Full-time Salary Research Articles

Compensation for metabolic dietitians practicing in the United States: 2023 genetic metabolic dietitians international professional status survey

BackgroundGenetic Metabolic Dietitians International (GMDI) conducted a professional status survey of metabolic dietitians working in the United States to describe job satisfaction and establish salary and compensation benchmarks specific to metabolic dietitians. MethodsThe survey was anonymously administered in a web-based format via REDCap between October and November 2023. Registered dietitians working with inborn errors of metabolism (IEM) were eligible to participate. ResultsA total of 178 surveys were received and 147 were included in the final analysis. Most respondents were female (96 %), worked in a clinical setting (83 %), and held a graduate degree (75 %), while 30 % had one or more board certifications and 8 % were faculty. Respondents specialized in genetic metabolic nutrition for a median of 6 years (IQR 2–15). Overall satisfaction with one's professional focus in IEM was high among respondents (87 %), though 40 % reported dissatisfaction with earnings potential in their current position.The median annual, full-time salary for US-based metabolic dietitians in all work settings was $80,400 (IQR $67,100-96,000). After excluding dietitians working in the pharmaceutical and/or nutrition industry (n = 14), the median annual salary decreased to $76,200 (IQR $66,700-91,000). Increased years' experience, responsibility (e.g., supervisor), expertise (i.e., board certification), and categorization as a Level II dietitian or higher were associated with higher annual salary. ConclusionThe results of the 2023 GMDI Professional Status Survey provide insight into the current compensation and benefits of metabolic dietitians practicing in the US. These data can be used to support individual efforts to secure equitable compensation for the metabolic dietitian's critical role in the medical nutrition therapy for individuals with IEM.

2024 Survey of Shelter Medicine Veterinary Compensation

Compensation in the field of shelter veterinary medicine is not well understood. Two previous surveys (2011 and 2018) have been conducted. In 2018, full-time shelter veterinarians employed in a clinical capacity had a median salary of $92,000 (IQR 80,000 - 110,000), while part-time shelter veterinarians had a median wage of $48/hour (IQR 36-66) for a median of 26 hours of work; academic shelter veterinarians had a median salary of $108,000 (IQR 90,000-120,000), while veterinarians employed in shelter leadership had a median salary of $120,000 (IQR 110,000-198,000). In 2018 the AVMA reported the median salary of all private practice veterinarians was $92,000 ($95,000 companion animal exclusive), and in 2022, it was $137,000 ($140,000 companion animal exclusive). The anonymous survey was distributed through various channels, including social media, message boards, and specialty listservs, similar to the 2018 survey. The survey was open for participation from January 4th to 31st 2024. Shelter veterinarians primarily working in the United States were categorized into four employment groups: part-time shelter-employed veterinarian, full-time shelter-employed veterinarian (35 hours per week or more), academic shelter medicine faculty, and shelter leadership/consultants. Salaries of interns and residents (2 respondents) were excluded from the analysis. There were 314 responses, with 299 from veterinarians working in/with shelters in the United States. Among these, 258 were engaged in clinical work with/for one or more shelter organizations, with 198 working full-time and 60 part-time. Eighteen respondents were from academia, and 23 were in shelter leadership or consulting roles. The median salary for full-time veterinarians in clinical roles was $122,500 (IQR 105,000 - 140,000; range 65,000 - 246,000), a 25% increase from 2018. Part-time veterinarians in clinical roles reported a wage of $85/hour (IQR 63 - 104; range 27 - 313) for a median of 24 hours (IQR 16 - 31), reflecting a 77% increase in hourly wage and an 8% decrease in hours. Academic shelter medicine veterinarians had a median salary of $130,000 (IQR 108,000 - 140,000; range 70,000 - 150,000), a 20% increase. The median salaries for different academic ranks were: Instructors $103,000, Assistant Professors $116,000, Associate Professors $134,000, and Professors $150,000. Veterinarians in consulting or leadership positions had a median salary of $168,000 (IQR 145,000 - 200,000; range 105,000 - 254,000), a 40% increase. All salaries increased, with the full-time salary for veterinarians employed in leadership or consulting increasing the most and salaries for veterinarians in academia increasing the least. The per-hour rate increased dramatically for part-time veterinarians, and they reported working a median of two fewer hours per week. Similar to the 2018 results, shelter veterinarians in leadership positions had the highest income, followed by academic shelter veterinarians. Salaries for clinically employed shelter veterinarians were 5% less than AVMA-reported 2022 salaries for all private practice veterinarians and 7% lower than for companion animal veterinarians.

