Editors' Note

Editors' Note: In “Evaluating the safety of β-interferons in MS: A series of nested case-control studies,” de Jong et al. found that exposure to β-interferons was associated with a 1.8-fold increased risk of stroke. Commenting on the study, Dr. Jongen shares his own prospective study on adverse events in 284 patients with multiple sclerosis treated with intramuscular interferon-β-1a: one patient died from a stroke sinus thrombosis 22 months after start of treatment. He encourages prospective studies, immediately after market authorization, to detect safety signals in new drugs, which can be further investigated in controlled observational studies. de Jong et al. cited over 100 studies and case reports related to potential adverse effects of the β-interferons in their article's appendix, which includes the article referred to by Dr. Jongen. In “Education Research: Positive effect of scheduled faculty modeling on clerkship student bedside skills exposure and learning,” Thompson Stone et al. studied the effect of scheduled bedside skills modeling for third-year medical students on their neurology clerkship. They found significant increase in structured observation by students of neurologic bedside skills with the inclusion of a scheduled modeling experience. In addition, they provided a qualitative description of the most common learning themes associated with this experience. In response, Dr. Sethi suggests scheduled assessment of bedside skills moderated by a faculty member during the last week of clerkship, in addition to the bedside skills modeling experience during the first week of the neurology clerkship. Thompson Stone et al. agree and explain that, at the University of Rochester, all clerkship students participate in a faculty-observed bedside skills examination of a neurology inpatient during the final week of the clerkship. Their experience with this faculty-observed bedside skills examination appeared in a previous issue of Neurology®.—Chafic Karam, MD, and Robert C. Griggs, MD