ObjectivesResearch on resilience has been gaining momentum, and it has already been shown that increased resilience creates positive changes at the individual and collective levels. Understanding of the factors associated with resilience may guide specific actions directed towards different populations. The objective of this study was to investigate these associated factors within a population of medical students.DesignCross-sectional census.SettingA public medical school in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.ParticipantsOut of a total of 551 medical students, five students were excluded due to inactive registrations, and four transferred students were also excluded, resulting in a total of 542 remaining participants.MeasuresAdopting an anonymous questionnaire that included the Resilience Scale, in addition to questions related to sociodemographic, behavioural health-related and academic variables, the association between these variables and resilience was investigated.ResultsThe high rate of answers to each item constitutes a indication of students’ interest in participating, whereas the lowest percentile was 97.1%. The mean resilience score obtained was considered moderate. Factors such as gender, race, previous schools attended, financial independence, living situation, parents’ education level, religion, quota-based admission, smoking, alcohol abuse and use of illegal drugs were not associated with resilience. In a multivariate analysis using ordinal logistic regression, associations were maintained only between the highest resilience score and the non-use of habit-forming prescription drugs (OR: 0.58; 95% CI 0.41 to 0.80), having a better perception of one’s own health (OR: 0.57; 95% CI 0.41 to 0.81) and being older (OR: 1.37; 95% CI 1.12 to 1.67).ConclusionThe census performed with the medical students showed, with the multivariate analysis, that besides age, the variables most closely tied with resilience were health and medicalisation, and the variables connected with income and religion showed no association.

BACKGROUND Owing to increased spending on pharmaceuticals since 2010, discussions about rising costs for the development of new medical technologies have been focused on the pharmaceutical industry. Computational techniques have been developed to reduce costs associated with new drug development. Among these techniques, virtual high-throughput screening (vHTS) can contribute to the drug discovery process by providing tools to search for new drugs with the ability to bind a specific molecular target. OBJECTIVES In this context, Brazilian malaria molecular targets (BraMMT) was generated to execute vHTS experiments on selected molecular targets of Plasmodium falciparum . METHODS In this study, 35 molecular targets of P. falciparum were built and evaluated against known antimalarial compounds. FINDINGS As a result, it could predict the correct molecular target of market drugs, such as artemisinin. In addition, our findings suggested a new pharmacological mechanism for quinine, which includes inhibition of falcipain-II and a potential new antimalarial candidate, clioquinol. MAIN CONCLUSIONS The BraMMT is available to perform vHTS experiments using OCTOPUS or Raccoon software to improve the search for new antimalarial compounds. It can be retrieved from www.drugdiscovery.com.br or download of Supplementary data.

BackgroundPerformance of qualified professionals committed to cancer care on a global scale is critical. Nevertheless there is a deficit in Cancer Education in Brazilian medical schools (MS). Projects called Academic Leagues (AL) have been gaining attention. However, there are few studies on this subject. AL arise from student initiative, arranged into different areas, on focus in general knowledge, universal to any medical field. They are not obligatory and students are responsible for the organizing and planning processes of AL, so participation highlights the motivation to active pursuit of knowledge. The objective of this study was to explore the relevance of AL, especially on the development of important skills and attitudes for medical students.MethodsA survey was undertaken in order to assess the number of AL Brazilian MS. After nominal list, a grey literature review was conducted to identify those with AL and those with Oncology AL.ResultsOne hundred eighty of the 234 MS were included. Only 4 MS selected held no information about AL and 74.4 % of them had AL in Oncology. The majority had records in digital media. The number of AL was proportional to the distribution of MS across the country, which was related to the number of inhabitants.ConclusionsThe real impact and the potential of these projects can be truly understand by a qualitative analysis. AL are able to develop skills and competencies that are rarely stimulated whilst studying in traditional curriculum. This has positive effects on professional training, community approach through prevention strategies, and development on a personal level permitting a dynamic, versatile and attentive outlook to their social role. Besides stimulating fundamental roles to medical practice, students that participate in AL acquire knowledge and develop important skills such as management and leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation, health education, construction of citizenship. Oncology AL encourage more skilled care to patients and more effective policies for cancer control.

In face of current Curriculum Guidelines, medical education is experiencing a growth of extracurricular movement, as the Academic Leagues. Based in teach, research and extension, the leagues are characterized by a space in which students take an active role in learning process, in face of a educational model in general inefficient, contemplating a generalist and critic education, in consonance with current social reality. More than extracurricular activities, the leagues are a great instrument for knowledge construction, enabling the experience of curricular flexibility, a malleable shortcut, a space for authentic quests, with more meaning in each one choice.

This study illustrates the use of correspondence analysis to identify distinct profiles characterizing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) users and non-users, allowing the visualization of concurrent characteristics associated with this self-selection process. We analyzed cross-sectional information provided by 195 women reporting natural menopause, among 2,240 participants in the Pro-Saude Study (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Non-users had an unfavorable profile, including greater weight gain during adult life, older age, later menopause, and less schooling. This analytic tool should be used more extensively in public health research, in exploratory analyses of the relations among a large number of variables in key populations.