THOUGH programmed learning is an educational technique which is gaining increasing acceptance In other spheres, its possible usefulness in medical education largely remains to be evaluated. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the relative efficiency of a teaching-machine course in electrocardiography and a series of conventional lectures on the same subject. In planning the experiment we were guided by the criteria laid down by Cheris (1964) for valid comparisons of programmed and non-programmed instruction. The Programme by copyright.

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Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) have been used in examinations of some medical schools in the UK for more than 20 years, and for at least as long in the USA. It is rare for a medical student not to meet an MCQ paper at some time in his career, and MCQs are widely used in postgraduate examinations. Most of the current controversy related to MCQ tests is concerned more with the advantages and disadvantages of the various types of question used, the place of the 'don't know' option and the methods by which papers are scored and analysed, than whether the format has a place among assessment methods. Yet it cannot be denied that the topic of MCQs still generates suspicion and antagonism in some quarters, both among students and teachers. It is, therefore, appropriate that we should stand back and consider the technique objectively.

Dehydration has many deleterious effects on cognitive and physical performance as well as physiological function, in the context of sports, industrial work, clinical rehabilitation, and military applications. Because sweat loss and electrolyte loss vary across individuals, conventional sweat testing strategies using absorbent patch techniques are employed in laboratory settings to characterize sweat biomarkers; however, these techniques are not suitable for remote environments. Here, an updated wearable microfluidic sweat testing system targeted for recreational athletes is presented that includes a microfluidic patch accommodating a broad range of sweating rates, and a smartphone app incorporating digital image processing algorithms to enable real‐time analysis under different lighting conditions and patch orientations. Expansive field trials (n = 148 subjects) show significant correlations between the microfluidic patch and standard absorbent patch in measuring sweating rate and sweat chloride concentration during recreational exercise. This validation study demonstrates the applicability of the microfluidic patch and software platform for field testing in recreational athletes.

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