Comparison of Word and Character Level Information for Medical Term Identification Using Convolutional Neural Networks and Transformers

Complexity and domain-specificity make medical text hard to understand for patients and their next of kin. To simplify such text, this paper explored how word and character level information can be leveraged to identify medical terms when training data is limited. We created a dataset of medical and general terms using the Human Disease Ontology from BioPortal and Wikipedia pages. Our results from 10-fold cross validation indicated that convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and transformers perform competitively. The best F score of 93.9% was achieved by a CNN trained on both word and character level embeddings. Statistical significance tests demonstrated that general word embeddings provide rich word representations for medical term identification. Consequently, focusing on words is favorable for medical term identification if using deep learning architectures.

EMOTIONALLY-EVALUATIVE POTENTIAL OF MEDICAL TERMS IN CONSCIOUSNESS OF MEDICAL STUDENTS

В статье обсуждаются верифицированные на основе метода субъективного шкалирования результаты свободного ассоциативного эксперимента, проведенного с участием студентов медицинского вуза, которым в качестве стимулов были предложены медицинские термины, называющие болезни. Особое внимание уделяется динамике эмоционально-оценочной составляющей значения медицинского термина, которая обусловлена разным уровнем профессиональных компетенций воспринимающих термин испытуемых. The article discusses the results of two psycholinguistic experiments: free associative experiment and subjective scaling with the participation of medical university students who worked with medical terms naming diseases as stimuli. Special attention is paid to the dynamics of the emotional-evaluative component, represented in the psychological structure of the meaning of the medical term, associated with different levels of professional competencies of the subjects perceiving the term.

Gamified Medical Terminology Learning Through Chatbot-Based Crossword Puzzles: the Termbot

Background: Medical terminology is usually difficult for students to memorize such long and unfamiliar sound words. It really makes challenging for healthcare students. Ordinarily, there’re a variety of ways to learn medical terminology such as memorizing root words or making flashcards. However, students often get half the results with double the effort. Methods: In order to help students learn medical terminology more easily and interestingly, an online chatbot, Termbot, has been produced in this research that aims to provide learners with an interesting method to enhance their medical terminology by using Termbot on the online platform ©LINE at any time. Compared to traditional independent learning with online interactive learning, the Termbot is a great tool for students in memorizing English medical terminology by playing the Termbot online crossword puzzles. In this study, the experimental method is used to check whether Termbot affects students’ academic performance in learning medical terminology. Also, the experimental samples are divided into the experimental group and the control group. As the name implies, the experimental group is the group that accepts experimental operations, while the control group does not accept any experimental operations so that the researcher could compare the differences between the two groups to show the results of the experimental operations.Results: The interaction between students and Termbot via Line, students can use the online crossword puzzles provided by Termbot to help improve their learning of medical terminology. The experimental result in this study has shown that students trained with Termbot have made significant progress in learning such long medical term words. In addition, the result has also shown that the online Termbot has the potential to improve the learning process and learning outcomes.Conclusions: As students change their learning behaviors, the use of Termbot has improved their learning effectiveness, which clearly proves that it is a very useful learning tool. Without a doubt, Termbot is not only a great help for students’ learning medical terminology but can also be used to assist word learning in other fields.Trial registration: Not applicable.

Patients with Hidradenitis Suppurativa Negatively Perceive Both Medical and Euphemistic Appellations of Their Disease: A Study From Turkey

Background: The use of medical terms and folk names (euphemisms) affect a patient’s understanding of diseases and perceptions of severity. Objectives: We determine the psychological effects on patients with hidradenitis suppurativa of medical and folk names of their disease. Methods: This was a cross-sectional and exploratory study conducted at a tertiary referral university hospital in Turkey. A questionnaire on the medical and folk names of hidradenitis suppurativa was administered to 31 males and 25 females. Results: The patients expressed that they found the medical term hidradenitis suppurativa to be incomprehensible because it is a foreign term. When hearing it for the first time, it evoked negative responses such as confusion and worry about their health. Half of the patients preferred their doctors to use a more understandable and pronounceable name. More than 80% of patients expressed feeling depressed and stigmatized by the folk name of their disease. They preferred the terms boils, abscesses, or hidradenitis when referring to their disease. Conclusion: Both medical and folk names for hidradenitis suppurativa have negative effects on patients, and most patients feel stigmatized by either term.

