The Journal of family practice
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Productive research environments are important for the development of academic family medicine, yet many of the current family medicine chairs have had little research training or experience and have rated research skills as a low priority for themselves. The younger chairs, however, representing the next generation of academic leadership, may have more traditional academic values, including the promotion of research. ⋯ Younger chairs appear to have a greater appreciation for the importance of research, having received more formal training and valuing research skills in themselves and potential replacements. With the impending large turnover in family medicine leadership, there will be an opportunity to recruit chair replacements with similar viewpoints toward research, thus improving the outlook for research in academic family medicine.
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Numerous studies and anecdotal reports have identified lack of funding as a major obstacle to recruiting young physicians to academic medicine and to developing research in primary care. The focus of this study is the comparison of funding sources reported for published research in the primary care disciplines of family medicine, general internal medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology. ⋯ All four disciplines had diverse sources of funding with many similarities and relatively few differences. An important finding of the study was the amount of unfunded research conducted and published in these primary care disciplines.
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While programs to train residents in smoking cessation counseling skills have been devised, few have assessed trainee behavioral changes in practice settings where residents were blind to the evaluation of their behavior. This study assessed the effectiveness of a training program in smoking cessation counseling and chart-prompting system in increasing the frequency and quality of counseling by residents at three clinic sites. ⋯ A training program in smoking cessation counseling and a chart-prompting system did not result in a lasting change in resident behavior. System factors may play an important role in long-term behavior change.
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Smokeless tobacco has been implicated as a risk factor for numerous oral conditions. Since baseball players are known to have a high incidence of smokeless tobacco use, they are an excellent group in which to study the effects of smokeless tobacco on the oral cavity. We report our findings in 206 of 220 eligible men during spring training of a professional baseball organization. Major and minor league ballplayers, coaches, and management personnel were included. ⋯ We conclude that the use of smokeless tobacco products is a significant risk factor for the development of oral leukoplakia, and that this risk is greatest in those individuals who use smokeless tobacco continuously throughout the year.