Number Of Available Positions Research Articles

Tips for succeeding at pharmacy residency phone interviews.

Several times in recent years, the annual number of pharmacy residency applicants increased faster than the number of available positions, making the task of securing a residency position highly competitive.[1][1] With the increase in pharmacy residency applications, residency programs must decide

Political competition and environmental reporting

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between “political competition” and “environmental reporting” by New Zealand local governments. Design/methodology/approach – The research method includes a longitudinal analysis of environmental reporting by New Zealand local governments in their annual reports for the financial years 2005-2006 to 2009-2010. “Content analysis” was used to attach scores to the extent of environmental reporting. The “number of candidates divided by the number of available positions at the previous election” was used as the proxy for “political competition”. Findings – The study reports a positive relationship between “political competition” and “environmental reporting” in 2007-2008. The number of local governments reporting voluntary environmental information increased in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 compared to 2005-2006, followed by a reduction in such numbers following the 2007-2008 financial year. This trend in disclosure can be attributed to the local government elections in October 2007. This finding is consistent with the expectation of “agency theory” and provides insight into the pattern of perceived agency costs. The study also finds a dearth in reporting “monetary” and “bad” news. Originality/value – The study contributes towards the previous literature on environmental reporting by concentrating on the public sector and New Zealand, together with investigating the relationship of such reporting with “political competition” through a longitudinal analysis. The theoretical contribution of this study is the adoption of “agency theory” in the context of public sector voluntary reporting and investigating the significance attached by agents to environmental reporting to minimise agency cost. The practical contribution of the study is in the area of future development of reporting standards in regards to environmental reporting.

The Value of Pharmacy Residency Training for Health Systems

Purpose: Identify and summarize articles that describe the value that pharmacy residency training offers to sponsoring health systems. Summary: There is a tremendous gap between the number of resident applicants and the number of pharmacy residencies available. Informing health-system administration executives about the proven value of residency training is key to expanding the number of available positions. To address this disparity, a comprehensive and systematic literature search to identify publications highlighting the value that pharmacy residency training provides to the sponsor hospital or health system was conducted. Articles were identified through query of PubMed and SciVerse SCOPUS and through review of bibliographies from relevant articles. Twenty articles were identified and summarized in this annotated bibliography that demonstrate perceived and quantitative value of pharmacy residency training for health systems that sponsor residency training. Conclusion: Pharmacy residency training programs are essential for pharmacists that will primarily engage in direct patient care activities. This annotated bibliography includes key publications that provide evidence of the value that pharmacy residents provide to the sponsoring health system. This manuscript will aid prospective residency directors interested in developing new residency positions at new institutions or for residency program directors interested in expanding the total number of resident positions available at the existing sites.

The Eighth International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics

The Eighth International Conference on Forensic Inference and Statistics was held at The University of Washington, Seattle, USA, in July 2011, under the Chairmanship of Professor Bruce Weir. The conference was preceded by a day in which there were three short courses on Probabilistic Reasoning for Judges and Lawyers, Statistical Methods for DNA Evidence and Bayesian Networks in Forensic Science. The conference itself had a varied programme including sessions on the anthrax letter mailings, discrimination, DNA, individualization, plagiarism, trace evidence, as well as a discussion session involving four distinguished judges from the USA and Canada. Four papers developed from presentations at the conference are published here. David Kaye draws comparisons between the so-called birthday problem and source attribution and individualization in forensic science testimony. In its simplest form, the birthday problem is this: assuming that everyone is equally likely to be born on any day of the year (assuming it is not a leap year), how many people must enter a room for the probability that it contains at least one pair of individuals born on the same day of the same month is greater than 0.5? The answer is 23, an answer whichappearsmuchlowerthanintuitionsuggests.Therelationshipofthisresulttoindividualizationis the theme of the paper. Weiwen Miao and Joe Gastwirth consider an example in civil law with a study of the properties of statisticaltests appropriatefortheanalysis ofdataindisparateimpactcases. Thepaper reviews theuse of statistical tests to establish a prima facie case that an examination has a disparate impact on minorities. Two common scenarios are discussed. The first is that promotions are made in accordance with the rank-order of the exam scores or a composite of the exam scores and some other factors. The second situation occurs when once an applicant passes the exam, they are eligible for further considerationforpromotion.Theactualexamscorenolongermatters.Courtsmayneedtoconsiderthe practical significance of the observed difference in pass rates and the power of the test of detecting a legally important difference. Qing Pan and Joe Gastwirth consider another example in civil law with a study on the appropri- ateness of survival analysis for determining lost pay in discrimination cases when the number of plaintiffsexceedsthenumberofjobopenings.Theideasareillustratedwithanapplicationofthe'Lost Chance' doctrine to Alexander v. Milwaukee, 474 F.3d. 437 (7th Cir. 2007). In equal employment cases concerning fair hiring or promotion, the number of eligible applicants often exceeds the number of available positions. When a group of plaintiffs show that they were discriminated against in the selection process, one cannot determine with certainty which ones would have been chosen. Several decisions from the Seventh Circuit observed that this situation is similar to the loss of a chance in tort law where due to negligence the survival probability of a patient has been diminished. In both settings

