A program of management training for residents

To help prepare residents in preventive medicine and occupational medicine for their future management roles, the University of Arizona College of Medicine incorporated administrative training into many aspects of its residency programs, beginning in 1983. Training focuses on seven skill areas seen as needed to meet the management demands of the physicians' future specialties. The authors discuss the career choices of University of Arizona graduates and advocate long-term administrative training for all specialties.     

A training program in communication skills for receptionists

As integral members of the mental health or human service team, receptionists and secretaries can do a great deal to facilitate the helping process. This paper evaluates a training program designed to increase the communication skills of receptionists and secretaries. Participants in the full-day workshop gave the training experience high ratings, demonstrated significantly higher levels of communication skills than a comparison group, and reported using the skills in their actual work settings.     

A modified method of calculating the lateral build-up ratio for small electron fields

This note outlines an improved method of calculating dose per monitor unit values for small electron fields using Khan's lateral build-up ratio (LBR). This modified method obtains the LBR directly from the ratio of measured, surface normalized, electron beam percentage depth dose curves. The LBR calculated using this modified method more accurately accounts for the change in lateral scatter with decreasing field size. The LBR is used along with Khan's dose per monitor unit formula to calculate dose per monitor unit values for a set of small fields. These calculated dose per monitor unit values are compared to measured values to within 3.5% for all circular fields and electron energies examined. The modified method was further tested using a small triangular field. A maximum difference of 4.8% was found.     

A program for residency training in clinical pathology.

The goals, organization, components, instruction approaches, and the continuing assessment of a clinical pathology residency program are described. This program emphasizes training by rotation in the services of the clinical laboratory, application and interpretation of laboratory data for patient care, laboratory management, teaching conferences, and research and development.     

A computer program in BASIC for calculating gradients used in chromatography, electrophoresis and centrifugation

Concentration gradients are often used in separations based on chromatographic, electrophoretic and centrifugal methods. In this report, a BASIC computer program for calculating and graphically representing gradients is described. This GRADIENT program is intended to be run on IBM-compatible computers.     

A computer program for calculating the acid-base parameters in samples of blood using a mini-computer

Summary A computer program is presented and evaluated, which calculates all acid-base parameters from data provided by either the indirect Astrup method or the direct method using empirical formulae derived from the Siggaard-Andersen curve nomogram. The program is implemented on a PDP 8 in a multi-user FOCAL environment and can be adapted to other electronic calculators.     

TRACK: a FORTRAN program for calculating the Foulkes-Davis tracking index

This paper describes a program that calculates the Foulkes-Davis tracking index, the probability that two individuals selected at random will have measurement curves that do not cross.     

Clinical training: a simulation program for phlebotomy

Background

Undergraduate paramedic students undertake clinical placements in a variety of locations. These placements are considered an essential element for paramedic pre-employment education. However, anecdotal evidence suggests some students have not had positive experiences on their emergency ambulance placements. The objective of this study was to identify the type of experiences had by students during ambulance clinical placements and to provide feedback to the ambulance services.

Methods

In this pilot study we employed a cross-sectional study methodology, using a convenience sample of undergraduate paramedic students available in semester one of 2007 to ascertain the students' views on their reception by on-road paramedics and their overall experience on emergency ambulance clinical placements. Ethics approval was granted.

Results

There were 77 students who participated in the survey, 64% were females, with 92% of students < 25 years of age and 55% < 65 Kg in weight. There was a statistically significant difference in average height between the genders (Male 179 cm vs Female 168 cm, p < 0.001). Clinical instructors were available to 44% of students with 30% of students excluded from patient management. Thirty percent of students felt there was a lot of unproductive down time during the placement. Paramedics remarked to 40% of students that they doubted their ability to perform the physical role of a paramedic, of this group 36% were advised this more than once.

Conclusion

This study demonstrates that for a small group of students, emergency ambulance clinical placements were not a positive experience clinically or educationally. Some qualified paramedics doubt if a number of female students can perform the physical role of a paramedic.     

A pocket calculator program for the evaluation of the oxygen diffusion to perfusion ratio

A pocket calculator program has been written for the evaluation of the oxygen difusion to perfusion ratio (). It allows one to avoid the computational errors involved by approximating the oxygen dissociation curve through a straight line.     

TI-59 programmable calculator program for calculating predicted operative mortality in general surgery

A program for the TI-59 programmable calculator for calculating predicted postoperative mortality is presented. Input data are based on handy, clinical, non-invasive pre-operative and operative parameters retrieved mostly significant in this respect by former multivariate logistic regression analysis of a broad data-base; their relative weights are incorporated into the program data base as basic coefficients. Considerations employed in its usage are discussed, as well as possible future technical and/or environmental modifications.     

Individual and group training program

We describe the experience of a didactic analysis group during a 3-year period in the Academy of Analytical Psychotherapy placing special emphasis on the training of the psychoanalyst, who, apart from carrying out his individual analysis, must complement it with group training. The advantages of the group analysis are given particular attention when evaluating the training of the candidate from the point of view of the psychoanalyst and the 6 doctors who have received this education. In this type of training for individuals and groups the program aims at a deeper study of the aspects of narcissism, the formation of the self and the social ego which we consider to be the fundamental elements in the development of this didactic experience.     

Mental health consultation for a clinical law training program

Interaction between mental health professionals and the legal system has been essentially unproductive. Psychologists have traditionally been limited to two basic roles: (1) expert witnesses and (2) therapists for offenders. This paper describes a mental health consultation program which attempted to develop an innovative and productive relationship between psychologists and the legal system. The goal of the consultation was to increase the ability of law students to be more sensitive and responsive to their clients' complex psychological-social problems. The consultation focused on enhancing the skills of law professors to teach basic interviewing techniques and to integrate these techniques into a model for legal counseling which is more responsive to the clients' total needs. Significant differences between legal and psychological counseling are described, and areas for future consultation by community psychologists are identified.     

Evaluation of a counseling training program for nursing staff

One of the essential issues in nurses' daily work is interaction with patients, patients' families, and co-workers. However, in the Spanish academic programs for Nursing Schools, social interaction skills do not receive adequate attention and nurses often report communication problems. In order to diminish these difficulties and to train nursing staff to better manage interaction, an intensive counseling training program was designed and implemented in a General University Hospital. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a counseling training program and assessing the evolution of difficulties that professionals perceived in their work in three different periods: before the training, after the training, and at follow-up, 2 months after the program was delivered. According to the results, we can maintain the hypothesis that the counseling training program reduces perceived interaction difficulties in nursing staff. Consequently, we can expect a further improvement in the interaction performance with patients and their families after the training. These findings suggest that counseling training has to be taken into account to improve quality of care in health care providers, and it may also help to prevent professional burnout by increasing competence level at minimum personal cost.