Membership Issues Research Articles

The Workers' Health Fund in Eretz Israel: Kupat Holim, 1911-1937 (review)

Reviewed by: The Workers' Health Fund in Eretz Israel: Kupat Holim, 1911-1937 Sandy Sufian Shifra Shvarts . The Workers' Health Fund in Eretz Israel: Kupat Holim, 1911-1937. Rochester Studies in Medical History, no. 2. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2002. xvi + 340 pp. Ill. $85.00, £60.00 (1-58046-122-0). This book is the English translation of the original Hebrew, Kupat Holim Clalit: Itzuva vehitpatchuta kegorem hamirkazi beshirutei habriut be Eretz Israel, 1911-1937 (General Health Fund: Its shape and development as a central factor in the [End Page 735] health services of Eretz Israel, 1911-1937), published in 1997. The book, consisting of ten chapters, focuses on the formative years of Kupat Holim, a health-care institution that eventually became the major medical provider-insurer of the state of Israel. Presenting its development as a sequence of starts, stops, and frequent delays, Shifra Shvarts charts the persistent issues of membership and recruitment, balancing ideological principles with fiscal responsibility, and negotiating institutional relationships. She shows that the organization proved flexible and responsive to the constantly changing social and economic conditions of the Jewish community in Palestine (Yishuv). The work fits squarely into the scholarly literature on the Yishuv that investigates the interaction of Zionist ideas and the process of state-building.1 It can also be situated within a growing but still understudied literature on health issues in modern Jewish history, and it certainly contributes to that scholarship on health-care organizations and management. Head of Health Systems Management at Ben Gurion University, Shvarts is among no more than a dozen scholars who work on health issues during the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods of Palestine. She is considered a senior scholar in this cohort, an expert on the dynamics of public health and medical care in the Yishuv as well as their ramifi-cations in the state period of Israel. She explores the development of Kupat Holim not only as a historical case study but as one of contemporary import, used to understand the nature and politics of health-care delivery in Israel, its constraints and possibilities, at the turn of the twenty-first century. One of the many public needs of Zionist laborers in the process of settlement was for medical services. To respond to this need despite political and ideological tensions, various nonpartisan health funds for Jewish rural workers were established in the early twentieth century, including the Health Fund of the Federation of Agricultural Workers in Judea, and later the health funds of the Galilee and Samaria. After World War I the funds were reorganized along Labor Party lines, but they eventually merged to become Kupat Holim in 1920. The organization's mission, as Shvarts explains, was to serve as the "emissary of the organized working public in the Federation of Labor in matters of health in Israel" (p. 1). The health funds adapted both the Jewish diasporic tradition of linat tzedek (community responsibility for tending to the sick)—reworking it to fit the Zionist notion of self-sufficiency—and the European idea of compulsory insurance, to local conditions. The particular needs and profile of the pioneers during this time, Shvarts points out, distinguish the historical emergence of Kupat Holim from other European cases. As both an insurer and a provider of care, it extended its medical services to laborers and their family members. Bringing services to the sick person and stimulating mutual aid formed the ideological bases of the health fund, principles that reflected the social and political views of [End Page 736] the second Zionist wave of immigration. Their translation into practice was often difficult to fully achieve or uphold; this circumstance constituted one of the organization's many dilemmas. Other dilemmas included continual deficits and governance woes. Membership dues were difficult to collect, and expansion efforts, including employer contributions and the parallel tax, repeatedly failed. The quintessential dilemma of balancing or minimizing expenditures without impairing the quality of service was repeatedly faced. Distinguishing between members and nonmembers for medical service also posed a consistent problem. Attempts to make members of the workers' federation (Histadrut) mandatory members of the health fund were not successful until 1937, which deeply...

Conceptual Issues in Inter-Agency Collaboration

Inter-agency collaboration – or partnership as it now commonly termed – is central to New Labour's agenda, but the general support for a partnership approach conceals disputes about definitions and approaches. This article begins by examining the shift to more complex and ambitious partnerships in health, social care and regeneration, which require new modes of governance. The three main modes – market, hierarchy and network – are briefly described and contrasted, and located within the recent history of public service development. It is argued that they are best seen as overlain and co-existing, resulting in a hybrid mode of governance which is characterised by tension and contradiction. The article goes on to discuss the issues this raises for real partnerships in trying to understand the collaborative imperative and the barriers to its effective achievement. Although the network mode has its attractions, there are complex issues of membership, management and culture which need to be addressed. It is concluded that hierarchy, markets and networks will co-exist better where each acknowledges its own limits and the strengths of others.

