Independent Chair Research Articles

The UK fire services dispute 2002‐2003

Brings together a sequence of negotiating events in the 2002‐2003 fire services dispute from the point of view of a participant. The author was appointed to the position of Independent Chair of the National Council for Local Authorities’ Fire Brigades in February 2001. Attempts to apply some theoretical analysis to the perceptions and observations expressed in the article.

Can CAM Come in from the Cold? An Update on the Ongoing Regulatory Process with Regard to Herbal and Acupuncture Practitioners in the United Kingdom

809 In September 2003, a report was published making recommendations for the statutory regulation of herbal practitioners in the United Kingdom (Herbal Medicine Regulatory Working Group, 2003). The 150-page report is the result of an in depth review by the Herbal Medicine Regulatory Working Group (HMRWG), set up in January 2002 by three stakeholders, the Department of Health, The Prince of Wales Foundation for Integrated Health, and the European Herbal Practitioners Association. The HMRWG comprises an independent chair and lay membership as well as delegates of the main professional bodies representing herbal medicine in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. The move toward statutory regulation of herbal practitioners originates from the House of Lords’ Select Committee on Science and Technology’s report Complementary and Alternative Medicine (House of Lords, 2002) and the U.K. Government’s response to it (Department of Health, 2001). The House of Lords’ report recognized that the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is widespread and is increasing within the United Kingdom and across the world but that its lack of regulation has implications for patient safety. The Committee identified a considerable diversity of standards among U.K. CAM practitioners noting that the public could be at risk from practitioners with inadequate training. In particular, in the interests of patient safety and choice, it highlighted the need for professional herbalists and acupuncturists to be regulated as soon as possible. It also called for new regulations to be introduced ensuring the quality and safety of herbal medicines. After publication of the Select Committee’s report, the U.K. Government charged the HMRWG with the task of coming up with practical proposals to regulate herbal practitioners and the medicines they use. The Government also launched a second similar committee, the Acupuncture Regulatory Working Group, to report on the regulation of the acupuncture sector. Its report that has just been published (Acupuncture Working Group, 2003) makes proposals for the statutory regulation of acupuncturists working in the United Kingdom. The House of Lord’s Select Committee identified a key prerequisite permitting constructive regulation of emerging professions within the CAM sector. This is the development of a relatively unified profession able to engage in the process of statutory self-regulation. In the case of herbal medicine, the HMRWG was able to build on work carried out over a decade by the European Herbal Practitioners Association (EHPA) that had forged agreement among

Child Sexual Abuse and the Male Monopoly: An Empirical Exploration of Gender and a Sexual Interest in Children

The author is a principal officer within Kirklees social services, acting as an independent chair for child protection conferences and looked after children reviews. He has been a qualified social worker for thirteen years, working mainly in child care. In 1999 he completed a doctoral thesis on gender differences in a sexual interest in children. He has previously had published 'Women who sexually abuse children (1995) in the University of East Anglia social work monograph series.

Preliminary Report of the American Bar Association Task Force on Corporate Responsibility

The July 16, 2002 preliminary report of the American Bar Association Task Force on Corporate Responsibility recommends a variety of reforms in corporate governance through changes in listing standards, rules of professional conduct for lawyers and other practices. Recommendations in the report relating to corporate governance are: - A substantial majority of the members of a board of directors should be independent. - Corporate governance committees should consist entirely of independent directors, and be responsible for identifying and contacting potential independent directors. They also should recommend a corporate code of ethics and conduct, including a means for corporate employees and agents to advise independent directors of information about material violations of law and breaches of duty to the corporation. - Corporate audit committees should consist entirely of independent directors. They should be authorized to recommend or take action to hire or remove outside auditors, engage independent accounting or legal advisers, and establish policies governing matters that could affect the independence of outside auditors. - Corporate compensation committees should consist entirely of independent directors, and should recommend or take action on compensation for senior executive officers or engaging independent executive compensation and legal advisers as necessary or appropriate. - All material transactions between the corporation and a director or executive officer should be reviewed and approved by a committee of independent directors, taking into account fairness, the rationale for the transaction, and appropriate public disclosure. - The board of directors should adopt procedures for routine executive session meetings between corporate officers responsible for implementing internal controls and the corporate governance committee or the audit committee, or both. The report also recommends that public companies consider designating a lead independent director or an independent board chair, establishing policies to set board meeting agendas, considering policies to set term limits or rotate service on board committees, maintaining director training programs, and adopting procedures to evaluate the effectiveness of meetings, information flow, diversity of experience among directors and contributions of individual directors. The report proposes that a number of changes in the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct be considered by the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility. The changes the task force proposes to the ABA Model Rules would: - Require lawyers who know or reasonably should know of misconduct by corporate officers, employees or agents to disclose the misconduct to higher corporate authorities, in some cases directly to the board of directors. - Broaden permission for lawyers to disclose information about corporate conduct that has resulted in or is reasonably certain to result in substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another. The report acknowledges that the ABA House of Delegates rejected a similar proposal in February, before many of the corporate failures occurred and before the task force was created. - Require disclosure of confidential information to prevent client conduct known to the lawyer to involve a crime, including violations of federal securities laws, which is reasonably certain to result in substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another. The report also urges creation of direct lines of communication for outside counsel to inform the general counsel of any potential violations of law or breaches of fiduciary duties to the corporation. The ABA Task Force has invited written comments, and the report will be considered at one or more public hearings, and expects to present final recommendations to the ABA House of Delegates this year.

