Meetings Of Organizations Research Articles

Oral Health Knowledge, Practices, and Awareness of Oral Health Guidelines and Dental Coverage Policies among Midwives.

Good oral health during the prenatal period translates into better oral and overall health for women and their infants. Although the importance of oral health during pregnancy is well established, oral health assessments are not routinely included in prenatal care visits. The purpose of this study was to explore prenatal care providers' practices regarding oral health assessments and identify reasons for the gap in oral health integration in prenatal care. Data were gathered from midwives in Virginia, United States. Information on midwives' knowledge about oral health, education, practices, and awareness of oral health guidelines and the pregnancy-related Medicaid dental benefit policy in Virginia was collected. An online survey was distributed to midwives practicing in Virginia through their state-level professional organization. The data were collected online, and descriptive data analyses were conducted. A total of 30 midwives (mean age 51.9 years) participated in the survey for an overall response rate of 13.6%. Among survey participants, knowledge of oral health was high (score of 4.69 out of 5). Nearly 20% of participants reported receiving no education about oral health during professional training, and 72.4% reported no receipt of continuing education about oral health in the past year. Although 86% of the participants reported discussing oral health in clinical practice, only 10.3% reported conducting oral health assessments. Awareness of Virginia's Medicaid dental benefit policy was high (75.9%), but less than half of the participants were aware of oral health guidelines (44.1%). Although many midwives did not conduct oral health assessments, 79.3% reported that they provided oral health referrals to pregnant patients. Enhancing and integrating education about oral health in the academic curriculum for midwives and providing them with opportunities for continuing education about oral health can improve their engagement with oral health. Sharing of evidence-based guidelines through organizational newsletters, meetings, and other venues can be ways to increase awareness of new guidelines and health coverage benefits among midwives.

Gender representation among leadership at national and regional cardiothoracic surgery organizational annual meetings

BackgroundIncreased attention has been dedicated to gender inequity at scientific meetings. This study evaluated the gender distribution of session leaders at cardiothoracic surgery national and regional meetings. MethodsThis is a descriptive study of the gender of peer-selected session leaders at 4 cardiothoracic surgery organizations' annual meetings from 2015 to 2019. Session leaders included moderators, panelists, and invited discussants. Data from publicly available programs were used to generate a list of session leaders and organization leaders. The primary outcome measure was the proportion of female session leaders at annual meetings. Descriptive analyses were performed, including the Cochran–Armitage trend test for linear trends of proportions. ResultsA total of 679 sessions over 20 meetings were examined. Of the 3662 session leaders, 480 (13.1%) were women. The proportion of total female session leaders trended positively over time from 9.6% (56 of 581) in 2015 to 15.9% (169 of 1060) in 2019 (P = .001). Among specialty topic sessions, female session leaders were distributed as follows: adult cardiac, 6.9% (81 of 1172); congenital cardiac, 10.8% (47 of 437); and thoracic, 23.2% (155 of 668). The proportion of female session leaders trended significantly only for thoracic sessions (20.6% [21 of 102] in 2015 to 29.2% [58 of 199] in 2019; P = .02). More than one-half of the sessions (57.4%; 390 of 679) featured all-male session leadership. ConclusionsWomen remain underrepresented in leadership roles at cardiothoracic surgery organizational meetings. This may deter female applicants and has implications for female surgeons' career trajectories; therefore, attention must be given to the potential for unconscious bias in leadership in cardiothoracic surgery.

Passing the Mic: Toward Culturally Responsive Out of School Time Leadership

The aim of this study was to explore the application of culturally responsive school leadership (CRSL) in an out of school time organization (OST). This was accomplished by analyzing how the actions of leaders both enabled and constrained CRSL. Research was conducted with Inspire Mentoring an OST organization that provides mentoring services to approximately 90-120 high school students of color from freshman through senior year. Approximately 60% of the mentors identify as people of color. The data collected for this qualitative case study occurred over 6 months and included: 6 semi-structured interviews with executive leaders and adult mentors, 5 observations of organizational meetings and community workshops, and reviewed documents from Inspire Mentoring. The leadership practices observed were analyzed using the behaviors of CRSL. This study suggest that positional OST leaders should become more connected to their community understanding longstanding inequities, interrogate their own worldviews, and work in tandem with minoritized youth and community members to address cultural youth development needs.