The ethics of semantics in medicine

In this paper, we discuss the largely neglected topic of semantics in medicine and the associated ethical issues. We analyse several key medical terms from the informed perspective of the healthcare professional, the lay perspective of the patient and the patient’s family, and the descriptive perspective of what the term actually signifies objectively. The choice of a particular medical term may deliver different meanings when viewed from these differing perspectives. Consequently, several ethical issues may arise. Technical terms that are not commonly understood by lay people may be used by physicians, consciously or not, and may obscure the understanding of the situation by lay people. The choice of particular medical terms may be accidental use of jargon, an attempt to ease the communication of psychologically difficult information, or an attempt to justify a preferred course of action and/or to manipulate the decision-making process.

Delivering life, delivering death: Reaper drones, hysteria and maternity

Like all warfare, drone warfare is deeply gendered. This article explores how this military technology sediments or disrupts existing conceptualizations of women who kill in war. The article using the concept of motherhood as a narrative organizing trope and introduces a ‘fictional’ account of motherhood and drone warfare and data from a ‘real life’ account of a pregnant British Reaper operator. The article considers the way trauma experienced by Reaper drone crews is reported in a highly gendered manner, reflecting the way women’s violence is generally constructed as resulting from personal failures, lost love and irrational emotionality. This irrational emotionality is tied to a long history of medicalizing women’s bodies and psychologies because of their reproductive capacities and, specifically, their wombs – explored in this article under the historico-medical term of ‘hysteria’. The article argues that where barriers to women’s participation in warfare have, in the past, hinged upon their (argued) physical weakness, and where technology renders these barriers obsolete, there remains the tenacious myth that women are emotionally incapable of conducting lethal operations – a myth based on (mis)conceptions of the ‘naturalness’ of motherhood and the feminine capacity to give life.

AYURVEDIC PERSPECTIVE OF PRIMARY DYSMENORRHOEA - REVIEW ARTICLE

The medical term for painful period is "dysmenorrhoea". Dysmenorrhoea among adolescents is of primary in nature that is without any pelvic pathology. Among Vimshati yonirogas described in Ayurveda classics Udavarta is men- tioned as a condition with painful and difficult menstruation, so it can be correlated to primary dysmenorrhoea. In this condition the Rajas flow in reverse direction hence the term Udavartini. Women feel immediate relief following discharge of menstrual blood. Normal menstrual flow is the function of Apana vata therefore Apana vata dushti can be considered as the responsible factor for Udavarta. Because of the high prevalence of dysmenorrhoea in adoles- cents and extent of its potential daily interference it should be seriously taken into consideration. Ayurvedic classic textbook along with available modern literatures were referred to make a clear view regarding the concept of Uda- varta and its possible correlation with primary dysmenorrhoea. Keywords: Primary dysmenorrhoea, Udavarta, dysmenorrhea

Talentos e Aptidões: Um olhar sobre o Autismo

Autism is a medical term that encompasses a broad spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impaired reciprocal socialization and communication, often accompanied by restricted or repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. Due to the enlargement in the clinical diagnostic boundaries and the increased awareness of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the world has seen a dramatic increase in its prevalence during the last two decades. ASD is currently considered one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders worldwide. Frequently reported in terms of comorbidities, disabilities, burden and economic costs, the talents, gifts and abilities of people within the autistic spectrum only reaches the media when it amazes the audience. In this review, we want show that the high clinical heterogeneity found in autism can also be applied to the gifts and abilities, and that it must be nurtured with appropriate developmental, educational environment and above all, support and hope.