BMJ : British medical journal
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To report the career choices and career destinations in 1995 of doctors who qualified in the United Kingdom in 1988. ⋯ Concerns about recruitment difficulties in general practice are justified. Women are now entering general practice in greater numbers than men. There is no evidence of a greater exodus from the NHS from the 1988 qualifiers than from earlier cohorts.
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To determine the career destinations, by 1995, of doctors who qualified in the United Kingdom in 1977; the relation between their destinations and early career choice; and their intentions regarding retirement age. ⋯ Planning for the medical workforce needs to be supported by information about doctors' career plans, destinations, and whole time equivalent years of work. Postgraduate training needs to take account of doctors' eventual choice of specialty (and the timing of this choice).
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To provide (via the Mental Health Act Commission's "national visit") empirical evidence on ward occupancy levels, use of the Mental Health Act 1983, nurse staffing, and care of female patients on acute adult psychiatric wards. ⋯ Attention should focus on improving the quality of acute inpatient psychiatric care as well as of community care.
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Meta Analysis Comparative Study
The unpredictability paradox: review of empirical comparisons of randomised and non-randomised clinical trials.
To summarise comparisons of randomised clinical trials and non-randomised clinical trials, trials with adequately concealed random allocation versus inadequately concealed random allocation, and high quality trials versus low quality trials where the effect of randomisation could not be separated from the effects of other methodological manoeuvres. ⋯ Failure to use adequately concealed random allocation can distort the apparent effects of care in either direction, causing the effects to seem either larger or smaller than they really are. The size of these distortions can be as large as or larger than the size of the effects that are to be detected.