Commentary on: Expanding Indications for Dorsal Preservation Rhinoplasty With Cartilage Conversion Techniques.

After the “Revolution Rhinoplasty” 1 editorial published together with the “Push Down Reassessed” article,2 clarifying the respective indications of rhinoplasty procedures dedicated to aesthetic profile lines, surgical achievement took an important step. The former article was analyzing the main author’s experience in dorsum preservation procedures, reminding the rhinoplasty surgeons that, besides structure rhinoplasty and dorsum resection following Joseph, there were other options in lowering and fine-tuning the dorsum lines, known as preservation rhinoplasty (PR). Many articles are currently published on this topic, and it is also discussed at many organization meetings and webinars. A few surgeons are publishing their experience, thus enriching the literature.3-9 However, the enthusiasm that has been ignited by this publication may have sometimes led to overdoing procedures associated with inherent risk related to inexperienced surgeons performing a new rhinoplasty technique. The combination of these events would inevitably lead to an excess of indications and...

Empowering NGOs? Long-term effects of ecological and institutional change on regional fisheries management organizations

The participation of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in regional fisheries management organizations has inspired optimism among many observers and researchers about increasing the effectiveness of these regional organizations in managing highly migratory and straddling fish stocks sustainably. Others claim that the attendance of ENGOs in meetings of regional fisheries management organizations as accredited observers or as part of member state or cooperating non-member state delegations, could make decision-making complex, long, and inefficient. More generally, NGO participation has attracted broad scholarly interest in the study of interest groups and transnational advocacy in political science. Yet, we know little about the determinants of ENGO participation in meetings of regional fisheries management organizations in the first place. To fill this gap, this article develops a theoretical framework conceptualizing ENGO participation and developing expectations about how ecological and institutional change shapes ENGO participation. The framework deals with structural determinants of ENGO participation, as existing literature primarily has been preoccupied with the study of actor-specific explanations of specific NGOs’ impact in specific political processes. By contrast, we examine how ecological change – such as target fish stock health and biomass status – and institutional change – such as financial resources, membership composition of regional fisheries management organizations and participation by other non-state actors, such as experts and fishing industry representatives – shape ENGO participation. We empirically explore this framework in the context of seven regional fisheries management organizations. A dataset comprising yearly fish stock-level data on participation, institutional, and ecological factors, for 1980–2014, was compiled for our quantitative inquiry into the determinants of ENGO participation. We find robust evidence that institutional change shapes ENGO participation, but not ecological factors related to target fish stock health. We discuss our findings against the backdrop of ongoing debates about NGOs in political science, and spell out broader implications for future research on NGOs in regional fisheries management organizations.

NIH DR2 Empowering Data Collection for the COVID-19 Research Response

The National Institute of Health’s (NIH) Disaster Research Response (DR2) Program (https://dr2.nlm.nih.gov/) leads the nation in fostering improvements in processes, frameworks, and infrastructure for executing timely and complex research responses to disasters and emerging threats. The growing field of disaster research aims to advance transdisciplinary health research, and place environmental health into disaster response planning and to better understand the health impacts of disasters. One of the important ways to promote ethical post disaster research is through sharing best practices and existing research tools and protocols. DR2 hosts a website to collate and host a collection of tools to minimize the proliferation of one-off survey items, encourage comparisons across samples, and facilitate data integration and collaboration. This repository was initially created to focus on common disasters with an environmental impact, such as floods or hurricanes. Disaster focused tools include those for environmental sampling, biospecimen collection and for understanding the impacts of a disaster on a community. But environment and health are impacted by more than floods and accidents, and with the emergence of the SARS COV2 virus, a flurry of new data collection tools are being created by the hour. In an effort to minimize one off tool creation and to help provide researchers easy access to other questions of interest, early on in the COVID-19 response, DR2 organized meetings and correspondence across NIH Institutes and Centers to coordinate a process for tool collection and dissemination. DR2 now hosts COVID-19 related research protocols for new and existing cohorts and research studies. Multiple NIH Institutes and Centers and funding programs are encouraging not only data sharing, but sharing of tools and recommending researchers share via DR2. This unique platform, a voluntary, self submitted data collection platform is an important part of advancing DR2’s mission to better share and standardize disaster research. Keywords: COVID, Research, tools, data sharing