Transition from psychiatric training to independent practice: a survey on the situation of early career psychiatrists in 35 countries

The transition from psychiatric training to independent practice is a crucial step in the professional development of every psychiatrist. For many psychiatrists, this phase also determines their choice of subspecialization and therefore has an important impact both on individual career paths as well as on the availability of psychiatrists in the various areas of our specialty. Despite its importance, this period of professional development is relatively understudied 1. In accordance with the WPA aim to “promote the professional development of early career psychiatrists worldwide” 2, the members of the WPA Early Career Psychiatrists Council (ECPC), Europe I area, conducted a survey to investigate this period in more detail 3. A 27-item online questionnaire was developed covering: a) factors influencing choice of psychiatric subspecialty and work setting, b) job availability, and c) availability of training and mentoring opportunities specific to this phase. All 60 Council members were asked to participate in the survey as experts of the situation in their countries. Forty Council members representing 35 countries from all five continents participated in the survey, resulting in a response rate of 66%. Career choice was more often reported to be strongly or very strongly influenced by personal variables, such as salary expectations (30/40), personal interests (29/40), and compatibility with private life (27/40), than by external factors such as societal expectations (13/40) and the political environment (10/40). Strikingly, gender inequalities were reported to have a strong influence on career choice in three countries. Furthermore, six of 40 respondents stated that in their countries the location of practice was decided “by somebody else” rather than the psychiatrists themselves. In 12 countries, higher salaries and access to subspecialty training are used as incentives to recruit psychiatrists into underserved regions. The risk for unemployment immediately after psychiatric specialization was judged either unlikely or very unlikely by almost all experts (37/40). However, more than half (21/40) stated it was difficult or very difficult to get the desired job. Positions in university hospitals and private psychiatric practices were most frequently cited as attractive career options. Of these, the availability of job opportunities in university hospitals was reported to be “quite bad” or “bad” in 21 of 40 countries. In addition, 14 of 40 representatives reported that it was not possible in their countries to immediately establish oneself as an independently practicing psychiatrist after completion of training. Limitations fixed by governments regarding the number of available positions and periods of mandatory service in the public sector — in one country up to nine years — were mentioned as restricting factors. Although the transition between psychiatric training and independent practice is associated with high levels of stress, anxiety, and difficulties with patient care amongst young psychiatrists 4, the survey highlighted a lack of specific support during this phase. Specific training opportunities to develop “real world” psychiatric skills, for example, in leadership or management, were reported to exist only by eight of 40 respondents. While 19 representatives stated that in their country a mentor was available during psychiatric training, that number dropped to 11 for the first years of working as a specialist. In our view, the transition from psychiatric training to independent practice should be recognized as a complex task and a crucial step toward mastery of our profession. It deserves both self-reflection by the young psychiatrist and support by psychiatric professional associations. Specific training opportunities for this transition period should be created. Furthermore, we believe that establishing incentives may be a more suitable approach than imposing restrictions in order to sustainably attract young psychiatrists to work in underserved regions of a country or neglected fields of psychiatry 5. While the latter approach may function in the short run, it can be a strain on the individual psychiatrist and a danger to recruitment in the long-term.