Frontline workers' performance in prosocial tasks: evidence from a Lab-in-the-Field in Western India

PurposeFrontline workers (FLWs) constitute a critical part of the implementation cadre within public policies, serving a significant role in the last-mile delivery of public goods and services. FLWs under public programs in low and middle-income countries like India are offered different compensation structures that range from full-time salaries, piece rate honorariums, contractual engagements, to no remuneration. Whilst the rationale for offering different compensations vary, are certain structures more successful in encouraging FLWs to perform a prosocial task? Further, can certain structures encourage FLWs to perform beyond the incentivized policy mandate?Design/methodology/approachInvestigating workers' prosocial effort within policy implementation, the authors conducted a randomized lab-in-the-field inquiry with 344 Anganwadi-based workers (workers under the nutrition policy) in western India. These FLWs were engaged to perform a novel real-effort task that was tied to different incentive structures and their performance was adjudged based on measurable quantity, effort and quality parameters.FindingsResults demonstrate that uncompensated workers invest the greatest amount of effort whilst compromising on task quality, and vice-versa for subjects receiving pay-for-performance compensation. Programs must account for policy focus when offering compensations: volunteer engagement may be counterproductive for quality focus and to the adherence to ancillary task mandates like nature/quality of beneficiary interaction. On the other hand, the distribution of products (like health goods) can rely on volunteer effort.Originality/valueThe study brings together various compensation schemes operating at the field level, under one study using an LFE methodology within the context of policy implementation in India.

Health-related effects of an intervention involving reduced working hours among women employed in the municipal eldercare

Working conditions of eldercare are often characterized by a high workload and different organizational approaches have been suggested to reduce the potentially negative health-related effects of such conditions. One of the suggested approaches involves reducing the exposure to such working conditions by reducing the number of working hours. However, the knowledge of the concurrent health-related effects of working fewer hours remains limited. This longitudinal study set out to examine the health-related effects of an intervention involving daily working hours being reduced from ≥7 to 6 h. Data came from an organizational intervention that included 68 women employed in the municipal eldercare. All employees retained full-time salaries and additional personnel were employed by the organization in order to provide full services throughout the intervention period. A broad range of biomarkers and self-ratings in questionnaires were obtained before the intervention, 6 months after the change, and 12 months after the initial change. Measurements among referents (n = 19), matched with respect to type of work, were performed at corresponding time points. Results from repeated measures ANOVAs showed significant interaction effects for diastolic blood pressure and HbA1c with these effects being primarily related to changes among referents. No other significant group differences were found. Time-related effects emerged in both groups but cannot be attributed to the intervention as such. To conclude, this study showed none of the hypothesized health promoting or other consistent effects of reduced working hours.

Workforce Characteristics, Workplace and Job Satisfaction, Stress, Burnout, and Happiness of Music Therapists in the United States

This survey research examined the work lives of music therapists in the United States. With the inclusion of data on salary, workplace and job satisfaction, stress, burnout, and happiness, a comprehensive picture of the working lives of music therapists emerges. On the whole, music therapists appear to be generally happy with their workplace and job conditions and to experience moderate stress and low burnout. Data regarding salaries reveal a complex economic landscape. Although the average full-time salary of a music therapist was $51,099.69, salaries varied widely, with newly credentialed music therapists and those with less than six years of experience reporting lower average salaries. Variations in salaries, stress, burnout, and happiness were also evident across workplaces. Implications for the profession, including advocacy efforts, support for early-career professionals, and additional support for career development, invite further discussion.

