Growth Of Doctorates Research Articles

SIMUNEO: Control and Monitoring System for Lung Ultrasound Examination and Treatment of Neonatal Pneumothorax and Thoracic Effusion

Training with real patients is a critical aspect of the learning and growth of doctors in training. However, this essential step in the educational process for clinicians can potentially compromise patient safety, as they may not be adequately prepared to handle real-life situations independently. Clinical simulators help to solve this problem by providing real-world scenarios in which the physicians can train and gain confidence by safely and repeatedly practicing different techniques. In addition, obtaining objective feedback allows subsequent debriefing by analysing the situation experienced and learning from other people’s mistakes. This article presents SIMUNEO, a neonatal simulator in which professionals are able to learn by practicing the management of lung ultrasound and the resolution of pneumothorax and thoracic effusions. The article also discusses in detail the hardware and software, the main components that compose the system, and the communication and implementation of these. The system was validated through both usability questionnaires filled out by neonatology residents as well as through follow-up sessions, improvement, and control of the system with specialists of the department. Results suggest that the environment is easy to use and could be used in clinical practice to improve the learning and training of students as well as the safety of patients.

A Diversity Of Doctorates: Fitness for the knowledge economy?

There is now an increasing diversity of doctoral education in the Australian higher education landscape. As well as the traditional PhD by thesis, there are professional doctorates, doctorates by publication and PhDs by project. The latter are a particularly significant development since for the most part they are entirely work-based with minimal formal disciplinary input. This paper seeks to relate this diversity of doctoral degrees to the growth of the knowledge economy and the imperatives it is said to impose on universities and the education of doctoral students. Changes in knowledge production and what constitutes legitimate knowledge are related to doctoral education. Can research training any longer remain an education in disciplinary knowledge and skills? Does it also need to include the skill development required by the knowledge economy? In this context, the growth of doctorates by project becomes particularly significant since these programs, it is argued, are most appropriate for fitting doctoral studies to the needs of the knowledge economy. However, their growth also poses serious problems of accreditation and assessment, in the process raising fundamental issues concerning the academic mission and purpose of universities.

MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

The fees of private physicians, ... are rising because of the failure of both doctors and insurance companies to control them; more and more doctors face conflicts of interest between their duty to their patients and their quest for high incomes based on expanding technologies and unneccessary medical procedures; and the nation is producing far too many specialists whose narrow focus raises the costs of health care even more astronomically ... the future independence—[of American physicians] and the welfare of their patients— are profoundly threatened by the growth of doctors as businessmen whose profit-making ownership of health care facilities is creating an enromously expensive "medical-industrial complex."