A survey of physicians in a large group practice

Job satisfaction surveys among physicians, a recent phenomenon, are a very important managerial tool to determine the work motivation needs of physician-employees. The first MD Job Survey was done in 1984 by Lichtenstein on physicians employed by prisons. The largest survey of salaried physicians to date has been the 1987 Health Services Research Center of Chapel Hill survey of physicians employed in group practices. Currently, individual group practices are surveying their staffs with job satisfaction questions in order to enhance the work environment.     

Correlates of honor ratings in a clinical clerkship employing a faculty forum evaluation system

5he purpose of this study was to determine whether or not suspected variables affected a surgery clerk's chances of being awarded an honor rating. Findings indicated a significant relationship between a student receiving an honor rating and his or her preceptor's predetermined level of student advocacy, the number of completed patient interview and physical examination write-ups, and final examination scores. There was no significant relationship found between honor ratings and the preceptor's status, the sequence in which the student was discussed or the length of time spent discussing the student at the final evaluation meeting, or the number of clinical faculty present at the meeting. These results lend support to the faculty forum evaluation approach, but suggest a need for further scrutiny of some influencing variables to ensure all students are fairly considered and honor ratings judiciously awarded.     

The changing character of contemporary migration

"Although the flow of human beings between countries and continents has marked the behaviours of populations for centuries, present international migration is clearly characterized by a number of new factors which make it distinct from international movements of people in the past. This paper aims to identify such new factors relating to the underlying reasons for the international mobility of people, including the motivations of the individuals concerned, and attempts to examine the consequences as they are being faced by the individuals involved, the countries concerned and--in more general terms--the international community." (summary in FRE, SPA)     

Eye-contact as a chance product of individual looking: Implications for the intimacy model of argyle and dean

From time to time during social encounters, people look at one another in the region of the eyes, and sometimes their eyes meet to make eye-contact. According to Argyle and Dean (1965), eye-contact in dyadic encounters signals the intimacy of the interaction and is controlled largely by the competing approach and avoidance forces that motivate the pair. In the present paper, new analyses are reported of three published experiments that were designed originally to test aspects of the intimacy model and it is shown that the duration of eye-contact is no more than a chance product of how long the two subjects look individually. Looking and not eye-contact, it is argued, should be the basis for models of visual interaction, and the intimacy model is ill-founded conceptually; the role of emotion in gaze has been overstressed at the expense of the concept of information; and the most important aspect of vision is in any case not looking and eye-contact but visual access to the whole person. The more cueless the encounter—that is, the fewer the social cues from vision and all the other senses combined—the greater the psychological distance; and the greater the psychological distance, the more task-oriented and depersonalized the content of what people say and, in turn, the less spontaneous their style of speech and the less likely a debate to end in compromise.Research for this article was sponsored by the Social Science Research Council of Great Britain.     

Human genetic technology: who shall control?

The biotechnical "revolution" has fast come upon us. It promises to produce both substantial benefits and difficult dilemmas for individuals and society. Despite the growing attention being paid to biotechnology, a major unanswered question is who shall control the development and use of the powerful array of human genetic and reproductive innovations. Should the decisions be left to individual consumers and private industry or should they be made by the government or other social institutions? After briefly reviewing development in human genetics and reproduction and describing trends toward commercialization of them, this article discusses the dilemmas these trends raise for a democratic society. It argues for the urgent need to delineate societal goals and priorities for the future and for technology assessment as early as possible in the developmental process. The article concludes by presenting some examples of the social policy problems now emerging.