Stability of Medical Student Career Interest

To examine the stability and switching patterns of student career interests over the course of medical school. From 2001 through 2004, during the first two weeks of classes, a survey on career interest was distributed to first-year students in 15 classes at eight Canadian medical schools. Students indicated interest in eight broad career paths (emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics-gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, and "other") and ranked their top three. Following these students' residency match three to four years later, student residency career choice was linked to their career interest at medical school entry. For students whose career interests switched be-tween medical school entry and exit, switching patterns were examined in terms of careers' matching difficulty scores (MDSs). Of 1,941 eligible students, 1,542 contributed to the final analysis. Family medicine, internal medicine, and surgery had the greatest student interest at both the beginning and end of medical school. Family medicine, surgery, obstetrics-gynecology, psychiatry, and "other" careers showed a net gain of student interest during medical school with the remaining careers showing a loss of interest. The most stable careers were family medicine, surgery, and internal medicine. The least stable were pediatrics and obstetrics-gynecology. Students tended to switch between careers with similar MDSs. Student career choice is relatively stable with a number of careers showing approximately 50% of stability from the entrance to the exit of medical school. Students tend to switch to careers with similar MDS, but some specific switching patterns exist.

Persistent discourses in physics education: gender neutrality and the gendering of competence

In her article, Karin Due presents us with a contradiction in physics: the construction of physics as a symbolically masculine discipline alongside a simultaneous discourse of the “gender-neutrality” of the discipline. Due’s article makes an important contribution to the study of the gendering of physics practices, particularly in group dynamics, and how this serves to simultaneously reinforce the two competing discourses of physics as a masculine discipline, and the discourse of physics as a gender neutral discipline. Due also suggests that an implication of this contradiction is a limited number of available positions for girls in physics compared to those available to boys. I wish to take up this observation and discuss how available positions for boys and girls in physics are related quite closely to two other concepts discussed in Due’s article: competence and recognition.

An increasing demand for integrated vascular residency training far outweighs the limited supply of positions

The integrated vascular surgery residency training paradigm ("0 + 5") was first approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) in 2006, with the first residents beginning in 2007. We sought to evaluate the demand for these new positions and to better understand applicant pool demographics. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) was petitioned for data on applicants to traditional vascular surgery fellowship and integrated vascular residency training programs (years 2006-2009). In addition, 111 applications received at a single academic institution for the year 2009 were reviewed in depth. The number of traditional vascular fellowship applicants and the corresponding number of positions remained stable. In contrast, the number of integrated vascular resident applicants increased dramatically, with 152 applicants seeking to match into 19 available positions in 2009. For the year 2009, 88% of integrated vascular residency applicants did not match, while 16% of traditional fellowship positions went unfilled. The most notable difference between integrated residency and traditional fellowship applicants is the number of foreign medical graduates (68.7% vs. 26.7% in 2008, P < .001). Of the 111 integrated applicants applying for our single position (73% of entire 2009 applicant pool), the majority of applicants were residing in the United States (88.3%) and a sizable proportion (25.2%) had completed at least one full year of either surgical training or surgical research at an institution in the Unites States. Objective measures of academic success included mean United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 and Step 2 scores of 89.1 and 89.5, respectively. The mean number of peer-reviewed journal publications at the time of application was 2.8. The number of integrated vascular surgery residency applicants far outweighs the number of available positions. Growing interest in more efficient and comprehensive vascular surgery training will continue to augment demand. As educators, vascular surgeons should seize this opportunity and aggressively expand the number of available integrated residency training positions.

Choice of Vascular Surgery as a Specialty: What is Important?

