Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
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Legislators are considering the conflicting concerns of consumers, researchers, health care providers, and business in the rapidly developing area of genetics. The Oregon Genetic Privacy Act of 1995 was written to protect the individual's right to genetic privacy by providing legal protection for medical information, tissue samples, and DNA samples. This legislation has had an impact on the academic medical center of Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) with its teaching hospital and associated clinics, both in providing medical services and in research. ⋯ It affects both patient care and research. OHSU and other academic medical centers have a mandate to provide leadership in the education of medical students, residents, and physicians about genetic privacy and the issues and areas affected by it. As genetic privacy legislation is developed and enacted at state and federal levels, the needs of individuals must be balanced with the needs of institutions and of research in the larger context of societal needs.
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In 1983, 43% of internal medicine residency program directors had held their positions for less than three years. The purposes of this study were to determine the job turnover rate for internal medicine program directors, and the characteristics of program directors and residency programs that are associated with job turnover. ⋯ Yearly turnover for internal medicine residency program directors is substantial. The four independent predictors of turnover identified in this study should be of interest to institutions recruiting or retaining program directors and to aspiring program directors.
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Since 1995, the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine has monitored students' professional behaviors in their third and fourth years. The authors recognized that several students with professionalism deficiencies during their clerkships had manifested problematic behaviors earlier in medical school. They also observed behaviors of concern--such as inappropriate behavior in small groups--in some first- and second-year students who could have been helped by early remediation. ⋯ Then the physicianship problem is described in the dean's letter of recommendation for residency and the student is placed on academic probation. The student may be eligible for academic dismissal from school even if he or she has passing grades in all courses. The authors describe their experience with this system, discuss lessons learned, and review future plans to expand the system to deal with residents' mistreatment of students.