Obstetrics and gynecology--retrospect of 125 years in Basel

The development of the discipline Obstetrics and Gynecology is reflected by the medical history at the University of Basel. At the very beginning of academic obstetrics, the cantonal government realised the need of a more practical teaching completing the tradition of theoretical lecturing (1865). Obstetrics was (and still is) a typical example for the turn from theoretical to hands-on-teaching in medicine. At the time, when the independent chair of obstetrics at the University of Basel was founded (1867, Bischoff [1841-1892]), the fight against puerperal fever was the most urgent aim. The battle against puerperal fever was ultimately won around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century (von Herff [1856-1916]) but not much earlier. Step by step the gynecology grew out of the classical surgery where it has been located previously. Surgically skilled obstetricians like Fehling [1847-1925] and Bumm [1868-1925] have enhanced that development. Clinical research started with better information about the lying-in patients (Fehling, Bumm, Labhardt). Bacteriology in close connection with obstetrics was seen important (Bumm). Some decades later, clinical laboratories (clinical chemistry) were founded accompanying the diagnostic approach to various disorders of pregnancy (Labhardt [1874-1949]). Exfoliative cytology became mandatory since 1950 and this was the start to screening programs for early diagnosis of cervical cancer (Koller [1899-1985]). The family planning exploded in the years from 1965 on as the pill has been available, replacing sterilisation-procedures (Labhardt). Endocrinology of pregnancy and cycle needed new biochemical methods. The laboratories were installed. Responding to the demands of a growing discipline, the building was enlarged and adapted in three major steps: 1896 new "Frauenspital", 1928 first enlargement, 1956-1968 constructing of two more storeys, of new surgical theatres and an entire tract for routine and scientific laboratories filling now the area between Klingelberg-, Schanzen- and Spitalstrasse. The hospital harboured in its peak time (1968-1970) more than 300 beds. In 1959 the hospital staff took care of 5000 deliveries (Koller). Fetal monitoring was introduced 1962, being the starting point for the development of "fetal medicine" in Basel. At that time, Otto Käser [1899-1995] was chairman. He was appreciated as one of the most brilliant pelvic surgeons in Europe. Soon, the surgery for breast cancer was added to the classical gynecologic surgery. At the same time, ultrasound started to dramatically influence diagnostic procedures in pregnancy. In the eighties, in-vitro-fertilization and embryo-transfer improved the possibilities to overcome unwanted childlessness (Ludwig [*1929]) and supplemented endocrinology. The scientific spectre spread heavily to reproductive medicine since then, in particular to the molecular biology and research on stem-cells, which was introduced by the present chairman (Holzgreve [*1955]). He has founded several research groups concentrating on the retrieval of floating fetal cells from cord and maternal blood, on other topics in fetal cell research, prenatal diagnosis and in ultrasound.

Are you comfortable enough to reach out?

Linda Wilson, PhD, RN, BC, CPAN, CAPA, is the President of ASPAN from 2002-2003. She was Vice President/President Elect from 2001-2002; ASPAN Director for Education from 1999-2001; Health Care Products Committee Chair 1999-2000; ASPAN's 17th National Conference Co-Chair, Philadelphia, 1998; ASPAN Nominating Committee 1994-1997; and Education Independent Studies Committee Chair 1993-1997. Linda was the recipient of the ASPAN Outstanding Achievement Award in 1998 and the ASPAN Recruiter of the Year Award in 1993 and 1994.

Centenary of the death of the great hygienist and physician Max von Pettenkofer on February 9, 1901

Centenary of the death of the great hygienist and physician Max von Pettenkofer on February 9, 1901

5670345 Biological production of humic acid and clean fuels from coal: Srivastava Kailash Chandra; Walia Daman S Centreville, VA, United States assigned to Arctech Inc

5670345 Biological production of humic acid and clean fuels from coal: Srivastava Kailash Chandra; Walia Daman S Centreville, VA, United States assigned to Arctech Inc

Managing Sex Offenders: The Challenge for Managers

Tony Morrison, an independent social work trainer and Chair of NOTA, the National Association for the Development of Work with Sex Offenders, looks at the structural and philosophical issues which need to be tackled if effective community-based programmes for the management of sex offenders are to be established and sustained. Without the creation of a proper agency infrastructure, such services are likely to remain piecemeal and of limited effect.

