Eradication: lessons from the past

The declaration in 1980 that smallpox had been eradicated reawakened interest in disease eradication as a public health strategy. The smallpox programme's success derived, in part, from lessons learned from the preceding costly failure of the malaria eradication campaign. In turn, the smallpox programme offered important lessons with respect to other prospective disease control programmes, and these have been effectively applied in the two current global eradication initiatives, those against poliomyelitis and dracunculiasis. Taking this theme a step further, there are those who would now focus on the development of an inventory of diseases which might, one by one, be targeted either for eradication or elimination. This approach, while interesting, fails to recognize many of the important lessons learned and their broad implications for contemporary disease control programmes worldwide.     

“It’s kind of hard to go to the doctor’s office if you’re hated there.” A call for gender‐affirming care from transgender and gender diverse adolescents in the United States

Research has identified discrimination and a lack of knowledgeable providers as major barriers for transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals seeking care, which contributes to greater stress and significant health disparities affecting this population. However, research involving TGD youth is limited. The aim of this study, therefore, was to describe TGD adolescents’ experiences, concerns and needs in healthcare settings, including their feedback on themes previously identified by healthcare providers (i.e. discomfort with gender‐related topics, reasons for not asking patients about gender and previous training regarding gender diversity). The authors conducted semi‐structured interviews with 12 TGD‐identified adolescents aged 14–17, living in Minnesota, USA in 2017–2018. Inductive thematic analysis was used to summarise participant comments into themes and subthemes. Two main themes were directly relevant to concerns and needs of TGD youth in healthcare settings and their views on healthcare providers’ concerns: (a) asking about gender and pronouns and (b) training for healthcare providers. Findings suggest the need for revisions to clinic materials, infrastructure and protocols. Adding training to all general medical and nursing education to increase knowledge, comfort and competence around gender identity would further improve care and ultimately reduce healthcare disparities affecting TGD youth.     

价值医疗视角下医院按DRG付费制度实施效果分析

目的分析按疾病诊断相关分组(DRG)付费制度下医院行为方式改变和对医院运营管理影响。方法基于价值医疗视角从医疗成本和医疗质量构建指标体系,选择2021年1—4月(实施后)和2019年1—4月(实施前)上海市某妇产科医院病案首页共44 238例数据进行对比分析。结果医疗质量方面,DRG入组率达到了99.87%,全院病例组合指数增长了4.00%,达到了1.04,平均住院日由3.92天下降到3.65天,费用消耗指数由1.51下降到1.16,时间消耗指数由1.02下降到0.99,患者医疗纠纷投诉率由0.19%下降到0.07%。成本方面,DRG总权重增长了8.01%,DRG组数从140组增长到154组,药占比和耗占比保持相对稳定,次均费用由9 780元增长到12 037元。结论按DRG付费制度下试点医院的医疗质量、服务能力和效率同步提升,但是需要进一步加强医疗成本控制,提高精细化运营水平。     

从澳大利亚的医学教育模式看我国医学教育改革的迫切需要

探讨医学教育改革问题。通过对澳大利亚医疗卫生体系和医学教育体系进行实地考察,总结报告该国医疗卫生体系和医学教育体系的现状,并分析其对我国卫生管理特别是医学教育体系的可借鉴之处。     

Putting your course on the Web: lessons from a case study and systematic literature review

BACKGROUND: Education via the Internet offers enormous potential, but many online courses are pedagogically or technically weak and many good projects are never mainstreamed. METHOD: In drawing up our recommendations to address the issues around putting a course on the web, we drew on 3 main sources of data: an extensive in-depth course evaluation; a systematic review of the literature, and questions raised by participants on our training-the-trainers courses. RECOMMENDATIONS: For any web-based course to succeed, 10 overlapping and iterative areas of activity must be addressed. These are: the market for the course; course aims and intended learning outcomes; choice of software platform; staff training needs; writing high quality study materials; design features for active learning; technical and administrative challenges; evaluation and quality improvement; mainstreaming the course within the institution, and financial viability.     