In the last few years, the Association of Program Directors in Vascular Surgery has become increasingly concerned that the number of applicants to vascular surgery residencies has remained stable, while the number of available positions has increased substantially and quality of applicants has diminished. What factors are relevant for residents and medical students whether they do or do not choose vascular surgery as a specialty? In this article, we cite specific reasons that played key roles in this decision-making process, based on various surveys and reports addressing this issue. Technical aspects of vascular surgery, the role of mentors, and lifestyle issues were shown to be critical factors in the choice of potential trainees. Different training paradigms were also shown to be favored by residents and students, depending on their level of training. The findings in these surveys have helped vascular surgery program directors devise new and innovative training paradigms and to develop strategies to attract future trainees.

Fellowship Directors’ Perceptions of the 2005 NRMP Radiology Fellowship Match 1

The aim of the study is to gauge radiology fellowship directors' experiences with the fellowship application process and perceptions of the National Resident Matching Program Radiology Fellowship Match, as well as compare these perceptions with those of senior residents. An electronic survey was sent to 291 members of the Association of Program Directors in Radiology. Responses were compared directly with an earlier survey of senior residents who participated in the same cycle of the Fellowship Match. Sixty-seven respondents participated in the survey. Based on our estimates of the total number of US-based radiology subspecialty fellowship programs, this represents between 15.3% (67/438) and 24.2% (67/277) of all fellowship directors. Approximately three quarters (52/76 directors; 77.6%) participated in the Fellowship Match. Respondents believe that the match process makes the process fairer for all applicants (31/43 respondents; 70.5%) and primarily benefits residents (30/76 respondents; 60.0%), a significant difference compared with senior residents (P < .01). The majority of fellowship directors favor the current calendar and the ability to select internal candidates outside the Match. The majority of respondents believe that programs generally are not abiding by the rules of the Match (22/43 respondents; 51.2%), and at least 15 instances of rule violations were reported. A majority of fellowship directors favor continuing the Match in some form (26/42 respondents; 61.9%). Although there are significant differences in perception of the Match process between fellowship directors and senior residents, the majority of fellowship directors favor continuing the Match in some form. Several potential solutions, including explicit declaration of the number of available positions and strict enforcement of Match rules, may help improve the process in the future.

So You Want to Be a Professor!

You’ve finished your PhD. You’re almost done with your postdoc. Now what? If you aim to stay in academia, read on.

Collegiate Risk Management and Insurance Education

Introduction The most recent survey of collegiate risk management and insurance (RMI) education, conducted over six years ago by researchers at the Insurance Center at Drake University, provided a glimpse into the collegiate educational opportunities in RMI. Recently, academic institutions have experienced a number of significant changes that can be expected to impact all disciplines, including RMI. These changes include a contracting job market, shrinking pools of state funds available for the support of higher education, declining enrollments in business schools, and shifts from a uniform standards criteria to a mission-oriented evaluation process by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). In addition to general trends such as these, some dramatic discipline-specific changes appear to be influencing RMI education. Concern over pollution liabilities, mass torts, health care financing, and the growth in costs of natural catastrophes has put risk management in the public eye. Federal interest in insurance regulation, product liability reform, and universal health care have added interest in the discipline. Yet several RMI programs at highly regarded universities have been eliminated, and additional losses seem possible. An investigation of the current status and expected future of collegiate RMI education, therefore, is warranted. At the request of the Strategic Planning Committee of the American Risk and Insurance Association (ARIA), we conducted a survey of collegiate risk management and insurance education in the United States and Canada. The purpose of the project was to gauge the status of collegiate RMI education and observe trends in course offerings, programs, faculty, and students. In this article, a school is said to have RMI if it offers at least one RMI course at the undergraduate level; it has an RMI program if it offers an RMI major, minor, or concentration. The results of the survey indicate that RMI studies are widespread, with over 26,000 students enrolled in RMI courses at more than 200 of the responding schools. Over 60 of these schools offer RMI majors, minors, or concentrations at the undergraduate level. Over 380 faculty positions are devoted to teaching RMI courses at the responding institutions. Many of these positions are filled by part-time instructors, particularly at schools with undergraduate RMI studies. Although the survey results show that the supply of RMI faculty positions will likely grow over the next five years, the number of new RMI doctorates is expected to exceed the number of available positions. Some of the new graduates will fill finance or economics positions, choose to teach outside the United States and Canada, or take nonacademic positions. A slight majority of the responding schools house their RMI studies in finance departments. Other frequently mentioned departments include risk management and insurance; finance and economics; and finance, insurance, and real estate. Although RMI incorporates aspects of several disciplines, educational institutions associate it most closely with finance. Separate RMI departments are more likely to be found where full RMI programs (majors, minors, or concentrations) exist. Not unrelated to faculty status is curriculum status, which is also expected to grow in the next five years. Although three schools expect to eliminate RMI studies, 15 plan to add them, and, among existing programs, 40 anticipate supplementing their RMI studies with additional RMI course offerings. Nonetheless, RMI is still likely to remain a small discipline. To provide a more complete explanation of the survey results, the next section briefly reviews general business education studies and RMI education, specifically. Descriptions of the hypotheses to be tested and survey methodology follow. The fourth section contains the results. The final section of the article discusses select conclusions and implications for risk management and insurance education, as well as suggestions for future research. …