AMA Wrestles With Future–Medicare’s and Its Own

AMA Wrestles With Future–Medicare’s and Its Own

Medical staff appointment and delineation of pediatric privileges in hospitals.

The review and verification of credentials and the granting of clinical privileges are required of every hospital to ensure that members of the medical staff are competent and qualified to provide specified levels of patient care. The credentialing process involves the following: 1) assessment of the professional and personal background of each practitioner seeking privileges; 2) assignment of privileges appropriate for the clinician's training and experience; 3) ongoing monitoring of the professional activities of each staff member; and 4) periodic reappointment to the medical staff on the basis of objectively measured performance. This statement examines the essential elements of a credentials review for initial and renewed medical staff appointments along with suggested criteria for the delineation of clinical privileges. Sample forms for the delineation of privileges can be found on the American Academy of Pediatrics Web site (http://www.aap.org/visit/cmte19.htm). Because of the differences in individual hospitals, no one method for credentialing is universally applicable. The medical staff of each hospital must, therefore, establish its own process based on the general principles reviewed in this statement. The issues of medical staff membership and credentialing have become very complex, and institutions and medical staffs are vulnerable to legal action. Consequently, it is advisable for hospitals and medical staffs to obtain expert legal advice when medical staff bylaws are constructed or revised.

Too Few Psychiatrists Are Signing Up, DB Leaders Say

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Association NewsFull AccessToo Few Psychiatrists Are Signing Up, DB Leaders SayKen HausmanKen HausmanSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:4 Jan 2002https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.37.1.0012aAt their December meeting in Washington, D.C., the members of the APA Board of Trustees heard two invited guests—the presidents-elect of the Bronx and Indiana district branches—explain several of the concerns with which their members are wrestling.Bronx District Branch President-elect Seshagiri Rao Doddi, M.D. (left), describes for the Board of Trustees the problems his district branch has in attracting new members and retaining current ones. Listening to Doddi is Steve Nelson, M.D., president-elect of the Indiana Psychiatric Society.Seshagiri Rao Doddi, M.D., representing the Bronx District Branch, focused on membership issues. He explained that the biggest challenges facing him and other leaders of his district branch are how to attract new members and convince current members to continue belonging.“We are trying enthusiasm and involvement,” he pointed out, though the battle is often uphill. Out of nearly 200 members, he said, only about 30 psychiatrists regularly show up for district branch meetings.He said that nonmembers claim that “dues are too high,” but Doddi wondered if this was “an excuse for other reasons” that keep them from signing up.Doddi urged the Board to search for ways to decrease spending, including simplifying the APA structure by, for example, abolishing Area Councils and having fewer district branches. With spending reduced, he suggested, APA might be able to continue its five-year moratorium on dues increases or even reduce dues.The Indiana Psychiatric Society was represented by President-elect Steve Nelson, M.D.He, too, explained the difficulty district branch leaders are having in attracting members to their meetings. To make them appealing, they have the meetings at good restaurants, which require financial support from drug companies, a situation some members find troubling.He noted as well that Indiana psychiatrists are closely monitoring their legislature to be prepared when, as expected, psychologists get a prescribing-privilege bill introduced.For the last several years, APA presidents have invited several district branch presidents-elect or leaders of minority/underrepresented groups to Board meetings to keep APA’s elected leaders informed about the issues that are paramount in the minds of psychiatrists who are members of these groups. ▪ ISSUES NewArchived

