Forecasting organizational changes

In this article the author argues that because of the difficulties associated with human behaviour such factors are frequently omitted from forecasts. Yet no organization can afford to disregard these factors if their forecasts are to be meaningful. The author includes illustrations of organizational change which he maintains will spread rapidly. Finally he discusses his own initial experiments in forecasting organizational change.     

Psychosocial versus biomedical risk factors in Kevorkian's first forty-seven physician-assisted deaths

This article examines biomedical and psychosocial data on the first forty-seven cases of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) of Kevorkian as collected by means of both a physical autopsy and a preliminary psychological autopsy. The following patterns emerge: 1) The physical condition of these PAS patients was not typical of the conditions that lead to death in the United States. 2) Consistent with the above findings, our pilot data indicate that only 31.1 percent of these patients were terminal. While 73.9 percent were described as reporting pain, only 42.6 percent were revealed at autopsy to have a specific anatomical basis for their pain. However 36 percent were described as depressed, 66 percent as having some disability, and perhaps of key importance, 90 percent expressed a fear of dependency. Most important, our pilot data suggest the possibility of large gender differences, since 3) 68.1 percent of these forty-seven PAS's are women and only 31.9 percent are men. This represents the reverse of the gender pattern for completed suicides in the United States in 1995, resembling instead the approximate pattern for unsuccessful suicide attempts. 4) Approximately 75 percent of both men and women in the above sample were described as reporting pain. Men were almost twice as likely to have had an anatomical basis for the pain and three times as likely to be terminal. Our pilot data indicate PAS women are more likely to be described as depressed and twice as likely to have had a history of previous unsuccessful suicide attempts. 5) Kevorkian's patients were older than the typical unaided suicides in America. Reported pain decreases with age as does depression; however anatomical basis for pain increases slightly with age, and no age effect emerges for terminality. 6) Approximately two-thirds of those physician-assisted suicides were at middle SES levels. History of disability was the biggest risk factor for the low SES patients and fear of dependency for the high SES patients.     

How to shape positive relationships in medical practices and hospitals

Managing workplace conflict is one of the most important, stressful, and time-consuming tasks faced by today's medical leaders. Poorly managed workplace conflict can alienate patients, demoralize staff, increase turnover, damage relationships with valued referral sources and third party carriers concerned about patient satisfaction, and lead medical practices to costly "corporate divorces." Physician executives cannot solve the problems caused by disruptive doctors simply by bolstering their own conflict management skills or by policing offenders. The larger contexts within which inappropriate workplace behavior occurs must also be assessed and addressed. The true leadership challenge is to intervene in ways that help to foster a "culture" of appropriate interpersonal dynamics throughout your organization. This requires learning to think and to intervene systematically.     

A New Era in Governmental Reform: Realizing Community

The good government models of the 1990s realized a focus that included reinventing, reengineer-ing, rethinking, quality, empowerment, and devolution of the organization. These organizational reform ideologies sought to increase involvement, improve productivity, manage performance, and drive results. One essential key that has been disregarded in these government models is the involvement of community in the decision-making process. This paper points to the importance of involving and empowering citizens in the decision-making process, particularly in regard to community justice based on the notion of restorative justice system. Community justice, a modern day reform movement with international proportions, is based on the principles of empowering community, repairing harm caused by a crime or disturbance, and reducing risk to the community.     

Obsessive-Compulsive Features in Pathological Lottery and Scratch-Ticket Gamblers

The results of this study support the notion that pathological gamblers drawn from the community would score higher on all three scores from the YBOCS than light gamblers. Consistent with hypotheses, pathological gamblers (lottery and scratch ticket) reported more obsessions, compulsions, and avoidance behavior than the light gamblers, and also reported having more urges to engage in injurious behaviors to themselves and others. These findings provide evidence that pathological gambling falls in a spectrum or family of disorders which have obsessive-compulsive disorder at its core. These findings support McElroy, Hudson, Philips, et al.'s (1993) suggestions of similarities between OCD and Impulse Control Disorders, and extend Blaszczynski (1999) findings of overlap between pathological gamblers and OCD in a treatment population. Heavy gamblers also reported significantly more hoarding symptoms and compulsive buying than light gamblers. More research in this area may show further evidence of a spectrum of disorders with obsessive compulsive disorder at its core, and show further links between impulse control disorders (such as pathological gambling) and OCD.