Future Columns Research Articles

Back to Basics Series: Ghostbusters & Me

Editor's Note: The Master Mediator is taking a break from his in‐depth series on neuroscience and the psychological factors and cognitive biases that may affect dispute resolution. As Bob Creo's earliest columns, describing and discussing mediation room techniques and practice issues, appeared only on the CPR website, he has agreed to reprise and update them for Alternatives, beginning with last month's issue, in a new “Back to Basics” series. Last month's column covered the concept of satisfactory compromise, while this one addresses “ghostbusting” in mediation. Future columns will cover such essentials as terms of reference and constructing settlements.

What Time is it?

Although our increasingly digital world replaces most of our analog tools, the analog clock remains useful. Students determine the passage of elapsed time using images from pocket watch faces that have only hour hands. Each month, this section of the Problem Solvers department features a new challenge for students. Readers are encouraged to submit problems to be considered for future columns.

BACK TO BASICS SERIES: Compromise & Me! Being in Sweden: Lagom – Meeting in The Middle

Editor's Note: The Master Mediator is taking a break from his fascinating, in‐depth series on neuroscience and the psychological factors and cognitive biases that may affect dispute resolution. As Bob Creo's earliest columns, describing and discussing mediation room techniques and practice issues, appeared a number of years ago, and only on the CPR website, Alternatives is delighted that he has agreed to reprise and update them, beginning in this issue, in a new “Back to Basics” series. This column deals with the concept of compromise; future columns in the series will cover “ghostbusting” in mediation, terms of reference, and constructing settlements.

Are Electronic Health Records Good for Health Care?

Are Electronic Health Records Good for Health Care?

Linked Employer-Employee Data on Firms" Training Costs: Enriching Register based LEE Data with Firm Level Data on Apprenticeship Training

This section offers descriptions as well as discussions of data sources that are of interest to social scientists engaged in empirical research or teaching courses that include empirical investigations performed by students. The purpose is to describe the information in the data source, to give examples of questions tackled with the data and to tell how to access the data for research and teaching. We focus on data from German speaking countries that allow international comparative research. While most of the data are at the micro level (individuals, households, or firms), more aggregate data and meta data (for regions, industries, or nations) are included as well. Suggestions for data sources to be described in future columns (or comments on past columns) should be send to: Joachim Wagner, Leuphana University of Lueneburg, Institute of Economics, Campus 4.210, 21332 Lueneburg, Germany, or e-mailed to hwagner@leuphana.dei. Past “European Data Watch” articles can be downloaded free of charge from the homepage of the German Council for Social and Economic Data (RatSWD) at: http://www.ratswd.de.

Will Marriage Equality Make a Difference in the Health of LGBT Americans?

Will Marriage Equality Make a Difference in the Health of LGBT Americans?

Is Early Placement Better in Alzheimer's Disease?

Is Early Placement Better in Alzheimer's Disease?

Is Being the Most Trusted Profession a Good Thing?

Is Being the Most Trusted Profession a Good Thing?

Complications and Difficult Cases: Hair Transplantation on a Patient with a Large Cranioplasty

This is a new column for the Forum, and one that I believe will provide a great learning experience for us all. I want to take a moment to thank the editors, Drs. Robert True and Mario Marzola, for inviting me to contribute by writing this column. I invite everyone to submit difficult and complicated cases to me for future columns. If anonymity is preferred, please indicate this to me and I will make sure your information and the information on the patient are kept confidential and only the clinical data is shared. Since this is the first article of this new column, I decided to start with one of my own difficult and challenging cases.

Should NPs Be Certified Separately as Diabetes Specialists?

Should NPs Be Certified Separately as Diabetes Specialists?

Are NP Week Celebrations Good for NPs?

Are NP Week Celebrations Good for NPs?