Candidate for Area 2 Trustee

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article INFORMATION ON THE CANDIDATESFull AccessCandidate for Area 2 TrusteeAnn Marie T. Sullivan, M.D., Ann Marie T. SullivanSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., Fellow, 1977Published Online:7 Dec 2001https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.36.23.0027aAbout the CandidateAnn Marie T. Sullivan, M.D.Fellow, 1977•. Regional Director of Psychiatry at Elmhurst and Queens Hospitals, New York Municipal Hospital System, 1990-•. Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, 1990-•. Private Practice in Manhattan, 1980-•. Representative, New York County District Branch, APA Assembly, 1995-•. Treasurer, New York State Psychiatric Association, 1998-•. Member, APA Joint Commission on Government Relations, 1999-Candidate’s ViewsThe future of APA lies in the actions it takes to serve our members and our patients. As Area 2 trustee, my goals would be: identifying the advocacy, practice, and membership issues for New York psychiatrists; effectively communicating these issues to the national APA; and working to implement practical solutions at the national and local levels.Effective advocacy is essential. Key issues include: managing managed care, confidentiality of medical information, true parity of coverage and access to quality treatment for all patients, protecting the private psychiatrist and enhancing the role of the psychiatrist in public systems, and increasing funding for research. In the wake of the World Trade Center disaster, preventive services, adequate care, and thoughtful research on the treatment of disaster victims become critical issues as well. As the legislative representative from New York County, I have been active in lobbying at the state and national levels and appreciate the commitment of resources necessary to achieve results. As Area trustee, I would work to ensure the necessary allocation of APA resources for effective advocacy in these areas.Another area for advocacy where APA needs to sharpen its focus is public psychiatry. Through its advocacy and public affairs functions, APA should increase its efforts to fight the stigma of mental illness, prevent the demedicalization of services in the public sector, and ensure the highest quality of care for the seriously mentally ill. APA should develop in conjunction with district branches, as it has with practice guidelines, systems guidelines for the development and implementation of systems of care.As an officer of the New York State Psychiatric Association, I have had the opportunity to learn about other issues affecting New York psychiatrists statewide: scope-of-practice issues, excessive Medicare carrier and managed care audits and denials, restrictions in licensing requirements for international medical graduates, and the inappropriate assault on ECT as an effective treatment. While these require local action, tactical guidance and financial support from the national APA are critical for success.Ensuring this type of open and effective communication between New York members and the APA governance and central office is a core responsibility of the Area trustee. New York state priorities must be effectively brought forward to and addressed by the national APA. In addition, the actions, policies, and fiscal decisions of the Board of Trustees must be communicated to New York members. A trustee must be fiscally prudent and work to ensure that APA dues and other income are well spent on the critical goals of advocacy, public affairs, and member satisfaction. As an Assembly representative from New York County, I sponsored an action item to create the Business Advisory Council to assist the Board of Trustees in major fiscal decisions.Recruitment and retention of members are critical in any professional organization. Joint national and local initiatives are needed to engage trainees and early career psychiatrists and proactively reach out to uninterested colleagues and lapsed members. Member satisfaction must be a top priority, including easy access to member services. As an Assembly representative from New York County, I have supported action items on a moratorium for a dues increase and accountability of the national APA to its district branches for member services.Finally, as Area trustee I would be available and responsive to the ideas, concerns, and suggestions of individual members, our district branches, and our state association. The time for action is now.Primary Loci of Work and Sources of IncomeWork: 90%—Regional director of psychiatry, Elmhurst and Queens hospitals, New York City Municipal Hospital System10%—Faculty Practice Associates, Mt. Sinai School of MedicineIncome: 90%—Employed by Mt. Sinai School of Medicine as regional director of psychiatry, Elmhurst and Queens hospitals10%—Private practice, Mt. Sinai Faculty Practice Associates ISSUES NewArchived

Is the NLRB still relevant? A performance review

Conclusions Comparisons of the NLRB to dinosaurs and other extinct species, fallen empires, and other relics are overdone. Nevertheless, the Board must confront some worrisome signs of institutional decay. On very separate fronts federal courts and state legislatures- the Board's ULP jurisdiction is eroding. Even more troubling for the Board, these incursions are coming from different sources. Unions seem to be winning the battle to legislate protective labor standards when the collective bargaining process that is administered by the NLRB fails them. Individual employees, and by extension certain employers, are circumventing the Board's ability to define fundamental issues of union membership.

To belong or not to belong: the Roma, state violence and the new Europe in the House of Lords

Issues of national sovereignty and membership in the body politic are central to many current political and legal debates surrounding ‘New Britain’ and Europe. Traditional understandings of citizenship and belonging are grounded in the ideal of a territorially limited and defined nation state. In this article, I explore a series of judicial and political decisions surrounding the fate of Roma or Gypsies, both as claimants to refugee status in Britain, or as subjects of domestic legal controls. I argue that these decisions construct this nomadic Other as a fundamental danger and challenge to the coherence of the legally protected body politic of the nation state ‘Britain’. I argue that the deconstructive excess found in the construction of the Roma as dangerous nomads, without allegiance to a fixed and geographically delimited nation state, might contain the kernel for a possible re-imagining of the basis of our understandings of citizenship and belonging.

The Isle of Man Guarantee Company as a Foundation: Membership Issues

The Isle of Man Guarantee Company as a Foundation: Membership Issues

Print club photography in Japan

The authors examine the popularity of a new form of photographic representation in Japan, namely Print Club, or Purikura. Print Club machines initially delivered a page of 16 postage‐stamp‐sized photographs of their patrons, but many other formats have become common. This paper describes the 1995 emergence and development of the technology, image content, decorative frames, picture uses and functions and the incorporation of Print Club into a broad range of personal, social and even business and artistic life in Japan. The authors review connections to patterns of popular culture, consumerism, gender bias, adolescent youth culture, and interpersonal communication alongside issues of individual identity and group membership. Some claim Print Club as a fad, but six years later, all indicators point to a lasting contribution to Japanese visual culture.

