The humanities have been increasingly incorporated into medical school curricula in order to promote clinical skills and professional formation. To understand its current use, we reviewed the literature on visual arts training in medical education, including relevant qualitative and quantitative data. Common themes that emerged from this review included a focus on preclinical students; instruction promoting observation, diagnostic skills, empathy, team building, communication skills, resilience, and cultural sensitivity. Successful partnerships have involved local art museums, with sessions led primarily by art educators employing validated pedagogy such as Visual Thinking Strategies or Artful Thinking. There is evidence that structured visual arts curricula can facilitate the development of clinical observational skills, although these studies are limited in that they have been single-institution reports, short term, involved small numbers of students and often lacked controls. There is a paucity of rigorous published data demonstrating that medial student art education training promotes empathy, team building, communication skills, wellness and resilience, or cultural sensitivity. Given these concerns, recommendations are offered for fostering more robust, evidence-based approaches for using visual arts instruction in the training of medical students.

Marsilea quadrifolia Linn. showed significant anti-epileptic efficacy against various epilepsy models.

Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the effect of acotiamide and esomeprazole combination therapy in improving Functional Dyspepsia (FD) - related symptoms in comparison with acotiamide or esomeprazole monotherapy. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective observational study conducted in patients attending outpatient department of Gastroenterology, M S Ramaiah Hospitals and diagnosed to have functional dyspepsia based on Rome IV criteria. Group 1 received acotiamide, group 2 received esomeprazole and group 3 received acotiamide plus esomeprazole combination therapy for a period of 6 weeks. The efficacy of treatment was assessed using symptom assessment scale. We also assessed the responder rate, resolution rate and treatment emergent adverse events. Results: In this study a total of 52 patients completed the study in each group. There was a statistically significant improvement in symptom assessment scale - Epigastric pain syndrome (EPS), Postprandial distress syndrome (PDS), Total Abdominal Symptom (TAS) scores from baseline to 6 weeks in all the 3 treatment groups (p <0.001). Combination therapy (group 3) showed maximum reduction from baseline to week 6 (mean differences of 11.07, 3.53 and 5.65 in TAS, EPS, PDS scores respectively). The common adverse events reported were fever, headache, diarrhoea and nasopharyngitis. Conclusion: Combination therapy of acotiamide with esomeprazole was effective in reducing symptom scores at the end of 6 weeks in patients with FD as compared to monotherapy with either of the drugs.

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