Full-time Personnel Research Articles

A paediatric respiratory intensive care unit in Lagos

The respiratory Intensive Care Unit was created at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital in 1963. Experience shows that mortality has been highest in neonates who had congenital anomalies, as well as in children under 2 years of age. The predominant cause of death was preventable respiratory failure. The incidence of mortality was 43%. This was related to several factors: (i) the severity of illness, types of illness and antecedent period of neglect; (ii) lack of a critical care medicine programme; (iii) insufficient skilled full-time intensive care personnel, including physicians, nurses, physiotherapists and paramedical specialists; (iv) the high incidence of infection in the Intensive Care Unit.

Student Affairs Personnel: Partners or 2nd Class Citizens?

Pick up almost any college catalog and you will note th t the college prides itself on catering to the whole individual?to his development as a social, physi cal, spiritual, and emotional, as well as an intellectual person. Professional literature, too, abounds with refer ences to educating the total person. There is undoubtedly a growing recognition that self-actualization depends not only on mastery of a body of knowledge about the world around us, but also on an understanding of one's self. The important role to be played by a body of pro fessionals whose work will complement the educational process is already accepted in theory and actually exists in practice: a dean of students, a student activity di rector, a residence hall director, counselors, placement personnel, and perhaps psychologists and consulting psychiatrists. What does not yet exist in most cases, however, for this body of professional personnel is the recognition and academic status accorded to the other professionals in the institution, namely the teaching faculty. The question that then arises is: will it be pos sible for colleges to attract and retain professionally trained and gifted people in the student affairs areas if they are not accepted as equal partners in institutions of higher education ? Many leading universities offer graduate degrees at the master and doctorate levels in counseling and guidance, student personnel administration, etc. It is now generally recognized that professionally skilled, full time personnel are essential if these functions are to be carried out effectively. People wanting to enter these fields recognize the need for specialized training. How ever, it is already an accepted fact that many bright graduate students, who show a keen interest in student affairs, are being advised to steer clear of this field be cause they may, under employment as registrar, director of admissions, counselor, or one of a number of posi tions, will discover that they do not have the same rights and privileges as their teaching colleagues. Under these circumstances, there seems little doubt that the student affairs profession will lose many capable recruits to its ranks. The trained student affairs person with professional skills and graduate studies as lengthy as those of his teaching colleagues, may find himself without either rank or tenure. In present practice, if he is to have the privi lege of rank or earning tenure, he must be assigned to a department such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, or in some cases a department related to the area of his undergraduate work. This often presents difficult and serious problems. For example, the student affairs per son, in most cases, is working twelve months a year and an excess of forty hours per week in student affairs and cannot teach, write and research within the department. Therefore, other faculty members within the department often question the person's right to be there and wonder, sometimes quite vociferously, if the person belongs. Feelings often become even more exacerbated when pro motions are being contemplated. Problems inevitably arise over such questions as whether the student affairs person should meet the same criteria for promotion as do his colleagues who are teaching and doing research in their areas of speciality. The faculty member with large classes who finds from college reports that an excellent student-teacher ratio of his department can be attributed to the inclusion of student affairs personnel who rarely have time to teach, becomes resentful. Problems affecting the morale of college personnel obviously detract from the primary goal of the college, that of serving the student. It becomes essential to work out a more satisfactory way of giving the student affairs person the status and security that he should have in keeping with the level of work that he performs. As stu dent affairs personnel become an increasing proportion of the professional employees of institutions of higher learning, it becomes of paramount importance to enable them to enter into a real partnership in the academic community. It appears to the writers that certain measures could be taken immediately to bring about a resolution of the problems. First there is the problem of nomenclature. Cur rently, student affairs personnel in many cases refer to themselves and are referred to by others as student per sonnel workers. There is certainly nothing wrong with the term worker which came into vogue many years ago before specialists were educated in the student af fairs areas. However, by withholding the term faculty, which refers to a branch of learning in a university, the 115

The APB's Independence and Its Implications for the FASB

Although the Opinions of the Accounting Principles Board (APB) continue to be generally accepted, the APB is today only a historical fact. Much criticism had been directed at the Board during its tenure, such that a successor organization was duly conceived and shortly thereafter given life. As interested parties now orient themselves to the operations of the new Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), there persists the very important question of whether improvement in formulating accounting rules will in fact result. One of the primary features of the new FASB, which distinguishes it from the APB, is that its seven members are full-time personnel who have severed all official ties with their previous employers. As a result, the seven men are expected to view issues with an independence that some observers contend did not exist during the APB era. That is, no Board member will have any obvious constituency whose own unique interests might be unduly brought to bear on the Board's deliberation of some issue. Implicit in the belief that FASB pronouncements will be less tainted than APB Opinions, is the presumption that the former body's independence had in fact been a vulnerable point. Since the matter of FASB members' not having employment-oriented has been heralded as a significant improvement over the APB mode of operation, one is inspired to examine the nature and extent of the external constituencies issue. Recall that APB members were appointed to assure a well-defined representation of large international CPA firms, other CPA firms of varying sizes, business enterprises, and the academic community. Given this configuration, can it be shown that external constituencies were valid factors leading to the demise of the Accounting Principles Board. The objective here is to examine the voting behavior of Accounting