ESDI: “Separable but not separate”?

The development of a European Security and Defence Identity that is “separable but not separate” from NATO took a new turn at the European Union's Helsinki summit in December 1999, However, the EU's plans to absorb soon the Western European Union and to create a rapid reaction corps by 2003 raise a tangle of membership issues, as well as questions of a more fundamental nature.

The Nato enlargement debate in the media and civil‐military relations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

This article links the NATO enlargement debate to the course of civil‐military relations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. After a general analysis of civil‐military relations and the media, it looks at the NATO membership issues discussed across seven dimensions and their impact on relations between civil society and the military. It concludes that a gap existed between the governing elite and the public in both countries.

Issues of commonwealth membership

Concern to regularise the criteria for membership of the Commonwealth culminated in the Harare Declaration of 1991 which sought to codify the processes of enlargement while establishing a set of principles to guide acceptable behaviour by member states, particularly in the related fields of democracy and human rights. The admission of several countries without a direct association with Britain marked a departure from the founding principles of the Commonwealth. Notwithstanding the recommendations of an Intergovernmental group on Commonwealth Membership, it is likely that heads of government will want to retain a considerable degree of flexibility when determining applications by aspiring states. In ten years’ time it is possible that the Commonwealth may have increased to some 60 member countries, raising many questions about the effect on the organisation's essential characteristics and the spectre of it becoming the victim of its own success.

The Future Organization of Community Health Councils

This paper examines the ways in which Community Health Councils (CHCs) might organize themselves in the light of the changes arising out of the purchaser–provider split. These changes have meant that they are only one among several agencies claiming to represent the interests of the user, with most fundamentally the Health Authorities themselves being entrusted with the duty of championing the people. Other means of consulting the public, which bypass the CHCs altogether, are also becoming increasingly popular. Taking as its starting‐point EL(95)142, “Guidance on the changes in establishing arrangements”, this paper looks at practical ways in which CHCs might best organize themselves to face the future. It does this by considering, in turn, membership issues, staffing, resources and accommodation, and the roles and relationships of CHCs with regard to other agencies. It also, more radically, considers their continued viability and relevance in the context of other means of tapping into or representing the public's views in the NHS of the future.

Towards an Indian Ocean economic alliance: Commentary on membership issues

Towards an Indian Ocean economic alliance: Commentary on membership issues

Life in the Gang: Family, Friends, and Violence.

1. Introduction 2. 'Are you claiming?': methods of study 3. 'I'm down with the Bloods, what's up cuz?': individual issues 4. 'We ain't no worldwide thing or nothing': group membership issues 5. 'Where you hanging?': minor crime and gang members 6. 'I love to bang': serious crime by gang members 7. Gang members and social institutions 8. Gang members and their families 9. Responding to gangs: theory and policy References.

Voices of Experience: Talk, Identity and Membership in Reminiscence Groups

AbstractThis paper presents a discourse analysis of talk in reminiscence groups. Two main issues are addressed. First, we examine how speakers' identities are accomplished through the way they position themselves in social relationships and social practices of ‘remembered pasts’. Particular analytical attention is given to how people claim entitlements to the significance and consequences of their lived experience. Second, issues of membership are examined through the way people index their engagement in the narrative environment accomplished in reminiscence group talk. Finally, we are concerned with how these narratives contribute to a ‘reconstitution’ of understandings in common about cultural and moral orders of remembered pasts and the historical era in which the reported events, experiences and practices took place. Our analysis aims to demonstrate how reminiscence work affords a context for ‘re-membering’ where older people on their own behalf can work entitlements to voice the consequences of their experiences of life.