Moving beyond the bookshelves

Moving beyond the bookshelves

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Happy New Year—renewal, welcome, and farewell

A new year brings with it a new outlook, a promise of change, and the opportunity to look back on the previous year with some nostalgia. This is certainly true for ABC’s two educational columns “ABCs of Teaching Analytical Science” and “Building a Professional Career.” Regular readers will soon notice a new title: “ABCs of Education and Professional Development in Analytical Science.” This change in title recognizes the merger of the previous teaching column with the career column edited by John Fetzer. It also reflects the necessity to develop in our students the professional skills they will need for success in their careers as we endeavor to help them build their analytical chemistry content knowledge and problem-solving skills. The new focus of this column on education, rather than teaching, also reflects the need for scientists at all stages of our careers to continue our education and professional development. For example, the launch of the new column in 2013 with an article by Prof. Apryll Stalcup on “Surviving toxic work environments” effectively bridges the topics of education and professional development. I am also pleased to announce that along with a new column, Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry welcomes Prof. Thomas Wenzel, Bates College, as a new column editor. Thomas Wenzel is active in research with undergraduate students in the area of chiral NMR shift reagents, and his research accomplishments were recognized with the 2010 American Chemical Society Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution. He is also a leader in analytical chemistry education reform and has championed teaching using problem-based and active learning approaches. His 2011 contribution “Active learning materials for equilibrium chemistry and separation science” published in the ABCs of Teaching Analytical Science column nicely describes his collaborative inquiry-based approach to teaching along with the materials he has developed to support this approach, which are available for free download through the Analytical Sciences Digital Library (www.asdlib.org). His educational activities were recognized through receipt of the 1999 J.C. Giddings Award for Excellence in Education sponsored by the Analytical Division of the American Chemical Society. He joins column coeditors Reiner Salzer and John Fetzer in guiding the selection of topics for future columns and ensuring high-quality informative contributions.

Snapshot of the AAOHN Membership

The American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, Inc. (AAOHN) conducted a web-based membership survey of 2123 members (41% response rate) in May and June 2012. This column presents educational, certification, and selected industry data for registered nurse and advanced practice nurse AAOHN members. Members are highly experienced, with 57% reporting more than 16 years of experience. Sixty-eight percent of AAOHN members are educated at or above the baccalaureate level. An additional 8.4% are currently enrolled in an educational program. Seventy-six percent are nationally certified as occupational health nurses or occupational health nurse specialists (COHN/COHN-S), case managers, safety professionals, ergonomists, or nurse practitioners. The majority (89%) work full-time as employees of their facility (85%), with manufacturing (34%), hospital/health care (26%), and government/military (10%) being the top three industry sectors. Ten percent work for small employers (fewer than 500 employees), whereas 12% work with more than 50,000 employees. Thirteen percent of AAOHN members work globally. Future columns will present additional 2012 AAOHN member survey data.

Building projects: redefining hospital libraries

Just what is a library these days? With the shift from print to electronic resources, librarians the world over have been given the opportunity to reenvision their libraries' appearances, structural needs, and purposes. As Frieda O. Weise, FMLA, stated in her Janet Doe Lecture given at the 103rd annual Medical Library Association meeting, “The physical library can and does convey its mission. Libraries are today, and have been for the last century, certainly more than storehouses; they are service organizations that embody the mission and vision of their institutions” [1]. Is this still true? The Welch Medical Library at the Johns Hopkins University Medical Center was scheduled to close its physical building December 31, 2011. When students and faculty recognized this pending change, the university administration appointed a task force to further review the need for the building to remain as a place of browsing and study [2]. When the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library at the University of Utah closed in December 2009 for nine months for a remodel of its ceiling, the School of Medicine received numerous student concerns and consequently, built a temporary study place. So while our users want desktop delivery of information, they still want “a place” to go to for reflection and to concentrate their focus on learning. The focus of this first column is hospital library projects that are illustrative of the dramatic changes that are taking place as these libraries are transformed from traditional models to dynamic environments, responding to the needs of their users and institutions. Future columns, to be published on an annual basis, will feature new libraries as well as those that have recently undergone additions or remodels of existing space and new space assignments for specific purposes in libraries. The building project columns will each have a type of library or purpose as its theme. Future columns will cover: projects in libraries of a particular type (hospital, academic, consumer health, pharmaceutical companies, associations, special, etc.) projects centered on particular improvements (energy efficiency, sustainability, fire protection, mechanical, electrical, lighting, landscaping, etc.) projects to improve special spaces (history of medicine, galleries, testing centers, classrooms, Clinical and Translational Science Award centers, cafes, compact shelving installations, study areas, new furnishings, staff areas, information commons, technology and multimedia laboratories, offices, meeting spaces, exhibits, student headquarters, etc.) To accompany these annual columns, a new website, Library Construction and Renovation is being created for sharing information about various aspects of renovations and building construction. In addition, a comprehensive survey of building projects will be conducted, updating the one published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) in 2010 [3]. A database of these projects will be created and made available via the new construction website. As Weise challenged us during her Janet Doe Lecture, “I believe it is the responsibility of librarians to guide the design of the library; we must advocate strongly the role for the library beyond the ‘storage facility’ and even the ‘access facility,’ and focus attention on the many other place-centered activities and services that the library can support” [1]. Please consider sharing your building guidance and experiences, lessons learned, plans, and achievements with your colleagues!