Training of vascular surgeons: The two-class system

I am pleased to have been asked to participate in today's Critical Issues Forum that addresses the training of vascular surgeons. The original title for my presentation was Training of the Practicing Surgeon. The intent was for me to discuss the freestanding programs usually referred to as nonapproved programs, a misnomer because none have ever even been inspected for approval. I mention this to simply point out that we tend to lump practicing community vascular surgeons without certification on one side of the equation and academic vascular surgeons with certification on the other side. In fact, this is exactly what is happening: we are fostering a two-class training system and creating a two-class surgical system. My talk today follows on the heels of Gene Bernstein's 1 presentation to this body in 1988 in which he argued the case for recognizing freeo, tanding programs. He concluded that the freestanding programs provided a means to increase the number of available positions for advanced training in vascular surgery. Furthermore, their graduates should have the opportunity to become certified. Today's second look, as tided in the program, is timely for reviewing the events and results following the establishment of regulations for accrediting vascular surgical training programs. We need to be critical and, where necessary, express dissatisfaction. For some, the level of dissatisfaction is low, and today's review is more for polish than revision. For others, dissatisfaction is intense and reflects a commitment to effect change and establish parity for all of our vascular trainees.

Structural and magnetic properties of FeMo6S8 in the temperature range from 1.5 to 300 K

Abstract Mossbauer effect and magnetic susceptibility measurements have been used to study structural and magnetic transformations in the Chevrel phase FeMo6S8. A structural phase transformation at 100 K is observed, probably analogous to the rhombohedral-triclinic transformation seen in Fe2Mo6S8. An anti-ferromagnetic transition is seen at ∼40 K, with a complex magnetic state arising fromthe distribution of Fe among a number of available positions.

Symmetry–entropy–volume relationships in polymorphism

SummaryGroup theoretical analysis of the normal vibrations of isolated molecules and of macroscopic crystals indicates that the principal effect of symmetry reduction is to remove the degeneracy of the normal vibrations, thus reducing the number of microscopic complexions of the phonon distribution, and reducing the entropy. This mechanism is effective only in point groups containing a rotation axis of order 3 or greater, and may play a part in the high-low cordierite transition.Two other symmetry-related entropy contributions are discussed : the first is the loss of positional degeneracy in systems in which the number of available positions exceeds the number of atoms, as in high-low quartz, vlasovite, and many ferroelectrics. The second is the loss of positional degeneracy in a solid solution, which leads to unmixing, as in high-low albite, microcline-sanidine, and high-low cordierite transitions. These mechanisms are effective in all point groups down to 1 =C1, and can proceed even withinC1by a change in the unit cell volume.Consideration of entropy-volume relationships suggests that the glaucophane I–II transition has less order-disorder character than previously supposed. It is suggested that zoisite-clinozoisite, anthophyllite-cummingtonite and enstatite-clinoenstatite relationships are polytypic rather than polymorphic in the usual sense, and the mechanisms responsible for producing the stacking order are discussed.The implications of the differences between the behaviour of the classical double oscillator (often used as a model for displacive transitions) and its quantized analogue are discussed.