NIH Disaster Research Response (DR2) Program’s Efforts to Establish Standardized Tools for COVID-19 Research Response

A critical need has been identified during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide research tools for investigators across the world. For example, investigators are developing and fielding new survey items assessing various COVID-19 specific domains such as symptoms, knowledge and attitudes, adherence to various mitigation behaviors, as well as socioeconomic impacts. The National Institute of Health’s (NIH) Disaster Research Response (DR2) Program (https://dr2.nlm.nih.gov/) leads the nation in fostering improvements in processes, frameworks, and infrastructure for executing timely and complex research responses to disasters and emerging threats, including pandemics. The NIH is utilizing the DR2 network of scientists and website to collate and host a collection of tools to minimize the proliferation of one-off survey items, encourage comparisons across samples, and facilitate data integration and collaboration. These tools assist researchers in rapidly developing COVID-19 related research protocols for new or existing cohorts. Early in the COVID-19 response, DR2 organized meetings and correspondence across NIH Institutes and Centers to coordinate a process for tool collection and dissemination. Utilizing nimble and responsive teams, they rapidly redesigned the website to highlight COVID-19 related resources and provide a method for researchers to submit tools for inclusion in the database, establish a common set of domains for refined searchability, and offer links to specific items for quick access. In parallel to standing up a library of COVID-19 specific tools, NIH DR2 is leading a long-term effort to prepare common data elements, automated rapid study development systems, electronic data capture platforms, and technical support teams to support quick implementation of research for future disasters. This presentation will describe how DR2 organized its response to COVID-19, provide a demonstration of the tool repository, discuss lessons learned, and lay out long-range plans.

Empowering NGOs? Long-Term Effects of Ecological and Institutional Change on Regional Fisheries Management Organizations

The participation of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in regional fisheries management organizations has inspired optimism among many observers and researchers about increasing the effectiveness of these regional organizations in managing highly migratory and straddling fish stocks sustainably. Others claim that the attendance of ENGOs in meetings of regional fisheries management organizations as accredited observers or as part of member state or cooperating non-member state delegations, could make decision- making complex, long, and inefficient. More generally, NGO participation has attracted broad scholarly interest in the study of interest groups and transnational advocacy in political science. Yet, we know little about the determinants of ENGO participation in meetings of regional fisheries management organizations in the first place. To fill this gap, this article develops a theoretical framework conceptualizing ENGO participation and developing expectations about how ecological and institutional change shapes ENGO participation. The framework deals with structural determinants of ENGO participation, as existing literature primarily has been preoccupied with the study of actor-specific explanations of specific NGOs’ impact in specific political processes. By contrast, we examine how ecological change – such as target fish stock health and biomass status – and institutional change – such as financial resources, membership composition of regional fisheries management organizations and participation by other non-state actors, such as experts and fishing industry representatives – shape ENGO participation. We empirically explore this framework in the context of seven regional fisheries management organizations. A dataset comprising yearly fish stock-level data on participation, institutional, and ecological factors, for 1980-2014, was compiled for our quantitative inquiry into the determinants of ENGO participation. We find robust evidence that institutional change shapes ENGO participation, but not ecological factors related to target fish stock health. We discuss our findings against the backdrop of ongoing debates about NGOs in political science, and spell out broader implications for future research on NGOs in regional fisheries management organizations.

Developing a Public Health Model for Regional Infection Prevention Collaboration Among Healthcare Facility Networks