William J. Weichlein: An Appreciation

One of the Music Library Association's major crises was resolved when, in 1965, the Association's immediate past President, William J. Weichlein, became its Executive Secretary and moved the Business Office from New York City to Ann Arbor, Michigan. The New York Office, originally set up with a grant from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation in January of 1962, had been the source of great dissatisfaction to MLA officers: the staff was inefficient, tactless, and charged large amounts of overtime because of their medieval systems. During his term as President, Weichlein became convinced the office was a useless appendage to the Music Library Association and proposed moving it to Ann Arbor under the aegis of the School of Music of the University of Michigan.(1) The physical move was accomplished late in 1964. Working with part-time clerical assistance, Weichlein quickly systematized the files, billing, and correspondence; for the next sixteen years his office was the address for inquiries, membership issues, billing, sale of Association publications, etc. Who was Bill Weichlein? Originally a performer - a bassoonist - and then a musicologist. But overarching both interests was his concern, care, and nurture of the Music Library at the University of Michigan. think I considered myself more a librarian [than musicologist], somewhat to the consternation of others in the Music History Department on occasion.(2) Little wonder, perhaps, for Weichlein worked in his local library - Mayville, Illinois - from age 12. One of his duties was to ride around town on his bicycle to collect overdue books and fines! Weichlein was born on 9 May 1917 in Springfield, Missouri, the son of Lily Evans (Pick) and Frank Howard Weichlein, an Episcopal clergyman. Typical of the clergy, the family moved around the midwest during Weichlein's childhood; he graduated from Proviso High School in Mayville, Illinois - northeast of Chicago - and spent the next year in Chicago studying and performing. He was a member of the non-professional training orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, sponsored by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Some instrumentalists from the Civic Orchestra subsequently became members of the CSO. In the fall of 1935 he was accepted by the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. After two academic years in Philadelphia Weichlein went back to Illinois - Sycamore - where his parents were living. During the next years he played in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the WGN radio station orchestra, the Chicago Opera Orchestra, and the orchestra of the Ballet Theatre conducted in the Chicago Opera House by Alexander Smallens.(3) He found it a very satisfying life. World War II interrupted his professional performance career. On 9 December 1942 he enlisted in the United States Army; he was sent to Texas to a tank destroyer battalion but became ill and was released on 20 February 1943. In August of 1943 he was drafted by the Army Air Forces and assigned to the 560th Army Air Forces Band stationed at the Greenville, North Carolina, Air Force Base. Eventually the Band was sent to India to entertain the troops. While there, Weichlein was principal bassoonist in the Calcutta Symphony Orchestra, Phillipe Sandre conductor.(4) Discharged in May of 1946, Weichlein decided to enter the University of Michigan under the provisions of the GI Bill. He was drawn to Michigan by the prewar activities of Thor Johnson, founder and conductor of the University of Michigan Little Symphony. The Symphony toured twice annually, playing more than five hundred concerts in some twenty-eight states over its seven year existence;(5) to Weichlein, the chance to perform as well as attend college was most attractive. Wayne Dunlap succeeded Johnson as conductor of both the Little Symphony and the University of Michigan Symphony; Weichlein was principal bassoonist in both organizations from 1946-50. A subsequent outlet for his performance skills was the Plymouth (Michigan) Symphony Orchestra, also conducted by Dunlap; Weichlein was principal bassoonist there from 1952-65. …

Essentialism and graded membership in animal and artifact categories.

A number of studies have argued that people view membership in animal and artifact categories as a matter of degree. These studies have generally failed to distinguish between the issues of typicality and category membership. Thus, data which have been taken to demonstrate that membership is a matter of degree may only demonstrate that typicality is graded. Partly on the basis of these findings, it has been argued that some categories are organized around an underlying essence. The essence determines membership absolutely. The present paper reports a series of studies that reexamine the question of graded membership. In the first study, subjects were asked to rate both typicality and category membership for the same stimuli as a way of distinguishing the two questions. A second method relied on the intuition that disagreements about membership in all-or-none and graded categories may have different qualities. Results from both studies suggest some support for claims that membership in animal and artifact categories is a matter of degree. A third study explored the possibility that graded responses were due to conflicting, or ambiguous, sets of criteria. A task focusing on biological features did not lead to more absolute categorization. These results contradict essentialist predictions.

The European Torture Committee: Membership Issues

The Committee established by the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the CPT, consists 'of a number of members equal to that of the Parties'. As of 1 April 1994 25 States had signed and ratified the Convention. The Committee, however, comprised only 21 members. No member had yet been elected in respect of either San Marino or Hungary, which became parties to the Convention on 1 May 1990 and 1 March 1994 respectively or in respect of Slovenia, for whom the Convention will enter into force on 1 June 1994. In addition, no member had been elected to replace the member for Ireland who did not seek re-election in September 1993. The effectiveness and credibility of the CPT (which given its four years of operational existence is arguably already considerable) depends crucially on the quality and continuity of its membership. The work of the Committee rests on it being provided by the Council of Europe with a budget adequate for it to be: serviced by a professional secretariat; assisted by competent experts; and able to carry out thorough and regular visits of inspection. These support facilities are likely to count for little, however, if the Committee itself lacks persons committed to the mandate provided by the Convention or short of the ability and experience to carry it through. In this brief paper we examine the characteristics of the members and the