The GESIS Microcensus-Trendfile – A New Database for the Study of Social Change

This section offers descriptions as well as discussions of data sources that are of interest to social scientists engaged in empirical research or teaching courses that include empirical investigations performed by students. The purpose is to describe the information in the data source, to give examples of questions tackled with the data and to tell how to access the data for research and teaching. We focus on data from German speaking countries that allow international comparative research. While most of the data are at the micro level (individuals, households, or firms), more aggregate data and meta data (for regions, industries, or nations) are included as well. Suggestions for data sources to be described in future columns (or comments on past columns) should be send to: Joachim Wagner, Leuphana University of Lueneburg, Institute of Economics, Campus 4.210, 21332 Lueneburg, Germany, or e-mailed to hwagner@leuphana.dei. Past “European Data Watch” articles can be downloaded free of charge from the homepage of the German Council for Social and Economic Data (RatSWD) at: http: //www.ratswd.de.

Residents’ Voice Getting Stronger

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Residents’ ForumFull AccessResidents’ Voice Getting StrongerAlik Widge, M.D.Alik WidgeSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:1 Jun 2012https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.47.11.psychnews_47_11_17-a For my first column as your member-in-training (MIT) trustee, I’m writing to introduce myself and describe some goals for the coming year.I’m in my final year of residency at the University of Washington, and next year I will continue on to a research fellowship in psychiatric brain stimulation. I have long been working to increase the voice of psychiatry residents within APA and organized medicine in general and to help make medical societies a force for high-quality, evidence-based care. I hope to keep doing these activities this year as your MIT trustee.In my campaign for the MIT position last year, I promised to focus on developing more opportunities for involvement of residents in APA and better communication to you from your leaders.APA is full of opportunities for MITs, but this often leads to our being isolated in different “silos,” in which resident-advocates can’t communicate easily with their peers in an effort to work together on common issues. Over the past year, my predecessor as MIT trustee, Sarah Johnson, laid the foundation for the establishment of the Caucus of Members-in-Training (CoMIT), a group that will bring together leaders from the APA Assembly, the APA fellowship programs, and the Board of Trustees to address common issues. CoMIT has had quarterly conference calls this past year, and our first serious in-person meeting was held at the APA annual meeting last month in Philadelphia. With some generous donations from the Jefferson residency program, we were even able to provide dinner for attendees, which I hope we can continue next year in San Francisco.One of my top priorities this year is to develop CoMIT into an active and coordinated force for MITs within APA, so that all your leaders are working in unison to help this organization better serve you. Even more importantly, the caucus will be a place for any trainee who is interested in leadership in the Association (or even just understanding how APA governance works) but hasn’t secured any formal office to make a contribution to the organization. By identifying and mentoring those of you who want to be more involved in APA, I hope to help prepare a top-notch crop of leaders for the years ahead.The other thing you can expect from me this year, as promised, is communication. Both your MIT trustee-elect, Erik Vanderlip, and I believe that APA needs to start communicating through many different channels to effectively reach tomorrow’s psychiatrists. There is this column, for example, and if APA has your e-mail address, you’ve probably received a message from me. This year, we hope to go beyond that. There’s an APA MIT group on LinkedIn where I’ll be posting updates, and we may shortly be on Facebook, where there’s already a general APA page. My personal Twitter feed is @AlikWidge, where I post updates on APA business, but also on my research and work with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. In addition, Psychiatric News Update , the electronic newsletter e-mailed to members each Wednesday, contains valuable information for MITs about APA programs and opportunities.Finally, we as psychiatrists know that no amount of electrons can match the value of face-to-face conversation. As I travel this year for conferences and interviews, I hope to hold “roundtable” meetings to gather your feedback about how we can better serve you. At the July Board meeting, I’ll be asking for funding for those meetings and will report back to you in late summer.In future columns, I will have some updates on new developments in residency accreditation and board certification and thoughts on major strategic decisions facing APA. In the meantime, if you’re interested in joining the caucus list or otherwise have a question for me, please drop me a line at [email protected] Input from members is essential to help me do my job! Alik Widge, M.D., is a PGY-4 resident at the University of Washington. ISSUES NewArchived