Background: Antimicrobial resistance (AR), including Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI), can spread across the healthcare continuum when patients move between facilities. In 2015, the CDC recommended that healthcare facilities (HCFs) and local public health departments (LPH) coordinate their efforts to prevent the spread of AR and CDI. Accordingly, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) Program developed a model for implementing regionally based AR/CDI prevention collaboratives within HCF networks. Methods: The CDPH HAI Program began identifying regions in California with high AR/CDI incidence or risk for AR/CDI emergence using NHSN data. During 2015–2019, we organized AR/CDI prevention collaboratives in these regions. We recruited HCFs for participation by presenting at local professional organization meetings and engaging skilled nursing facility corporate leadership. HAI Program infection preventionists conducted onsite infection prevention assessments at each participating HCF. HAI Program and LPH staff convened quarterly in-person learning and discussion sessions focused on infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship best practices. Participating HCFs committed to facility-tailored process improvement plans and conducted self-assessments to evaluate infection prevention practice changes at the conclusion of the collaborative. For CDI-focused collaboratives, we used data reported to CDPH via NHSN to assess changes in hospital- and community-onset CDI incidence among participating hospitals before and after the collaboratives. Results: Since 2015, 205 HCFs in 15 LPH jurisdictions have participated in 6 regional AR/CDI prevention collaboratives. Participating HCFs reported improved implementation of AR/CDI prevention strategies. For CDI-focused collaboratives, hospital-onset CDI incidence decreased by ~3% per month among participating hospitals. The collaboratives created forums for communication and relationship building, which previously did not exist among LPH and the HCF networks. We used our experience and feedback from partners to develop an HAI Program AR Prevention Collaborative Tool Kit to help LPHs and healthcare organizations develop and implement regional AR/CDI prevention collaboratives in other at-risk or high AR/CDI prevalence areas in California. The tool kit includes materials developed for each of our collaboratives, which may be adapted to meet local needs. Conclusions: Regionally coordinated AR/CDI prevention initiatives among LPHs and HCFs can contribute to increased AR awareness, improved AR prevention practices, and decreased AR/CDI incidence. The effectiveness of regional AR/CDI prevention collaboratives may be the result of concurrent efforts to improve AR prevention practices both within individual HCFs and across patient sharing networks.Funding: NoneDisclosures: None

Siyasal İndikatörlerin Ermenistan-İran İlişkileri Örneğinde Uygulanması

Since the development of relationships between the subjects of the international system (between states, between states and international organizations, between international organizations, etc.) is necessary and certain evaluation criteria (indicator indicators) should be determined. Researchers, who examine the between various states, often describe the as developing relations if there are no acute(sharp) crises in the chronological framework. However, in cases of serious crisis does not occur, such relationships can develop or weaken due to various factors. In this respect, it is imperative to determine indicators (evaluation indicators of international relations) to evaluate the periods of development and decline of with scientific methods between states, including participants (subjects) of the international system. It is possible to have up to an average of hundred indicators used to evaluate the movement of interstate relations. However, grouping these indicators is one of the important conditions for conducting a systematic analysis. In this sense, it is possible to divide the indicators used to determine the direction of action of interstate into three groups: Political indicators, Economic indicators and Social indicators. For the first time, it has been tried to determine main political indicators in the science of international and to apply them in the example of the between the Republic of Armenia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For evaluation of the between the two countries an main indicators used the number of reciprocal visits at the level of heads of state and government, the number of meetings held by the senior representatives of the two countries in foreign countries and within the framework of the meetings of international organizations, number and rate of mutual expeditions of managers of institutions responsible for foreign policy and number of disscussing ideas, the number, scope and place of the documents signed between the two countries in the state administration syste and etc. others.

The knowledge of dentists for preventive influence of the caries process

<p>The line of knowledge runs from the general social, legal, financial and managerial framework. It is necessary to present the object of professional activity, the peculiarities of professional work and the methods for its optimization. Subjects of the survey were 100 dentists who perform treatment of deciduous teeth from the city of Varna, Bulgaria. The individual addressed anonymous survey was fulfilled during educational, clinical and organization meetings at the Faculty of Dental Medicine-Varna and on the territory of the city of Varna. The interviewed dentists encounter difficulties with the diagnosis of the initial dental caries in primary dentition. The dentists included in the survey rely mainly on their theoretical and practical experience and routine clinical methods for non-invasive treatment of the initial dental caries. Work experience and the specialty do not have a significant impact on the awareness of dentists about the new criteria related to the diagnosis and prevention of dental caries in the primary dentition. The age, work experience and specialty of dentists are factors for their awareness of the new approaches to treatment of children, as doctors up to 30 years of age, with a recognized specialty and work experience up to five years are more informed.</p>

Promotion of Advance Care Planning Among Young Adults: A Pilot Study of Health Engagement Workshop Feasibility, Implementation, and Efficacy.