Economic tradeoffs and risk between traditional bottom and container culture of oysters on Maryland farms

Availability of new oyster production methods offers a variety of choices for oyster farmers that include the overall business model, marketing strategy, scale of production, and the production method. Cost structures and relative profitability vary across production methods, scales, and business models. Maryland oyster farms were used as the basis for an assessment of the relative economic tradeoffs among traditional and newer, more intensive, production methods based on farm-level data. Oyster farmers in Maryland were interviewed in 2018 and 2019 to collect data from farm records on expenditures, prices, investment in equipment and facilities, and common problems. Production method/scale categories identified included annual production levels of ≤200 bushels and >200 bushels for traditional bottom culture and ≤6,000 and >6,000 boxes (100-count) for container culture. Cost structures were identified for each category, and accounting and economic net returns (profit) calculated for each (in $/bushel for traditional bottom culture and $/box for container culture). Stochastic dominance for profitability was assessed across the four farming categories. Cost structures differed substantially across the four categories, with fuel the greatest expense for traditional bottom culture farms and labor, followed by marketing costs, the greatest expenses for container culture farms. All categories were profitable based on accounting net returns, but only the large-scale farms for each production method were profitable in terms of economic net returns. The most profitable category was the large-scale container culture category followed by the large-scale bottom culture category, but the larger traditional bottom culture category was the least risky (by first-order stochastic dominance). Risk was substantially greater for the larger container culture category and for the smaller bottom culture category. Continued Extension support is needed to provide assistance with comprehensive business financial planning and risk mitigation (including efforts to reduce yield variability), especially for startup farms seeking to grow to provide full-time salaries for owners/operators.

Compensation and Benefits Survey 2019

Compensation and Benefits Survey 2019

Gender-Based Salary Inequities Among Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine Physicians in the United States

ObjectiveTo assess whether gender inequities exist for pediatric physiatrists and, if affirmative, what factors account for this difference. DesignCohort study. SettingOnline REDCap survey administered via e-mail. ParticipantsPediatric physiatrists practicing in the United States in 2017. InterventionsNot applicable. Main Outcome MeasuresRespondents reported on their gender, training, practice type and location, leadership positions, years in practice and years at their current location, salary, research, and clinical productivity. ResultsOf the 307 surveys sent, 235 individuals responded, yielding a response rate of 76.5%. Pediatric physiatrists who identified as women were more likely to work part-time but were demographically similar to their colleagues who identified as men. The odds of having no leadership role were higher for women (odds ratio=2.17; P=.02) than men. Pediatric physiatrists who identified as men made on average (in US dollars ± SD) 244,798±52,906 annually compared with those who identified as women 224,497±60,756. The average annual difference in full-time salary was $20,311 in favor of those who identified as men (95% confidence interval, $3135-$37,486). The set of predictors in the multivariable model explained about 40% of the total variability in annual full-time salary (R2=0.389; adjusted R2=0.339; F15,197=7.734; P<.001). Gender was not a significant predictor in the model, but model prediction of the salaries of pediatric physiatrists who identified as men was better than model prediction of the salaries of those who identified as women. ConclusionsDespite representing a majority of the field, pediatric physiatrists who identified as women were paid less than their counterparts who identified as men. The traditional predictors associated with the salaries of men were not enough to explain salary variation among those who identified as women, thereby providing evidence of the importance of intangible and unmeasured aspects of a women’s career, such as bias and institutional culture.

The State of the Field: Results from the 2014 and 2017 Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine Practice Surveys.

Childhood disability is on the rise and there is a national shortage of pediatric physiatrists in the United States. The 2009 Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine Practice Survey identified concerns regarding inadequate geographic dispersion of providers, salary inequities, and limited academic competitiveness and external funding for research. To describe the current state of the field of pediatric rehabilitation medicine. Survey of pediatric physiatrists in the United States in 2014 and 2017. National. Pediatric physiatrists INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. Characteristics; clinical activities, responsibilities, and comfort; academic activities; and salaries and productivity. In both 2014 and 2017, the majority of pediatric physiatrists who responded were women (~63%) and worked at an academic teaching hospital (~68%). Pediatric physiatrists most commonly held the title of assistant professor and were overrepresented in the Midwest. Overall, 55.8% of providers felt that access was adequate in their area whereas only 3.7% felt access was adequate across the country. In 2017, 52.5% of pediatric physiatrists participated in research or other scholarly activities with 44.2% reporting having published original research at some point in their careers. The inflation adjusted mean salary in 2014 ($227 360) was not statistically different than in 2017 ($232 634, P = .422). In both years, full professors reported the highest academic full-time salaries. Individuals having at least one leadership title also reported significantly higher average full-time salaries than individuals with no titles. Although gains have been made in terms of academic competitiveness and engagement in research in pediatric physiatry, there are areas of ongoing concern including large geographic practice variations with associated access to care problems, challenges with recruiting physicians to the field, and salary malalignment within the field of PM&R.

