Controlled burn! Physician executives must be ready to handle job burnout, career stress

Job burnout for workers in any career can be frightening. It's truly debilitating to think that your job and career are worthless, that your future isn't bright. There are, however, some steps you can take to recognize, avoid or overcome the stress and anxiety that leads to job burnout.     

Federal budget helps drive health policy. A close-up look at the budget process and how it affects health care funding

Crafting the budget is an annual process that Congress and the administration use to define the national policy agenda. It is a massive undertaking to decide how more than two trillion dollars is spent by the federal government. Over 20 percent of the budget is used for health care. The budget is a political document that defines the priorities of the federal government and directly influences overall health policy. Its construction deserves to be followed and influenced by physicians to ensure the health of the public.     

Customized clinical case management for chronically ill patients. Health system sees remarkable results with teams of case managers,physicians, patients

Securing excellent care and positive outcomes for seriously ill, high-risk patients requires extraordinary measures. A health system in Georgia is experiencing strong results by taking a team approach to health care with case managers, physicians and patients working together.     

Preparing for a career in medical management. 8 steps to help you evaluate your career path

Making a career switch from clinical practice to medical management requires preparation and planning. There are numerous steps you can take to smooth out the transition. Most importantly, you must find ways to gain valuable leadership and management experiences before you can expect to land a good medical management position. Discover ways to cultivate that experience through staff posts, part-time positions or volunteer work.     

Long-run convergence of ethnic skill differentials, revisited

In my original study, "Long-Run Convergence of Ethnic Skill Differentials," I concluded that the ethnic differentials introduced by the Great Migration seemed to persist into the second and third generations. Alba, Lutz, and Vesselinov argue that my study contained a number of conceptual and data problems, and conclude that the correlation between the skills of the first and the third generations disappears when these problems are taken into account. My reanalysis of the Alba et al. data, however, documents a stronger link between the skills of the first and the third generations than suggested by those authors.     

New african American life tables from 1935–1940 to 1985–1990*

New life tables for African Americans are presented from 1935 through 1990. They are based on a historical series of vital statistics data on deaths that have been corrected for age misreporting, on reconstructed population counts that have been adjusted for census underenumeration, and on births that have been corrected for underregistration. The new life tables show rapid mortality declines for both African American males and females from 1935 to 1950, and relatively steady reductions thereafter for females. The smaller declines in male mortality in young adulthood and middle age since the 1950s have led to exceptionally high ratios of male to female mortality at these ages. Corrections for census undercounts lead to higher values of life expectancy than in official life tables, but to less improvement over time. Official estimates of life expectancy at age 65 appear to be about 10% too high around 1940 but only about 1.5% too high in the late 1980s.     

Widowhood and spirituality: coping responses to bereavement

Nearly half of women age 65 or older are widows and nearly 70% of these women live alone. Because older women are three times more likely than their male counterparts to be widowed, widowhood has been labeled a primarily female phenomenon. This review article has two aims: (a) to discuss the impact of widowhood on the lives of older women and (b) to discuss how religion and spirituality may be used as coping methods for conjugal loss. After reviewing the literature the authors conclude that older women use religious coping as well as religious and spiritual beliefs and behaviors to facilitate positive adjustment to the loss of a spouse.     

The production of understanding

While there is little doubt that sociological theory and research has had an important impact on the way people think about health and health care, mental health and medical sociologists are often confronted with challenges concerning the utility of the work that they do. Among the doubters are deans, funding agencies and family members. We are challenged by the ascendency of biological interpretations of human behaviors, by the incompatibility between the contextual view we prefer and the very strong individualistic orientation of our culture, and by the fact that we do not have an applied arm that trains the professionals who treat health and mental-health conditions. How do we respond to this challenge? The title of this paper gives a short answer: "The Production of Understanding." I propose that a powerful but under-recognized value of our work is the generation of explanations about health and mental health matters that help people understand the other side of an "us"/"them" divide. We produce understanding in a context in which misunderstanding is regularly constructed by powerful people who offer victim-blaming explanations for the circumstances experienced by people with less power. The production of understanding serves as an important counterbalance to this tendency. Our work shapes the way people think about problems related to health and mental health, limits the power of inaccurate victim-blaming accounts and provides understanding about why health and mental health are mal-distributed among people from different social circumstances.