This pilot study set out to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of an interactive, peer-led, health engagement workshop to improve confidence and comprehension related to advance care planning (ACP) among young adults. Secondarily, this study evaluated if such workshops could promote ACP related behavior changes within this population. This observational cohort study utilized a repeated measures, mixed-method design. Six hour-long, in-person workshops were conducted with undergraduate students during meetings of university student organizations. Participants were evaluated across 3 mixed-method surveys, evaluating confidence, knowledge, and behaviors related to ACP prior to participation, directly after, and during a 2-week follow-up. Workshop participation improved the average participant confidence and knowledge related to ACP as well as encouraged some participants to engage in discussions related to end-of-life care with friends and family. Alongside the impact of the workshops on knowledge and confidence, participants positively evaluated the design of the workshops through collected qualitative feedback. These results are encouraging in assessing this population's willingness to learn about end-of-life care planning. The tools developed and the corresponding results should be used for further exploration of engaging the young adult population in ACP to promote improved healthcare outcomes.

Expectations of technology use during meetings: An experimental test of manager policy, device use, and task-acknowledgment

In organizational meetings, mobile media are commonly used to hold multiple simultaneous conversations (i.e., multicommunication). This experiment uses video vignettes to test how manager policy (no policy, pro-technology, anti-technology), device use (notepad, laptop, cell phone) and task-acknowledgment (no task-acknowledgment, task-acknowledgment) affect perceptions of meeting multicommunication behavior. US workers ( N = 243) who worked at least 30 hours per week and attended at least one weekly meeting rated relevant outcomes: expectancy violation, communicator evaluation, perceived competence, and meeting effectiveness. Results reveal manager policy and device use both affect multicommunication perceptions, with mobile phones generating the highest expectancy violation and lowest evaluation of the communicator and meeting effectiveness. Surprisingly, there was no effect for task-acknowledgment; however, a match between manager policy and task-acknowledgment affected evaluations. This paper unifies past evidence about multicommunication under the expectancy violations framework, extends theoretical understandings of mobile media use at work, and suggests practical implications for technology use in unfamiliar workplace situations.

Instilling Hope and Resiliency: A Narrative Photo-Taking Intervention During an Intercultural Exchange Involving 9/11 Survivors in Post 3/11 Japan.

On March 11, 2011 ("3/11"), a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Northeastern Japan triggered a tsunami and nuclear power plant meltdown that killed 16,000 people and displaced more than 470,000 people. Since 2012, a group of volunteer docents from the September 11th Families Association in New York City has traveled throughout Northeastern Japan and held organized meetings where 9/11 and 3/11 survivors share their experiences and stories of trauma as part of an intercultural exchange to promote posttraumatic recovery. We sought to elucidate whether participating 9/11 docents developed a sense of increased resiliency by participating in this international outreach. This study employed photo-taking as well as framing questions, which were developed by 9/11 docents from the August 2016 trip. These questions guided photo-taking and resulting photographs informed discussion in individual and group sharing sessions. This process helped identify codes that guided analysis. Participants acquired a deeper appreciation of their own ability to overcome adversity and experienced a gratifying desire to help 3/11 survivors better cope with their experiences. This narrative photo-taking and group sharing experience demonstrates that a cross-cultural exchange between survivors of different disasters can instill feelings of resilience among participants. It additionally provides early evidence of the efficacy of such an exchange in benefitting disaster survivors in the long term.