Best in Class: The Returns on Application Endorsements in Higher Education

While scholars have shown that well-connected applicants are advantaged in selection processes, less understood is whether such applicants produce important returns to the organization when key decision makers favor them. We begin to address this gap by investigating whether and why application endorsements―an informal practice whereby certain individuals (i.e., endorsers) advocate for particular applicants―affect organizational selection during the screening of applicants. Through the analysis of the population of 21,324 applicants to a full-time MBA program over a seven-year period, we find that even after controlling for individual qualifications and competencies, endorsed applicants are advantaged over non-endorsed applicants in admissions interview and offer decisions. In seeking to explain this advantage, we develop and test four key theoretical explanations pertaining to the potential returns on application endorsements for the organization. We find inconsistent evidence that endorsed applicants are “better qualified” compared with non-endorsed applicants during screening: while endorsed applicants are sometimes assessed to be stronger “on paper,” they generally receive lower competency assessments than non-endorsed applicants later, during the admissions interviews. Further, our analysis of data on matriculating MBA students reveals that those endorsed as applicants are not “better performers” academically (measured by grade point average) or in the job market after graduation (measured by full-time salaries or signing bonuses) compared with non-endorsed individuals. In contrast, individuals endorsed as applicants appear to be “better citizens” upon joining the organization—in our research setting, they are more likely to participate in student club leadership roles than non-endorsed individuals. We also find that they are “better alumni”―that is, they make larger monetary donations to the school after graduating than their non-endorsed counterparts. We conclude with implications for understanding the impact of application endorsements on labor and educational markets.

An Interview with William A. Barnett

An Interview with William A. Barnett

Moral Fire: Musical Portraits from America’s Fin de Siècle by Joseph Horowitz (review)

Moral Fire: Musical Portraits from America's Fin de Siecle. By Joseph Horowitz. Berkeley: University of Cali - fornia Press, 2012. [xv, 263 p. ISBN 9780520267442. $39.95.] Illustrations, index.Moral Fire is book with mission. Like four individuals who comprise its portraits, Joseph Horowitz makes powerful case for music as valuable intellectual and cultural pursuit. His goal is to change our perspective on period that Mark Twain satirically labeled Gilded Age. For Horowitz, decades between Civil War and 1900 are characterized neither by self-absorbed wealthy nor proponents of genteel tradition (p. 6). On contrary, era burned with passion of civic idealism and melioristic vision. Individuals such as Henry Lee Higginson, founder of Boston Symphony Orches - tra (BSO); Laura Langford, creator of Brooklyn's Seidl Society; critic Henry Krehbiel; and composer Charles Ives epitomize this zeal. Their activities show the moral passion animating classical music at turn of twentieth century (p. 8).The origins of this project can be found in Horowitz's earlier studies, Wagner Nights (1994) and Classical Music in America: A History (2005), in which Higginson, Lang - ford, Krehbiel, and Ives made cameo appearances. As Moral Fire elaborates, their activities overlap in numerous ways, but especially through Anton Seidl and Antonin Dvorak, whose American visit spurred vigorous debate about formation of national school of composition. Another recurring theme is 1893 Columbian Exposition, which was visited by Dvorak, Krehbiel and Ives. Boston's musical horizon is repeatedly compared to New York's and found wanting by numerous figures, from critic J. S. Dwight, who poisonously personifies snobbish discomfort (p. 233) to inbred composers' community (p. 295) around John Knowles Paine.As an alternative to term Gilded Age, Horowitz calls years circa 1900 United States' de siecle. The latter term typically describes a dynamic moment in European culture . . . freighted with decadence that lasted from about 1880 to 1914 (p. 11). Just as Wagner Nights described specifically American response to Wagner's operas, Moral Fire posits distinctively American response to modernity at century's turn. What was shared across Atlantic was pursuit of intense experience. The difference is that Americans cloaked this desire in garb of moral improvement. Higginson, Kreh - biel, Langford, and Ives were all agents of upliftfor whom great art seemed . . . inherently ennobling (p. 226). It would be mistake, however, to characterize their actions as embrace of tradition. On contrary, their activities are signposts of an intense high culture in vigorous transition (p. 12). They were all fulcrum figures living in a moment in flux, American fin de siecle (p. 227).Horowitz's portrait of Higginson is an inspiring sketch of man who balanced profound musical interests with lucrative career in finance. The young Higginson dropped out of Harvard but spent several years studying music in Vienna. He returned to Boston just as Civil War began, and he served Union cause heroically. Having decided against musical career, he joined his family's modest firm and helped it become one of Boston's most prominent investment banks.In 1881, Higginson announced his intention to establish symphony orchestra offering twenty concerts each season. Its players would earn full-time salaries, relieving them of need to work for theaters and dances. Ticket prices were kept low, reviving Germania Musical Society's policies of 1850s. Anticipating that new organization was unlikely to survive through ticket sales, Higginson personally guaranteed payroll. He chose George Henschel and then Wilhelm Gericke as conductors and advised them closely on repertory. Although Higginson was sometimes seen as exercising an artistic dictatorship (p. …

