A Response to Social Problems in Developing Countries

This paper considers social development as a relatively new concept, and new practice model. Its definition still lacks concreteness. Here it is viewed as a process of planned institutional change to bring about a better fit between human needs and social policies and programmes (Sanders, 1982); it is not satisfactory to measure development in purely economic terms, for this has resulted in the marginalization of the majority of the population in developing countries. The curative and remedial functions adopted by the social work profession in accordance with the dictates of the modernization approach, have rendered social work unable to address itself meaningfully to the problem of marginalization or mass poverty. Social development rests upon social policies that are promotive of human needs and this is only possible in circumstances where such policies are a product of the people's participation.     

Hair loss and electability: The bald truth

This study probes one particular component of the well documented linkage between personal appearance and impression formation by investigating the extent to which and the mechanisms through which bald and balding men are underrepresented in high elective office. Study 1 compares the prevalence of hair loss among governors and members of Congress, on the one hand, and the general public, on the other, and concludes that officeholders are much more likely to have a full head of hair than would be expected of men of their age. Study 2 poses an experimental test of voter bias against bald and balding candidates by presenting voters in a simulated congressional race with materials depicting otherwise identical candidates in either their natural bald or balding condition or wearing a professionally fitted hairpiece. No voter bias against bald or balding candidates is apparent, a finding that suggests that the causal mechanism underlying underrepresentation of bald and balding men is not voter bias.Ugly is a field without grass, a plant without leaves, or a head without hair (Ovid, quoted by Klenhard, 1986, p. 11).Politics represents an area of public life in which the effects of appearance may lead to very important social consequences and in which the idea of special privilege for the pretty is particularly repellent (Efran and Patterson, 1975, p. 352).The authors thank Judee Burgoon, Michael Burgoon, and Carol Sigelman for useful comments and suggestions, and Brandt Baker, Henry Ewbank, Jeff Gardner, Henry Kenski, Dan Singer, and David Williams for their assistance with this project.     

Narratives and the Therapist's Allegiance

Trainee therapists are attracted to particular treatment philosophies through the influence of complex factors which are embedded in the narratives of the origins and successes of a particular model of treatment. The relevance of these stories to the development of a professional identity is discussed with specific attention to family therapy.     

Perspectives on Ecological Context,Social Policy,and Career Guidance

Individual behavior, career guidance theory and practice, and public policy are interdependent, and they are interactive with the characteristics of the ecological context. Each of these constructs is examined.     

The Impact of Structural Reform on County Government Service Provision*

Objective. This study examines the effect that county government structure has on county spending in an environment of rapid population growth. In particular, it looks at the consequence of changing from a traditional commission noncharter form to an appointed administrator/elected executive commission type with a home rule charter. Methods. This study uses a pooled time‐series design to analyze the spending behavior of seven rapid‐growth counties in Florida that adopted a modernized structure between 1980 and 1990. Results. The findings indicate that changing the form of county government leads to a statistically significant increase in total spending as well as for spending for traditional and regional services. Conclusions. In addition to the theoretical implications for studying government structural impacts, there are practical implications for county officials in rapidly growing areas who view the adoption of modernized structures as a means to facilitate the expansion of current services and/or the addition of new services.     

A Bayesian growth and yield model for slash pine plantations

We formulate a traditional growth and yield model as a Bayes model. We attempt to introduce as few new assumptions as possible. Zellner's Bayesian method of moments procedure is used, because the published model did not include any distributional assumptions. We generate predictive posterior samples for a number of stand variables using the Gibbs sampler. The means of the samples compare favorably with the predictions from the published model. In addition, our model delivers distributions of outcomes, from which it is easy to establish measures of uncertainty, such as highest posterior density regions.     

Doctors as fiduciaries: do medical professionals have the right not to treat?

In the first part of the paper, the author discusses the origin and obligation of the medical profession and argues that the duty of fidelity in the context of a patient–professional relationship (PPR) is the central obligation of medical professionals. The duty of fidelity entails seeking the patient’s best interests even at the expense of the professional’s own, and refusing to treat a “risk-patient” infected by SARS is a breach of fidelity because the medical professional is involved in a situation of conflict of interests and places his/her own health interests ahead of the patient. The author attributes the failure to the fact that professional ethical codes are not legally enforceable, and this failure at the microethical level damages the integrity of the profession at the macroethical level. The author argues that professional autonomy must be subordinated to professional fidelity for the medical profession to survive as a social institution. In the second part of the paper, the author shows that the PPR has most of the important attributes of a fiduciary relationship, and analyzes several important court cases in some common law jurisdictions to illustrate the increasing importance of fiduciary law in adjudicating disputes between patients and medical professionals, and appeals to law courts and legislatures to apply more stringent fiduciary principles on the medical profession to ensure that the professional duty of fidelity is enforced and the goal of medicine fulfilled for the interests of members of the community who has established the medical profession in the first place.

