Family medicine
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This paper describes the academic roles of the 1978 through 1985 graduates of family medicine faculty development fellowship programs sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJ) and the Division of Medicine of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ⋯ Based on a 74% response rate, profiles are drawn of graduates. These profiles are compared to a review of the literature in higher education on fellowships, faculty attrition, faculty activities, tenure, and promotion. Conclusions reached from these comparisons include: (1) The retention rate of fellows in full-time faculty positions equaled or exceeded those of other fellowships found in the literature. (2) The attrition rate of alumni from faculty positions has been less than that noted of faculty in other areas of higher education. (3) On average, fellowship graduates have spent less time in research activities than recommended for productivity. (4) The emphasis on research training, particularly in RWJ fellowships, was appropriate, given increasing expectations for research productivity in tenure and promotion decisions. (5) The national trend toward development of alternatives to traditional tenure tracks matches the patterns found in family medicine fellowship alumni--31% of these alumni were serving on such tracks.
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This study examined the accuracy of patient estimates of time spent in the waiting room, examining room, and with the physician. In addition, the impact of physician touch (such as a handshake in greeting) upon those estimates was determined. Patients were noted to be quite accurate in estimates of waiting room time. ⋯ The overestimation of physician contact time was positively related to the number of interruptions requiring the physician to leave the examining room. Minimal touch in greeting had no effect on estimates of waiting room time but did significantly magnify the underestimation of examining room waiting time. Patients who were touched did, on an average, overestimate physician contact time to a greater extent than those who were not touched; however, this difference did not reach statistical significance.
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A multitude of determinants have been identified as predictive of broken appointments. The majority of prior studies have been limited to univariate analysis of the relationship between predictors and appointment keeping behavior. The present report studied 25 independent predictors of no-show behavior using both univariate and multivariate analyses. ⋯ Multivariate analysis may yield a more accurate and clinically useful model of no-show behavior. For example, language barrier may be more of a problem than the race of the patient. Prospective studies might benefit from these considerations.
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Many ambulatory pediatric encounters result in drug therapy. Drug dose determination, based on a child's weight, can often be simplified by modifying the order of mathematical calculation. Specifically, multiplying by body weight as the last calculation, rather than as the initial calculation, often yields values easily manipulated mentally. With this mathematical manipulation, the identical calculation is often performed repetitively which, with time, may facilitate the calculation.