Enhanced medication management services in the community

Pharmacists are now receiving reimbursement by the Ontario government to do medication reviews for patients on 3 or more medications. However, they are often too busy in the community setting to thoroughly review medications with patients. Having a designated pharmacist to provide medication reviews could increase the number of reviews performed. Step 1 involved developing a business plan to determine the number of medication reviews that needed to be done to pay a pharmacist a full-time salary. Step 2 involved establishing the core elements of medication therapy management that included medication review, a medication-related action plan, documentation and follow-up. In step 3, eligible patients were called and invited to attend an appointment to review their medications with the pharmacist. Upon completion of the medication reviews, a random group of patients were requested to complete a satisfaction survey after the medication review. Three hundred thirty-six patients received billable medication reviews from April 4 to July 27, 2012. Twenty-seven additional visits were performed as follow-up visits. Eighty pharmaceutical opinions met the eligibility criteria for billing. Fifteen patients received counselling for smoking cessation. Medication reviews were completed for 19 patients from 8 other pharmacies. Extra revenue was generated through the sales of replacements of expired products. An average of 2.08 drug-related problems per patients was identified. One hundred percent of the patients were very satisfied with the service. A full-time pharmacist position providing enhanced medication management services generated enough income to pay for a full-time pharmacist's salary. The benefits to the patients were an increase in identification and resolution of drug-related problems, as well as an opportunity to receive disease state education and experience an improvement in disease states. Patients were extremely satisfied with the medication review process and the service provided to them. Can Pharm J 2013;146:162-168.

SABIA ET AL. RESPOND

We are grateful for Bozorgmehri’s comments on our article.1 In his letter, Bozorgmehri notes that the 33% reduced mortality risk we found in participants practicing at least 1 hour of moderate activity per week was in accordance with the current literature. He proposes that additional confounding factors ought to have been taken into account in our analyses. In the analyses reported in the article, the models were adjusted for measures that could potentially influence both physical activity and the risk of mortality (see list of covariates included in Table 1, model 1). TABLE 1— Association Between Self-Reported Duration of Moderate Physical Activity and Mortality: Whitehall II Study, 1997–2009 As suggested by Bozorgmehri, we undertook additional analyses that further included the following covariates: systolic and diastolic blood pressure, total blood cholesterol, body mass index, prevalence of cancer, and employment status using unemployment (very uncommon in our cohort [0.7%]) and retirement data. The results from this analysis were in accordance with results reported in our article (Table 1, model 2). Then, in a separate model, we additionally adjusted for lung function measured using forced expiratory volume (Table 1, model 3). This measure was assessed at the 2002 to 2004 screening and only among healthy participants,2,3 thus the start of the follow-up for mortality in these analyses was 2002 to 2004, reducing the sample size to 4708 (number of deaths = 104) participants. In this reduced sample, the association between physical activity and mortality was similar and did not change after adjustment for lung function (Table 1, model 3). A further point made by Bozorgmehri is that the “time frame of analysis did not seem long enough to confidently address questions of mortality in this cohort of mostly healthy, richer men.” We disagree with this statement because our sample was composed of 30% women and a wide range of socioeconomic statuses, with the annual full-time salaries in 1995 ranging from £4995 to £150 000. We agree with Bozorgmehri that a longer follow-up period would lead to more deaths, increasing the precision of our results. To better estimate the effect of physical activity over time, we plan to examine how change in physical activity patterns is associated with mortality in the future when a longer follow-up for mortality is available. Nevertheless, we think that our study, which was based on a 10-year follow-up period with repeated measures on both intensity and type of physical activity, contributes to the research on the association between physical activity and mortality.4–6

