Search Results for
"human"

This is a continuing series of objectives to direct resident training in emergency medicine. Electrocardiography may not receive individual attention in many training programs. However, the importance, omnipresence, and medicolegal potential of electrocardiography in the practice of emergency medicine suggests its individual attention. Contents and specific learning objectives are presented to provide guidelines for resident mastery, following the format presented by preceding subjects. © 1991.

Study objective: To compare the levels of work-related stress and depression reported by physicians-in-training in emergency medicine in three survey sites and to determine the effects of gender and marital status on stress and depression among these physicians. Design: Cross-sectional mail surveys. Setting and type of participants: Physicians-in-training in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australasia. Intervention: Questionnaires requesting demographic information and including scales assessing work-related stress and depression were administered. Measurements and results: A 3 × 2 × 2 multivariate analysis of variance in which survey site, gender, and marital status were independent variables and stress and depression scale scores were dependent variables revealed significant differences when stress and depression were analyzed simultaneously. Univariate analyses of variance revealed significant differences in stress by survey site and gender and in depression for all three independent variables. Comparison of adjusted means revealed that respondents from the United Kingdom reported significantly higher levels of stress than did respondents from the United States and that women reported significantly higher levels than men. Respondents from the United States reported significantly higher levels of depression than did respondents from the other countries, women reported higher levels than men, and unmarried respondents reported higher levels than married respondents. Conclusion: Despite limitations resulting from self-report bias, cross-sectional survey methodology, sampling error, and differences in training among the three survey sites, the respondents experienced similar levels of stress and depression attributable to anticipated sources. © 1991 American College of Emergency Physicians.

Most future medical leaders receive little or no formal exposure to management and leadership training activities. Industry invests considerable resources in such training for middle and senior level managers. With the increasing complexity of health care delivery systems and the increased involvement of diverse teams of individuals in the care of patients, it was believed that a training activity designed to enhance participant human interaction skills and teach about group behavior and team management might be valuable to pediatric chief residents. This article describes a 3-day workshop designed to develop such leadership skills. It has been conducted for 3 years with 117 participants. Results of end-of-course and 6-month follow-up evaluations show that participants enjoyed the training experience and believed it was valuable in helping them fulfill their leadership role as chief resident. © 1991, American Medical Association. All rights reserved.

[No abstract available]

Although a few surgical residents do leave the surgical field, little research has been done into the eventual whereabouts of all surgical residents. We undertook this follow-up to find out what proportion of them enter the surgical field and to identify changing patterns over the past 15 years. We compared 593 medical schoool graduates on demographics, academic credentials, and surgery program directors' rating of their performance in the first postgraduate year (PGY-1). Sixty percent remained in general surgery, and about 26% moved to another specialty within the surgical field. During the mid-1970s, those who remained within the surgical field had better academic credentials on average than those who switched out of the surgical field. However, more recently, the trend has reversed. There were no differences between the groups on age or sex. These results suggest that some good students are being recruited into surgical programs but are later lost in major career switches. Perhaps these changes are related to residents' preferences for specialties that offer more controllable lifestyles than the surgical field. © 1991.

To test the hypothesis that a program of regular reading and discussion would result in significant improvement in the surgical database as measured by the American Board of Surgery In-Training Examination (ABSITE), we conducted a 2-year prospective study. The study group, which was comprised of 40 residents, was compared with a control group of 44 residents enrolled in the residency during the 2 years that preceded the study period. Neither reading effort nor discussion group attendance correlated strongly with ABSITE performance among first-year residents. At this level, ABSITE scores correlated best with National Board of Medical Examiners Part I scores (r = 0.699, p = 0.002). In contrast, second-year through fifth-year residents showed a cumulative improvement across the residency (80 versus 180 standard score points, p = 0.048). Individual resident improvement correlated highly with reading effort (r = 0.79, p < 0.001). There was little measurable effect from attending discussion sessions. We conclude that the surgical database can be improved by a program of regular reading and that the magnitude of the improvement is directly proportional to the reading effort. © 1991.

[No abstract available]

In this paper we comment on the notion of competence and on the widely-recommended practice of defining learning and assessment in terms of competence statements. Two lines of comment are explored. Firstly, we consider the meaning of competence as an aspect of the description of human activity, and find that it has not yet been coherently specified. In particular, it is not clear whether a competence is a personal attribute, an act, or an outcome of action; moreover, the idea of competence, as currently used, is open to complaints that it is atomistic, individualistic, and unable to cover all types of relevant behaviour or mental activity. Secondly, we discuss the implications for education and training of the adoption of competence as a model of outcome. We note difficulties with the design of competence statements, which can be empty and uninformative. In addition, the idea of competence seems to lack reference to the personal processes entailed in a skill, over-simplifies the theory/practice relationship, and so on — all of which can lead to serious difficulties in training and education. © 1990, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

The number of women general dental practitioners has increased in the last few years as the number of women graduating from UK dental schools has also increased. The increase in women practitioners from 1975 to 1985 is of the order of 10 per cent, although only 23 per cent of the total owned their own practices either alone or in partnership. The paper describes the author's own experiences in setting up a thriving practice and the problems she encountered as a woman. Also described are the author's observations in striving for greater goals for general dental practitioners in terms of continuing education and vocational training.

"Vocations" are distinguished by specialized clusters of skills and to examine vocational education and training in a development context is to examine formation of progressively more refined mixes of skills. Of critical importance are diverse agencies and institutions in the formation of competencies that are not readily acquired in schools even where complementary with school learning. Predominantly this means attachment in learning to a producing individual or enterprise. "Attachment learning" ranges from the most familistic through various forms of apprenticeships to "firm-specific" and related human capital formation in large modern organizations. Common to all variants are arrangements (formal or informal) for the sharing of costs and returns to human investments. A major problem for LDCs lies in the limitations of social capital and skill base for the provision of such learning opportunities. This issue calls for intensive consideration in labor market and industrial policies. © 1990.