Abstract

Abstract

Edmunds M W: Structure and nurse practitioner performance. The Nurse Practitioner 4: (3)42, May/June 1979

Are you a “new” nurse practitioner (NP) returning to your “old” practice setting? Are you a staff nurse, physician, receptionist in the “old” setting, wondering how to cope with this “new” nurse? This article is a MUST.

Simply and clearly, Ms. Edmunds illustrates the ingredients necessary to facilitate successful role transition.

Structural aspects requiring consideration are drawn from A. Donabedian and include:

1. adequacy of physical structure, facilities and equipment—office, exam room and equipment, telephone;

2. staff qualifications and organization-different mixes and levels of staff and/or reallocation of functions may be required;

3. fiscal arrangements—economic contributions to the practice should be recognized financially;

4. administrative, organization and/or programatic structures need to be reevaluated. Daily routine, patient assignment, collaboration-consultation time, development of new modes of health care delivery are examples.

Problems that may prove to be barriers to the role transition must be assessed and defined. Solutions potentiated should include attending to the structural aspects of the practice milieu. Ms. Edmunds offers valuable suggestions to avert or resolve “reentry” problems.     

Emergency Contraceptive Pill (ECP) Use and Experiences at College Health Centers in the Mid-Atlantic United States: Changes Since ECP Went Over-the-Counter

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the availability of emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) at college health centers since ECP went over-the-counter (OTC) in 2006. Related issues, such as distribution procedure, existence of a written protocol, personnel involved, contraindications, follow-up procedures, methods of advertising, and staff attitudes, were examined. Participants: The sample included 135 college and university health centers in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Methods: Data were collected via telephone survey with the use of a 42-item survey instrument. Results: Forty-three percent of schools reported distributing ECPs, for an average of 10.6 years. Major changes in ECP distribution and usage since ECP went OTC related primarily to protocol in ECP distribution, advertising for ECP services, and ECP accessibility to university students. Conclusions: College health centers are responding to the OTC status of ECP in a number of ways, primarily relating to their distribution procedures and advertising techniques.     

Toward Health Reform for Seniors in Bermuda: Historical Constraints on Political Possibilities

In 2009, as the United States moved toward health care reform, the government of Bermuda implemented its FutureCare program to make health care for seniors more affordable. This article investigates how preferences for reform and its eventual design were shaped by the country's social history and commitment to free market values. Data derive from 36 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders deemed knowledgeable about health care financing and delivery in Bermuda, including government officials, provider representatives, insurance executives, and consumer advocates. Data also derive from a variety of documentary sources. Results indicate that although a clear need for health care and the ability to finance it for seniors exists in Bermuda, the scope of reform was circumscribed by preferences for prior policy decisions, creating a favorable tax and business environment for international corporations and a minimalist social welfare state for addressing racial and economic inequality. This suggests that widespread agreement on the challenges in meeting the health and long-term care needs of the elderly does not necessarily lead to equally commensurable solutions to addressing it.     

Parental Divorce and College Students: The Impact of Family Unpredictability and Perceptions of Divorce

The impact of parental divorce, perceptions of divorce, and family unpredictability on the locus of control, interpersonal trust, and assertiveness of college students (n = 115) was studied. Roughly 27% of participants came from divorced homes; they did not differ significantly from participants from nondivorced homes on locus of control, trust, or assertiveness. However, negative perceptions of parental divorce were associated with a more external locus of control. Aspects of maternal unpredictability related to lower trust yet higher assertiveness. Participants with divorced parents reported more unpredictable finances and somewhat more unpredictable meals growing up. Implications for adjusting to divorce are discussed.     