Making Sense of Methods and Measurement: The Need for Rigor in Simulation Research

Few in health care education doubt the effectiveness of clinicalsimulationasapowerfulteachingelearningtechnique. As an instructional strategy, clinical simulation has been purported to teach a variety of content, including psychomotor skills, teamwork, leadership, and clinical reasoning, and to increase student confidence in clinical situations. The amount of research about clinical simulation has increased dramatically in the past 10 years. Much of this research has focused on the measurement of self-report data with locally developed instruments that have not been systematically evaluated or psychometrically tested. This reliance on untested instruments measuring indirect data provides little support for educators trying to make informed decisions about integrating simulation into a curriculum, and it prevents researchers from building a credible body of knowledge about simulation. We know from previous research that students and nursing staff enjoy clinical simulation and that each group reports significant learning from participation in simulation experiences. Also from previous research, we know that faculty members and administrators like clinical simulation and believe that students and staff learn from these experiences. We recognize that building a simulation lab and adequately preparing it with equipment and staff is expensive. It is now our collective responsibility to conduct rigorous research that produces valid and reliable data about the effectiveness of clinical simulation. This research should directly measure learning, help describe what characteristics of simulation experiences contribute most to learning, and identify what groups of learners benefit most from specific simulation strategies. The purpose of this ongoing column in Clinical Simulation in Nursing is to review a variety of topics directly related to research methodology and both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. In future columns, we will be exploring reliability and validity, statistical and practical significance, psychometric testing, levels of measurement, and a number of common qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques.

From Methods to Policy: The intended and unintended consequences of comparative effectiveness research

As funding and interest in comparative effectiveness research (CER) in the USA and around the world continues to grow, this first From Methods to Policy column will kick off an ongoing dialog about several intended and unintended consequences stemming from that growth. This column will briefly introduce these consequences, and expanded views will occur in future issues of the journal. By starting this dialog, we hope to inform everyone who will have a role in shaping what CER becomes and how it ultimately impacts healthcare. The aim of CER is to create evidence for providers, patients, payers and other healthcare decision-makers. To reach its full potential, this evidence should identify what works best for which patients and under what circumstances. Where feasible, the evidence should derive from real-world environments, utilize comparators that represent best care alternatives and address outcomes relevant to key stakeholders. Looking forward, both intended and unintended consequences will arise related to the creation and expansion of CER agencies, a sheer increase in the volume of available CER and the variety in approaches to implementation, among other issues. Although the examples in this current article reflect activities in the USA, future columns will explore similar themes from other countries.