A National Survey of Parole Decision-making

A survey was conducted of all agencies in the United States having parole jurisdiction over felony offenders sentenced to a correctional institution for more than one year. The results of the survey yielded information on organizational trends, per sonnel development, and procedures employed at parole release and revocation hearings. Parole boards were found to be moving away from their role as autonomous decision-makers and instead are developing an expanded function as part of larger depart ments of correction. Parole board members are now, to a greater degree than a few years ago, full-time personnel serving longer terms of office-perhaps an indication of a trend toward in creased professionalism. Procedures at parole release hearings have not changed much in recent years, except for the manner of informing the inmate of the board's decision. On the other hand, procedures at revocation hearings have shown an increas ing tendency to accord to the offender the right to a number of due process safeguards, a trend that was clear even before the requirements set forth in the recent Supreme Court decision in Morrissey v. Brewer.

Library Practice in Hospitals: A Basic Guide

Of the approximately 3,000 health sciences libraries in the United States, some 60% are in hospitals whose holdings average 3,730 bound volumes and 115 current serials. Only 25% of all hospital libraries had one or more full-time personnel and less than 22% had a professional librarian. Thus, there is a predominance of nonprofessional persons in hospital libraries and heavy reliance upon untrained, voluntary assistants. <i>Library Practice in Hospitals</i>is a practical, pragmatic volume addressed to the day-to-day problems of a person who works in a community hospital library. The book is divided into three parts. "The Hospital and the Health Sciences Library" provides an overview of the library in the hospital—its role, relationship to the general staff, and the communication media it must handle. "Library Tools and Techniques" outlines the basic principles of selection, acquisition, processing, and use of books and journals. Fink and Stearns introduce the concept of a

State Administration and Financing of Family Planning Services

A 1971 survey by the Center for Family Planning Program Development consisted of a questionnaire mailed to health and welfare directors in 50 states and 5 federal jurisdictions concerning their family planning policies and administrative practices. 52 agencies responded; Guam, Mississippi, and Louisiana did not. The major funding for state health agencies was allocated by HEW and by maternal and child health (MCH) formula grants under Title 5 of the Social Security Act. 11 states made additional expenditures of $1.7 million for a variety of purposes. 21 states required local welfare departments to purchase services under the Medicaid program established by Title 19 of the Social Security Act. Administration was assigned to specific organizations within the state health agencies. 31 states reported a total of 128 full-time professional personnel, with 90 assigned at state headquarters level. In general, on a state-by-state basis, the full-time staff does not correspond to the size of the appropriations. Survey findings were useful measures of resource commitments to family planning services by state health and welfare agencies and provided data on future levels of resource requirements.

Surveillance of Drug Therapy

Early last year the state of the art of adverse drug reaction reporting was assessed inThe Journal,1found severely wanting, and suggestions voiced for its improvement. In this issue, the two communications by Jick, Slone, and associates from the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, Boston, report two of the early fruits of a carefully conceived in-hospital drug surveillance program. This is a study of considerable depth and sophistication. It employs full-time paramedical personnel and insists on putting into the computer complete data on all drugs received by patients, as well as much potentially meaningful clinical data, all of which seems adequately and carefully monitored and validated under close nursing and medical supervision. The profile data covers many significant features in each patient, including genetic markers, such as the ABO, MNSs, and other blood groups, when available. By this means, a data bank has resulted which is continually expanding and which

Progress and problems of family planning in the United Arab Republic

The rapid population growth in the United Arab Republic (URA) is bec ause of 1) the large rural population (57%) 2) the agricultural economy 3) high illiteracy 4) high infant and child mortality and 5) the hig h incidence of divorce and polygamy. There are an estimated 2000000 women of fertile age with 2-3 children. The goal of the governmental family planning program is to reach 1000000 women by 1970 reducing the rate from 2.54% in 1968 to 2.1%. IUDs and oral contraceptives are manufactured within the country. Acceptance of both is low in rural areas. Problems associated with the family planning program in the UAR include inaccuracy of statistics interagency staff distribution poor location of new centers bureaucratic demands need for more village centers or mobile units to reach rural areas fixed working hours that are inconvenient for acceptors lack of social workers lack of availability of contraceptives inadequate communication and motivational efforts lack of sufficient full-time personnel welfare advantages given to large families and lack of centralized industries.

Psychiatric consultation in a deliquent population.

The psychiatric consultant's role in a training school is reviewed; particular attention is paid to 240 evaluations of juvenile and adolescent male delinquents. Suggestions are offered regarding a realistic and productive use of professional time in such a program: possibly the consultant's most useful function may be to train full-time personnel to treat more effectively and to participate in the correctional program with more insight.

Sanitary Engineering Education: ICA Assistance in Peru

The Department of Sanitary Engineering, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina has, under the sponsorship of the International Cooperation Administration, an agency of the United States Government, a contractual arrangement to provide technical assistance to the Faculty of Sanitary Engineering of the National University of Engineers, Lima, Peru. The experiences of this project is the subject of this report. The undergraduate teaching program of the Faculty of Sanitary Engineering in Lima has been modernized and made more effective by the recruitment and training of full-time personnel, by the expansion of laboratory teaching, by streamlining and coordinating course content, participating in extension work and by general improvement of all activities.