Current surgery
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Surgeons face difficult communication challenges with patients and their families. There is a need for improved education in communication skills, especially in giving bad news. Understanding surgeons' attitudes is the first step in designing effective education programs. ⋯ These results suggest that surgical specialists rate themselves as competent in effective communication, believe in its importance, and agree with the need for training. An organized approach to training in interaction skills, especially in giving bad news, is warranted.
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Comparative Study
Do general surgery applicants really want to be general surgeons?
The authors sought to compare categorical general surgery applicants with applicants in other specialties regarding their final specialty-choice ranking for residency positions. ⋯ In 2004, the categorical general surgery applicant pool was relatively uncommitted to the specialty of general surgery. The number of applicants ranking categorical general surgery as a non-preferred specialty was likely even higher than these data indicate, as unmatched applicants in non-NRMP matches who then ranked categorical general surgery programs in the NRMP were tabulated by the NRMP as having ranked categorical general surgery as their preferred specialty.
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The purpose of this study is to review the patterns of cervical spine evaluation in blunt trauma patients to identify redundant, inefficient, or risky practices at our community hospital.
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We continue to increase the amount of evaluations to improve the outcomes of our residency programs. Although ongoing faculty evaluations clearly are an important part of faculty development, their value in terms of improving the program needs to be evaluated. The questions asked were as follows: (1) Do faculty evaluations continue to improve the faculty over the course of successive evaluation periods? (2) Are there groups of faculty who would benefit the most from faculty evaluation feedback? (3) Are there any specific objective categories within the evaluation that carry more value and may help to shorten this form? ⋯ (1) Ongoing faculty evaluations indeed are a powerful tool to improve the faculty as a whole. (2) The faculty members with the lowest evaluations showed the largest amount of improvement. (3) Providing feedback to the residents seems to be the most valued factor by the residents for faculty evaluations and perhaps could become the basis of the evaluation for the most accomplished faculty.
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Prior data have shown that resident duty-hour reform has not affected faculty work hours; yet the preservation of faculty hours may have been at the expense of productivity. We sought to examine change in clinical productivity. ⋯ Faculty have preserved work hours and clinical productivity, despite a tendency to take on work previously done by residents. This suggests that academic activities may have suffered.