Reminiscences and Reflections on Leadership

When I arrived as Chair at the University of Louisville in 1991, I did not have a single gray hair. So, here I am, 20 years later, with less hair and lots of it gray, sharing my thoughts on leadership. What I know comes from my experience, very good advice, and a plethora of articles and monographs written on this topic. One of the best overviews is a series by the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) (1). The first paper I ever read about being a department Chair was during my residency at the University of Cincinnati (OH), in a course on group processes. Written by the former chair of the department of psychiatry there, Maurice Levine, M.D. (2), it was called “Oedipus, Cain and Abel, and the Geographic Full-Time System.” Levine argued that a full-time academic system fostered the intensity of both Oedipal and sibling rivalry feelings within a department. His recommended solution, used at Cincinnati at the time, was the “geographic full-time system,” in which faculty were paid a full-time salary equivalent to about 75% of the going rate, with the understanding that they could use university facilities and resources to conduct independent practice for the remainder of their time and income. Levine believed that this measure of clinical autonomy reduced conflicts with the Chair and among faculty. For better or worse, the faculty appointment system Levine advocated is just about extinct. My next 15 years at the University of Connecticut assured me that, to Levine’s credit, all of the phenomena he described were still alive and well. I remembered Levine’s paper as I arrived, in 1991, as Chair at the University of Louisville. I hoped that because I had run a milieu-oriented inpatient unit, served as a director of medical student and residency education, completed training as a psychoanalyst, and believed in a more flattened hierarchical-management style, I knew a little bit about managing transference. I thought that perhaps during my tenure, perceptions of me as Chair would be based more on reality than on transference. Of course, these hopes were immediately challenged within the first week of my new position, when a faculty member unexpectedly chastised me for disliking him and the work he was doing. In fact, not only had I no such feelings (the opposite, in fact), but also I had no idea where that perception had originated. About 6 weeks later, I attended my first meeting of the American Association of Chairs of Departments of Psychiatry (AACDP). In 1990, John Romano, former chair at the University of Rochester, had given an address titled “The Battered Chair Syndrome” (3), which discussed the wide range of forces that regularly buffet the Chair, and how they affect the perceptions of faculty and others. I was surprised when a speaker, in 1991, began his talk by saying he sincerely believed that, in his many years as Chair, not one of his faculty ever really knew who he actually was. Determined not to follow in this path, and believing that reality was the best antidote to transference, I thought that the best policy with faculty and staff was to be myself and to be as clear, fair, and equitable as I could. I believed that this would minimize, if not render irrelevant, any irrational feelings about faculty toward me or each other. Stress, of course, stirs up all kinds of group processes, and part of the stress in an academic department comes both from the reality that the faculty’s livelihood comes from their faculty appointment and from their aspirations for success. When I arrived as Chair in Louisville, I learned that there was a significant budget deficit. Because the faculty had been completely unaware of it before I arrived, many of them seemed to believe that I had invented the whole thing just so that I could ask them to work harder. Luckily, my mother put this into perspective for me early on. I told her I thought many of the faculty were upset with me because of the budget problem. She responded, “Allen, you can’t Received November 13, 2009; revised February 22, 2010; accepted March 23, 2010. Dr. Tasman is affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Louisville, KY. Address correspondence to Allan Tasman, M.D., Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science, University of Louisville School of Medicine, 401 E. Chestnut St., Ste. 610, Louisville, KY 40292; allan.tasman@louisville.edu (e-mail). Copyright © 2011 Academic Psychiatry

Characteristics of Nursing Home Social Services Directors: How Common is a Degree in Social Work?