Extending community involvement in the medical curriculum: lessons from a case study

OBJECTIVES: Recent reports have stressed the importance of developing medical students' understanding of primary and community care and their ability to work in health-care teams. DESIGN: An innovative 3-year project aimed to achieve this understanding by broadening the range of health-care professionals and community organizations contributing to the medical curriculum. SETTING: King's College School of Medicine, London. SUBJECTS: Undergraduate medical students. RESULTS: Through partnerships with three local community health care trusts, non-medical health care disciplines in the teaching hospital and a range of voluntary and statutory services, students have been introduced to a broader spectrum of care. This has taken place both within the core curriculum and through the development of special study modules. CONCLUSIONS: Involving teachers and organizations which have not traditionally contributed to medical education raises philosophical issues around the aims and rationale of their involvement and practical issues such as gaining curriculum time, recruiting suitable teachers and gaining credibility for the courses. We analyse the benefits and difficulties inherent in broadening the curriculum in this way and assess the lessons our experience provides for the future expansion of such learning, both locally and nationally.     

健康中国视域下的全科医学教育发展研究

在健康中国视域下,推进全科医学教育有着十分重要的意义,作为医疗院校以及医疗机构应当推进全科医学教育的人才培养,规范学科建设与发展.当下,全科医学教育健康机制刚刚起步,因此,作为教育工作者应当进一步完善教育体系,通过遵循市场和政策的引导,从而在健全全科医疗教育制度的同时,推动全科医学的发展,确保人民群众的生命健康.该文就...     

Who Are the Medical Travelers and What Do They Want?: A Qualitative Study

The ongoing debate on U.S. healthcare reform fueled by increasing cost and poor access to quality healthcare is spurring interest in medical travel. The topic of medical travel—going abroad to seek medical care—has been widely reported in various news outlets. This issue even resulted in a Senate Hearing before the Special Committee on Aging. Despite this popularity, very little empirical research has been conducted to describe and understand medical travelers. To fill this gap, the present study involves in-depth interviews of medical travel facilitators with extensive exposure to and communication with medical travelers. This article has multiple objectives. It aims to develop a demographic and psychographic profile of medical travelers and identify their underlying motives to seek medical care overseas. Based on these insights, it presents a list of propositions to be tested in further research. Finally, it offers practical implications for the healthcare industry.     

Teaching primary health care: some lessons from Zimbabwe

A new teaching programme for fourth-year medical students in child health in Harare, Zimbabwe is outlined. A 2-week attachment to a rural district-level hospital is intended to orient the students to primary health care and to the practice of clinical medicine in a low resource environment. The attachment has become popular with students and it is hoped that it will improve attitudes of teaching staff in the medical school towards primary health care.     

Malaria, agriculture, and development: lessons from past campaigns

The author presents in this article a historical-epidemiological evaluation of several anti-malaria campaigns and of the relative contribution of various direct measures employed and indirect factors operating during these campaigns. Approaches and factors that may be essential or at least useful for successful malaria control are identified. The malaria story in Palestine/Israel and the experience of the Tennessee Valley Authority are analyzed in some detail. In both cases, direct anti-malaria measures were versatile and based mostly on reduction of mosquito breeding and elimination of Anopheles larvae. Efficient organization and coordination of anti-malaria efforts, strenuous research and understanding of the vector biology, and accompanying socioeconomic and agricultural development contributed to successful campaigns. Malaria control in other parts of the United States and in Italy is also considered. The World Health Organization global anti-malaria campaign is discussed in the light of these earlier experiences. The study concludes that no single measure is sufficient to control malaria and that future anti-malaria campaigns need to adopt strategies that are flexible, incorporated into local health services, and interrelated with agricultural practices. Moreover, a certain threshold of socioeconomic development, health services infrastructure, and educational level may have to be reached for the successful application and maintenance of direct anti-malaria measures.     