COVID-19 in Utah Valley

The second week of March 2020 presented an array of unique challenges for me both professionally and personally as I adjusted my work and home life to cope with the COVID-19 virus. I had already been ailing with what (I hoped) were seasonal allergies that left me coughing, bleary-eyed, and wondering if I might be sick with COVID-19 prior to the announcements from our university and school district that we should start self-isolating and preparing for at-home instruction. As both of my children at home are competitive gymnasts, we faced another decision about whether to keep them home from training.
 As my work and personal email boxes began filling with announcements from my university, my department, my children’s school, my children’s gym, and even my church and extended out-of-state family, I had to fight back a growing sense of anxiety about the outside world as I looked after my physical recovery. Staying home from work, just as a symbolic gesture, made a lot of sense to me. I’d already afflicted my colleagues with my occasional coughing from my isolated office way down the corridor, but I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. Although I presumed my odds of having COVID-19 were small after three trips to the doctor in the last month for secondary infections resulting from my allergies, who really knew? So, from my home office, I put into practice the skills I learned from doing remote instruction over the last several years.
 Up until the present challenge, I had tried to access my email only in the morning and afternoon. As news and instructions came in from my university and department, email communication became a near-constant distraction/source of information. Following our university’s lead, our college moved to all-remote instruction and social isolating. This meant moving to the Zoom video conferencing app. Fortunately, I was quite familiar with the app, so I didn’t have too hard a transition. However, at least a few of my colleagues had to make substantial changes to what and how they taught. Moreover, our students varied widely in how familiar and comfortable they were with the online interface. They valued our programs for their face-to-face emphasis, and now they were being asked to adjust everything about their experience within days. Moreover, most of my students are educational professionals themselves, so they were scrambling to provide direction and services to their own students. In the days following the university’s move to all-remote instruction, I participated in several instructional and organizational meetings with administrators and colleagues to ensure we were all in accord about the adjustments we would make to classes, and I spent hours on email coordinating with students and responding to their personal and professional concerns. I greatly reduced planned whole-group instruction in favor of individual consultation. I felt frustration at my students as they requested that I take my class instruction down to the basics. As I was teaching a course on qualitative research methods, I already felt I was barely touching on the tip of the iceberg as it was. How more stripped down could I get? At the same time, I was still recovering physically from (what I hoped were) my allergies, so I recognized that some of my frustration was my body demanding time to recover.
 To add to the challenges/opportunities of the first week into this at-home learning experiment, I had my two elementary-aged children at home with their own learning needs to consider. Even as I type, my third grader (who has an IEP) is in my office with me on i-Ready doing her daily math lesson on my university-issued iPad while my wife works with our sixth grader on her laptop. I find myself dividing my time between my third grader and my professional work, and I feel like neither is getting the attention they deserve. And yet, in the midst of the chaos, things are happening. Our children are getting more one-on-one time than they have in quite a while. They’re happy and adjusting. I wonder about their peers. My children attend a Title I school, and many of their parents and caregivers don’t have access to the same remote learning resources as they do. Many don’t have parents at home to supervise the well-organized instruction their teachers have provided (almost miraculously) via Google Classroom. It’s a strange new world in these early quarantine days, and I’m sure there are many opportunities and challenges ahead.

Pioneers in Dermatology and Venereology: an interview with Prof. G.K. Steigleder.

Pioneers in Dermatology and Venereology: an interview with Prof. G.K. Steigleder.

Changes in IT Governance for Business Transformation in Banking Industry: Case of PT XYZ in Indonesia

Changes in IT governance is urgently needed to support the business transformation. PT XYZ is a bank that transformed its business model to compete optimally in today's digital era. The reasons are to modernize legacy systems and existing work units, develop more customer-centric products, and expand banking service coverage. This research’s objectives were to look at elements of IT governance by De Haes & Grembergen which are structures, processes, and relational mechanisms. The analysis was carried out by looking at the condition of the bank before and after the transformation that happened because of changes in the governance of IT decision making that will be seen using theory from Weill & Ross. Data were collected from annual and internal reports, also interviews with parties related to IT governance at PT XYZ. The results of this research showed that transformation happened in all elements of IT governance. Changes in organizational structure and alignment processes between business and IT, as well as product development methods such as the application of bi-modal governance, which uses both waterfall and agile, occurred after the transformation. Recommendations are given to PT XYZ to restructure the organization and schedule regular meetings to affiliate IT project development.

