobserver agreement. Our reviewers were well trained with pregraded example studies, and the rater training process was sound. The 0.8 “good” level (noted in the readers’ letter) finds little support in broader analysis, and we used broadly accepted levels to classify our variability results. The levels measured are suitable for instructional use. We further note that these statistics (will) continue to evolve with data from additional protocols (both users and raters), and we will report such updates when available. It was not an aim of the study to improve rater agreement, we merely reported the levels achieved in this iteration of the protocol. It must be emphasized that the order of detail and complexity of our measurements and analysis is orders of magnitude greater than previous reports, and a comparison may be moot to begin with. We note that learning curves reported are for an individual trainee over the considerable duration of the protocol and are compared with expert performance. The additional statistical analysis recommended, although relevant, deviates from the primary goals of the first iteration of our protocol. We aimed to establish performance baselines and verify the efficacy of measurement and analysis methods, and that expert baselines were achievable for our experimental tasks given the various constraints (including time available) for today’s trainees. In summary, we again thank the writers for their feedback. We will incorporate additional statistics, over additional raters and trainees, and over the following iterations of our protocol in follow-up publications. We also encourage this group, and other researchers planning curricular training, to both review and consider adopting our archival and analysis methods.

In reference to Objective assessment in residency‐based training for transoral robotic surgery

performance should also take similar steps to ensure the effect of observer bias is minimized. Finally, the authors of the original article chose high dependency unit (HDU) as the setting for their study. Although HDU is a setting in which ward round effectiveness is imperative, it remains that many hospitals in the UK still do not have HDUs. As a result, the findings of this study are unlikely to translate well to general surgical wards. It is more applicable to consider ward round effectiveness in the standard ward setting; hence the vascular ward that we chose for our study is likely to better represent surgical ward rounds across different hospitals and the results of other studies may be more comparable to ours. Future studies should therefore take place on general surgical wards. Overall, our study highlights several important points to consider. We have found the introduction of ward round checklist, use of independent observers, and the decision to concentrate on the general surgical ward round setting are important steps in measuring and improving ward round quality on surgical ward rounds. We look forward to publishing our results following the completion of the third and final cycle and hope that future ward round studies follow a similar approach. The need to optimize surgical ward rounds is vital for the purpose of improving patient outcomes and satisfaction. We therefore look forward to seeing further literature on this topic.

Rajesh Aggarwal

Papers

Assessment of genetic variation and trait inter-relationship in QPM inbred lines in Vindhyan region of Eastern Uttar Pradesh

Simulation in Surgical Education

In reference to Objective assessment in residency‐based training for transoral robotic surgery

Reply to "Improving Surgical Ward Round Quality: Lessons From Studying Communication".

Response to Letter From Bookless et al.