Reorganization of public health services and the lessons from the past

The paper addresses the issues related to the restructuring of health services at the present stage of society development, improvement of forms and methods of management. A historical background of new reforms is given. It is shown that not always the restructuring of the existing public health management system leads to positive results.     

Conceptualizing Professionalism in Dietetics: An Australasian Qualitative Study

BackgroundProfessionalism is a vital aspect of health care and multidisciplinary teamwork. Although there is substantive professionalism literature in medicine and an expanding health care professions literature, there is a significant gap in understanding professionalism in dietetics. There are very few research papers in the dietetics literature on this issue compared with other health professions. Given the multidisciplinary nature of health care, it is important to understand what professionalism means within each profession to develop shared understandings across health care teams.ObjectiveThe study aim was to explore how dietetics professionalism is conceptualized by dietetic practitioners/preceptors, faculty, and new graduates.DesignA constructionist exploratory qualitative interview study was conducted.Participants/settingOne hundred participants (dietetics graduates, faculty, and practitioners/preceptors), associated with 17 universities across Australia and New Zealand and from diverse geographical and work settings, participated in 27 group and 24 individual interviews from March 2018 to June 2019.Statistical analyses performedThematic framework analysis was used to examine participants’ understandings of professionalism.ResultsTwenty-three dimensions of dietetics professionalism were identified, with the most common being communication and including four novel dimensions of professionalism (generational, emotion management, cultural capability, and advocacy) not previously described in other professions. Professionalism as emotion management and generational adds new insights to the professionalism literature, expanding understandings of this vital aspect of health care. Although high levels of consistency in professionalism understandings existed across the three stakeholder groups, some interesting differences were found. The profession of dietetics shares similarities with other professions in the ways professionalism is conceptualized.ConclusionsUsing these dimensions of professionalism as a framework for teaching and learning about professionalism will help in clarifying expectations and expand shared understandings about professionalism for dietitians, other health professions, and across multidisciplinary teams.     

Developing healthy local communities at local government level: lessons from the past decade

Abstract: There have been many approaches by the health sector to developing healthy communities based on local government areas in Australia in the past decade. Each has struggled with the need to establish realistic goals and to find ways of working more effectively with local government. This paper outlines four of these approaches–Healthy Cities, the Healthy Localities project, municipal health plans, and programs to address specific health problems or issues. Although the picture is one of huge diversity in the ways in which the issue is defined and action taken, a number of dimensions to a healthy community are emerging. However, if we are to be able to monitor change within and between the health of communities over time, indicators need to be developed and goals set. This will require a shift away from defining goals and targets in terms of populations (people), towards goals based on changes in organisations and systems. Engaging local government in this process will be vital and will require the health sector to develop a better understanding of the ways in which local government defines its role in creating healthy communities. It will also involve learning from local government the strategies that they have found most effective in dealing with complex problems that require action at many levels.     

Competency-based assessment and cultural compression in medical education: lessons from educational anthropology

OBJECTIVE: This paper explores the thesis that medical education is the cultural transmission to learners of specific values, which are increasingly expressed as graduation competencies. As testing is a powerful way to transmit cultural values to learners in a brief period of time, competency-based assessments can be an instrument of cultural compression in medical education. METHODS: The author reviewed medical literature to illustrate the concepts from educational anthropology, led the process one medical school used to develop its list of graduation competencies, and conducted a citation search about competency domains. RESULTS: There is support in the literature for viewing medical education as an example of cultural transmission and compression and for the assertion that testing influences student behaviour. The graduation competency statements developed by the school reflect traditional and emergent values. The citation search data confirmed that some competency domains reflected traditional values, while others reflected more emergent values. CONCLUSION: Concepts from educational anthropology are relevant to medical education and provide perspectives for understanding contemporary issues such as competency-based assessments.