Leadership diversity in prosthodontics: Recommendations for the representation of women speakers at scientific prosthodontic meetings

Statement of problemLeadership platforms in the professions include invitations to speak at the meetings of major organizations. However, the percentage of women speakers at prosthodontic meetings is lower than that of women prosthodontists overall. Recommendations or reporting requirements to address this deficiency are lacking. PurposeThe purpose of this observational study was to determine the probability of the number of women speakers at any scientific meetings of 6 different prosthodontic organizations over the past decade occurring by chance alone and to make recommendations for scientific program committees and organizations regarding the number of women speakers at future meetings. Material and methodsThe number of men and women speakers at the 2009-2018 annual meetings of the Academy of Prosthodontics (AP), American Academy of Fixed Prosthodontics (AAFP), American College of Prosthodontics (ACP), American Prosthodontic Society (APS), Greater New York Academy of Prosthodontics (GNYAP), and Pacific Coast Society for Prosthodontics (PCSP) was recorded. The chi-square test was used to determine differences in the percentage of women speakers over time and between organizations. The BINOM.DIST function was used to calculate the probability of selecting the exact number of women speakers at each meeting (α=.05). ResultsThe mean percentage of women speakers across all organizations and all years was 10.80%. The percentage ranged from 0.00% (AAFP 2013; ACP 2013; APS 2012, 2015; GNYAP 2009, 2014; and PCSP 2009, 2010, 2011) to 42.86% (AP 2013). No change in women speaker presence was observed over the time frame investigated. The AP had significantly more women speakers than the other organizations. Of the 60 meetings included, 25 meetings had a statistically significantly low number of women speakers, and 1 meeting had a statistically significantly high number of women speakers. ConclusionsThe number of women speakers at the scientific meetings of the organizations analyzed was significantly low and has not changed significantly over the years from 2009 to 2018. There were significantly more women speakers at the scientific meetings of the Academy of Prosthodontics than in the 5 other major prosthodontic organizations over the years 2009 to 2018. A recommendation is made that prosthodontic organizations include more women speakers on scientific programs. Specifically, a minimum of 25% of speakers should be women (rolling 3-year average) or 25% of podium time should be for women speakers (rolling 3-year average).

Group Interaction and Behavior in Meetings: A New Assessment Tool to Monitor Group Behavior

Soft skills, such as verbal and nonverbal communication are important for success in business. Up to 80% of communication happens nonverbally, using standard and microforms of expression. Quantifying such skills can be difficult, so courses rarely prepare students for this much-needed skill (Henville, 2012). Organizational meetings are a hotspot for nonverbal communication. Demographics, such as rank and gender, may give meeting members the power to use negative nonverbal forms of communication to make themselves be heard or to show dislike of others. This is when it is particularly helpful to have a facilitator with skills in nonverbal communication to keep the group on task, following an agenda, and give empower the weak. The author created an assessment instrument with the help of anecdotal evidence and an exhaustive search of the current literature. The tool can be used to measure the behavior in the workplace and contributed to the creation of a classroom or workplace hands-on activity that will help students and employees hone their skills in identifying verbal, nonverbal, and microexpressions.

Egos at the Table, a Study of Meeting Behaviors

When organization members gather in groups of two or more to communicate, problem-solve, or make decisions, it is done so to improve information flow and disseminate information. Organizational meetings are often seen by employees as an unnecessary evil, a waste of time that distracts them from achieving the goals (Robinson, 2019). This appears to be a contradiction. To determine the cause of ineffective meetings the author performed a deep dive into the current literature. Meeting attendees often impede effective meetings with verbal and nonverbal behaviors. Rogelberg, Allen, Shanock, Scott, & Shuffler (2010) asserted that non-effective meetings are inefficient, diminish morale and job satisfaction. Hartnett (2011) demonstrated that the facilitator has the duty to accomplish the objectives of the meeting, ensure that the purpose is clear, maintain order and establish an open process of communication. However, these authors found that group or committee members’ goals may be inconsistent with the facilitator’s agenda. Often in meetings there is an unspoken power struggle. Documented issues that impair or interfere with the process or outcome of effective meetings include group members wanting a voice, having their accomplishments heard, or ideas shared. An additional challenge outlined in the literature that contributes to meeting ineffectiveness is a feeling of powerlessness. Some have suggested (Atkins, 2002) that although full of poignant ideas, meeting participants who feel powerless, may not have the capacity to express thoughts or concerns. The following paper will identify how meeting attendees affect the meeting, including the verbal and nonverbal cues that interfere with effective meeting outcomes and provide alternative management strategies to facilitate effective meetings.