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Zusammenfassung  Im ersten Teil dieses Beitrags diskutiert der Autor den Ursprung und die Verpflichtung des ärztlichen Berufsstands und argumentiert für die Treuepflicht in der patient-professional relationship (PPR) als zentrale Verpflichtung des Arztes. Zu dieser Treuepflicht gehören der absolute Vorrang des besten Patienteninteresses auch auf Kosten der Interessen des Arztes. Die Weigerung, einen an SARS erkrankten „Risikopatienten” zu behandeln ist also ein Bruch dieser Treuepflicht, da der Arzt/die Ärztin hier einer Konfliktsituation gegenübersteht und seine/ihre eigenen Gesundheitsinteressen über die des Patienten stellt. Der Autor führt dieses Versagen auf den Umstand zurück, dass die Einhaltung von Berufsethikleitlinien rechtlich nicht erzwingbar ist. Dieses Versagen auf mikroethischer Ebene schädigt die Integrität des Berufsstands auf makroethischer Ebene. Der Autor argumentiert, für den Ärztestand sei die professionelle Autonomie der professionellen Treue unterzuordnen, wenn der Ärztestand als gesellschaftliche Institution überleben soll. Im zweiten Teil des Beitrags zeigt der Autor, dass die PPR die meisten der wesentlichen Attribute eines Treuhänderverhältnisses aufweist, und analysiert einige wichtige Rechtsfälle vor Gerichtsbarkeiten bürgerlichen Rechts („common law jurisdictions”), um die wachsende Bedeutung des Treuhänderrechts bei Entscheidungen in Disputen zwischen Patienten und Ärzten aufzuzeigen. An Gerichte und Gesetzgeber wird appelliert, auf den Ärztestand strengere treuhänderische Prinzipien anzuwenden, um sicherzustellen, dass die professionelle Treuepflicht Geltung erhält und der Zweck ärztlicher Tätigkeit im Interesse der Mitglieder eben der Gemeinschaft erfüllt wird, die den Ärztestand ursprünglich ins Leben gerufen hat.

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Résumé  Dans la première partie de cette article, l’auteur discute de l’origine et des obligations de l’ordre des médecins, et soutient que le devoir de loyauté dans la relation patient-professionnel (RPP) est l’obligation centrale des professionnels de la médecine. Ce devoir de loyauté comprend la recherche du meilleur intérêt du patient, même aux dépens des intérêts du médecin, et le refus de traiter un « patient à risque » infecté par le SARS constitue une rupture de ce devoir de loyauté, puisque le professionnel de la santé se trouve dans une situation de conflit d’intérêts et place ses propres intérêts en matière de santé avant ceux du patient. L’auteur attribue cette défaillance au fait que le respect des codes d’éthique professionnelle ne peut être légalement imposé. Une telle défaillance au niveau micro-éthique porte préjudice à l’intégrité de la profession au niveau macro-éthique. L’auteur soutient que l’autonomie professionnelle doit être subordonnée à la loyauté professionnelle dans la profession médicale si celle-ci veut survivre en tant qu’institution sociale. Dans la deuxième partie de l’article, l’auteur montre que la RPP possède la plupart des caractéristiques majeures de la relation fiduciaire, et analyse quelques grands cas juridiques passés devant des juridictions de droit civil, pour illustrer l’importance croissante de la législation fiduciaire dans la sanction de litiges entre patients et médecins. Il en appelle aux tribunaux et aux législateurs pour appliquer des principes fiduciaires plus sévères à la profession médicale, afin que soit renforcée la valeur du devoir de loyauté professionnelle et que le but de la médecine soit rempli dans l’intérêt des membres de la communauté qui a précisément placé la profession médicale au sommet de sa hiérarchie.

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The Poisson Generalized Linear Failure Rate Model

We formulate a new cure rate survival model by assuming that the number of competing causes of the event of interest has the Poisson distribution, and the time to this event has the generalized linear failure rate distribution. A new distribution to analyze lifetime data is defined from the proposed cure rate model, and its quantile function as well as a general expansion for the moments is derived. We estimate the parameters of the model with cure rate in the presence of covariates for censored observations using maximum likelihood and derive the observed information matrix. We obtain the appropriate matrices for assessing local influence on the parameter estimates under different perturbation schemes and present some ways to perform global influence analysis. The usefulness of the proposed cure rate survival model is illustrated in an application to real data.