Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
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Internal medicine residents at one school identified barriers to and predictors of publishing their research. Insufficient time was the key obstacle to completing research. Residents with previous research experience, senior residents, and men were more likely to publish.
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Review
Why physicians are unprepared to treat patients who have alcohol- and drug-related disorders.
Most primary care physicians do not feel competent to treat alcohol- and drug-related disorders. Physicians generally do not like to work with patients with these disorders and do not find treating them rewarding. Despite large numbers of such patients, the diagnosis and treatment of alcohol- and drug-related disorders are generally considered peripheral to or outside medical matters and ultimately outside medical education. ⋯ Programs that have successfully changed students' attitudes and skills for treatment of addicted patients continue to be exceptional and limited in focus rather than the general practice in U. S. medical schools. The authors review the findings of the literature on these problems, discuss the barriers to educational reform, and propose recommendations for developing an effective medical school curriculum about alcohol- and drug-related disorders.
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Comparative Study
Direct graduate medical education payments to teaching hospitals by Medicare: unexplained variation and public policy contradictions.
To comprehensively examine both inter- and intrastate variations in Medicare's cost-rate structure for teaching hospitals and to assess the Medicare payment system for graduate medical education (GME), as presently configured, as an instrument to promote physician workforce reform, specifically sufficient public access to primary care physician services. ⋯ Inherent inequities in DME funding seriously undermine the current Medicare GME payment system's capacity to contribute to U.S. physician workforce reform and to improve access to care. There is actually a financial incentive to train residents in areas in which there is relatively less need for their services.