Social Density of Gambling and Its Association with Gambling Problems: An Initial Investigation

The role of social factors in pathological gambling has received relatively little systematic research. The goal of the current study was to examine the relationship between a target individual’s gambling behavior and the gambling behavior among that individual’s parents, siblings and five closest friends. The specific aims were, first, to apply a novel brief assessment to study the social density of factors relating to pathological gambling; second, to replicate previously observed findings involving the social aggregation of alcohol and tobacco use; and third, to examine social density findings among the three domains. Participants were 128 frequent gamblers from the Athens, Georgia area, 79.7 % male with a mean age of 34.2 (SD = 11.7). Participants were assessed using the Diagnostic Interview for Gambling Severity for gambling severity, the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test for alcohol abuse, the Fagerstrom Test of Nicotine Dependence for tobacco use, and the novel Brief Social Density of Gambling, Alcohol, and Tobacco Assessment. Significant relationships were observed between participants’ and friends’ activity within all domains: gambling (ps = .001), alcohol use (p < .001) and tobacco use (p < .001). Relationships with friends’ activity across domains were less strong. Distinct patterns of associations with parents and siblings were not observed. Thus, social aggregation was observed across the three domains of potentially addictive behaviors, generally with specificity within domains and with friends, not biological relatives. Methodological considerations and potential applications of these findings are discussed.     

Dissociation in Medical Practice: Social Distress and the Health Care System

The average physician has developed several different headv, each representing another selfon the same body. One is that ofthe conventional, ethical professional who wants nothing more than to improve mankind’s health and well-being, the standard model. Another is the scientist who intends to be perceived as calculating, cold, and factual in determining what will or will not assist the ailing patient (Uexkull & Hannes, 1986). His tools are drugs, surgery, and hospitalization for presumed physical and mental ills. The third, and the one that concerns us the most, is what I will call “the neo-capitalist professional hero” (Lifton, 1971). This persona is an evolution of our American dominated internationaL cuLture which the medical profession as a group has honored by honing and poli5hing with extraordinary skil, second only to politicians and bankers, maximizing it to the ftuther detriment of the entire society. Though the body needv all three to function, none of these heads willingly acknowledges or suppOl1s the importance of the others. In what follows, a variety of media, journals, professional books, and a survey are refen"ed to in documenting data about ethical Laxity and fraud in the medical profession. Institutional, social concepts are developed that explain the data, and revealing how sociaL distress is the embodiment of the neo-capitalist professional hero. There are also suggestions for remedies in what follows, which are presented without realistic hope for implementation very soon, unfortunately, since they involve deep changes in established sociaL institutions. However, the country at large has developed some awareness of a problem which has reached epidemic propOrlions in the medical profession. FUrlher increments in awareness promise to tip the balance into positive government action.     

“What Happens at Home Does Not Necessarily Stay at Home”: The Relationship of Observed Negative Couple Interaction With Physical Health,Mental Health,and Work Satisfaction

Using data from a sample of 281 couples (the Flourishing Families data set), the authors tested a systemic theoretical model that examined the relationship among observed marital interaction, physical and mental health, and work satisfaction. The results showed that negative marital interaction was associated with significantly lower work satisfaction and poorer health for men. Higher negative marital interaction scores were significantly related to elevated depression scores for both women and men. For both men and women, negative couple interaction was associated with work satisfaction through depression and health. Overall, 34% of the variance in work satisfaction for men and 24% for the women was explained by the model. The results suggest that marriage‐to‐work spillover can be costly for families, organizations, and governments.     

Slavery: Annual bibliographical supplement (1998)

Author: HARRILL, J. ALBERT; The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity; Reviewer: Andrew Chester; Author: MENARD, RUSSELL R.; Migrants, Servants and Slaves: Unfree Labor in Colonial British America; Reviewer: Alison Games; Author: MORGAN, KENNETH; Slavery and Servitude in North America, 1607-1800; Reviewer: Alison Games; Author: WOOD, MARCUS; Blind Memory: Visual Representations of Slavery in England and America, 1780-1865; Reviewer: Judie Newman; Author: SCHWARTZ, MARIE JENKINS; Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South; Reviewer: Emily West; Author: SMITH, JOHN DAVID; Slavery, Race and American History: Historical Conflict, Trends and Method, 1866-1953; Reviewer: John B. Boles; Author: LANDERS, JANE; Black Society in Spanish Florida; Reviewer: Jennifer L. Baszille; Author: SUSSMAN, CHARLOTTE; Consuming Anxieties: Consumer Protest, Gender and British Slavery, 1713-1833; Reviewer: Claire Midgley; Author: DELLE, JAMES A.; An Archaeology of Social Space Analyzing Coffee Plantations in Jamiaca's Blue Mountains; Reviewer: Kathleen E.A. Monteith.