To report the percentage of nursing homes whose social services director has a degree in social work, to report the characteristics of social service directors, and to describe the characteristics of nursing homes most likely to employ a degreed social worker. These questions are important because social workers are core members of the interdisciplinary team in nursing homes and have responsibilities for the psychosocial well-being of residents. Cross-sectional nationally representative survey of 1071 social service directors employed in US nursing homes certified to receive Medicare and/or Medicaid. Most nursing homes do employ at least one (and typically only one) social service staff person. Most are employed full-time and half have a degree in social work. About 20% do not have a college degree. The vast majority of social service directors are white and are women. Close to 40% are licensed social workers. Full-time salaries varies enormously from less than $15,000 to over $60,000 per year. Most do not belong to an organization that helps them keep apprised of developments in nursing home social services. Using logistic regression and controlling for the effects of other independent variables, for-profit nursing homes with fewer than 121 beds, in sparsely populated counties in the West are the least likely to hire a degreed social worker as social service director. The wide range in educational preparedness and salary indicates 2 roles: a social work role and a social services role. The different roles have implications for initial role preparation and continuing education. Clear communication about the role expectations associated with social services and social work would benefit residents, family, staff, and physicians, who would then be better prepared to draw on their skills in helping to meet the psychosocial needs of residents.

Case loads and pressures

Dear colleagues, Figures released by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) this week (29 April 2008) show a large increase in school teaching staff —with the provisional statistics showing that the overall school work force has grown by 20 100 in the past year to 767 600—the biggest year-on-year growth since 2005, giving schools the highest number of teachers for a generation. There were 1900 more full-time equivalent (FTE) qualified teachers employed and the case load for each teacher, i.e. the ratio of child:teaching staff, is 21.6 pupils in primary schools and 16.1 in secondary schools. Combine this with an average annual salary of just over £34000 for a qualified teacher (full time salary, including holidays: www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000787/index.shtml ) and it is clear that this is really good news for children, for families and for teachers.

Sabbaticals: The Key to Sharpening our Professional Skills as Educators, Scientists, and Clinicians

Sabbaticals: The Key to Sharpening our Professional Skills as Educators, Scientists, and Clinicians

Crisis and Resistance: A Union Fights Back

system as a whole. Several faculty associations are making career path language a priority in bargaining, and many are making some progress in tying per-course rates to percentages of full-time salaries. We are still a long way from a full pro-rata approach, but we are making progress. Many look to the university college system in British Columbia for leadership-a ten-year battle to regularize their contract faculty resulted in permanent jobs for many long-term contract academic staff. Unfortunately, as faculty unions pursue contract academic staff issues with greater vigor, employers are responding with considerable vehemence. Claiming a need for flexibility, in recent rounds of collective bargaining, employers have attempted to eliminate all previously negotiated language on job advertisements, hiring processes and job security, or have proposed the introduction of new teaching-only positions. This kind of division makes it extremely difficult to make any meaningful progress in negotiations. Employers also do their best to capitalize on divisions between full and part-time faculty, refusing to negotiate improvements for part-timers while offering improvements to full-time terms and conditions. It is important for academic staff associations to resist these kinds of tactics.

A shorter workday as a means of reducing the occurrence of musculoskeletal disorders.

The study examined the relation between daily workhours and the occurrence of neck-shoulder or back pain in physically demanding care work. Unpublished data were obtained from three intervention projects in care institutions. The projects had been conducted independently in Oslo (46 participants, 175 referents before and 158 referents after the intervention), Helsingborg (60 participants, 89 referents) and Stockholm (41 participants, 22 referents) between 1995 and 1998. The intervention was a reduction of daily workhours from > or = 7 to 6 hours (or 30 hours weekly). Full-time salary was retained, and extra personnel were employed to compensate for the reduction in workhours. Data were collected by self-administered questionnaires before and during the intervention periods, lasting from 12 to 22 months. The prevalence of neck-shoulder pain decreased from 40.9% to 25.6% in Oslo and from 57.1% to 39.1% in Helsingborg after 1.5 years with a 6-hour workday; for Stockholm the decrease was from 81.6% to 68.3% after 1 year. No decrease was observed in the reference groups. The prevalence of back pain did not show the same consistent pattern. The shortening of regular workdays from > or = 7 hours to 6 hours may considerably reduce the prevalence of neck-shoulder pain among persons with physically demanding care work. The potential health benefits should encourage intervention studies also in other occupations with increased risk of work-related musculoskeletal disorders.