Educational psychology research in Greece

Although psychological research in Greece has a history of more than half a century, studies based on research methodology as we mean it today are, with rare exceptions, the product of only about two decades. Some of the main reasons include the following: (1) There was not an independent department, or even an independent chair, of psychology at either of the two major universities of our country, namely, the universities of Athens and Thessaloniki. The climate being more favorable for psychology at the University of Thessaloniki, the establishment of a chair of psychology became possible there, finally, in 1964. It was 12 years after that date that the first chair of psychology was established at the University of Athens with a professor elected to it 1 year later. (In 1970 three chairs of psychology were established (although only one completed) at the University of Yannena, a university founded in 1964, while in the most recently established faculty of philosophy at the University of Crete and in that of the University of Patras, the teaching of courses in psychology is assigned to psychologists holding a PhD without any of them being named professor as yet.) (2) There were meager or completely lacking funds for psychological research in our universities. (3) There was a lack of sufficient numbers of persons trained in research methodology in the social sciences. Considering the situation sketched so far, it is superfluous, I believe, to add anything on the subject, concerning educational psychology as a separate branch, more so because the percentage of educational psychologists in Greece is comparatively very small, the great majority being in the clinical field.

Psychiatric clinic of the Free University of Berlin; Department of Clinical Psychiatry and Polyclinic.

The Department of Psychiatry in its present form has developed since 1968, when the psychiatric branch of the Psychiatrische und Neurologische Klinik (Psychiatric and Neurological Clinic), the traditional type of a West German university hospital comprising psychiatry and neurology in one chair, became autonomous with the establishment of an independent chair of psychiatry. This was an early step in the separation of psychiatry and neurology, a situation which is now to be seen in all German universities. Moreover, during the last decade almost all psychiatric university departments have been more or less sub-divided into sub-specialities. This process has been carried to its furthest extreme in West Berlin which now has departments of clinical psychiatry, geronto-psychiatry, social psychiatry, psychosomatics, child and adolescent psychiatry, neuropsychopharmacology, psychophysiology, student mental health, and forensic psychiatry. The lines of demarcation have been drawn according to somewhat divergent (historical, personal, conceptual) criteria, so that the individual departments differ in size, research interests and research facilities. More than 10 professors, 15 senior doctors and about 50 assistants (physicians, psychologists, sociologists, mathematicians, chemists and engineers) make up a critical mass, but centrifugal forces are often dominant and restrain the optimal use of all facilities for real interdisciplinary collaboration in the sense of what has been described as the ‘agricultural’ approach to research (Shepherd, 1981).

Commentary: Darier-White disease

In 1871, Harvard became the first American university to establish an independent chair of dermatology and James C. White, MD, was the first to occupy it. At that time, dermatology was becoming recognized as a specialty in this country and American dermatology had declared its independence from the European schools. In 1889, White¹described a case of keratosis (ichthyosis) follicularis, while, independently, Professor Ferdinand Jean Darier, MD, published a similar case in Paris, which he called "psorospermose folliculaire végétante."²From then on, keratosis follicularis, psorospermose folliculaire végétante, Darier-White disease, or Darier's disease became an accepted entity. The point-by-point, meticulous clinical description of the disorder by White was accurate; however, in this first account, he failed to describe dyskeratotic cells, the histopathologic hallmark of this disorder. He erroneously postulated that the hair follicle was the primary site of involvement. Darier first described the dyskeratotic regions in the epidermis, but

Commentary: Darier-White Disease

In 1871, Harvard became the first American university to establish an independent chair of dermatology and James C. White, MD, was the first to occupy it. At that time, dermatology was becoming recognized as a specialty in this country and American dermatology had declared its independence from the European schools. In 1889, White 1 described a case of keratosis (ichthyosis) follicularis, while, independently, Professor Ferdinand Jean Darier, MD, published a similar case in Paris, which he called folliculaire vegetante. 2 From then on, keratosis follicularis, psorospermose folliculaire vegetante, Darier-White disease, or Darier's disease became an accepted entity. The point-by-point, meticulous clinical description of the disorder by White was accurate; however, in this first account, he failed to describe dyskeratotic cells, the histopathologic hallmark of this disorder. He erroneously postulated that the hair follicle was the primary site of involvement. Darier first described the dyskeratotic regions in the epidermis, but

ADDRESS ON OBSTETRICS.

In taking up the evidences of recent progress in obstetrics, I wish first to call your attention to the growing appreciation in all civilized communities of the services of the skillful accoucheur. Then we remember that when Dr. Wm. Shippen, Jr., began his lectures in Philadelphia, in 1765, a little over a century ago, the practice of midwifery was entirely in the hands of nurses, mostly of the Sairy Gamp style so graphically described by Charles Dickens, and the physician was only called in after some grave emergency had arisen and the life of the patient imperiled. When we recall the fact that it was not until 1808 that the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania created an independent Chair of Obstetrics in the faculty, and made the attendance upon the lectures obligatory upon the students, we begin to realize the great strides that have been made in this, the

University and Educational Intelligence

MANCHESTER.—We learn that the Council of the Owens College proposes shortly to establish an independent Chair of Applied Mathematics.