Author Interviews, Education, Weight Research / 02.08.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Gregory Gayer, PhD Associate Professor Chair of Basic Science Department TUCOM California  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The prevalence of obesity in the United States continues to be a growing and remains a major health concern.  Closely associated with obesity is an extensive list of chronic diseases, including hypertension, dyslipidemia, and type 2 diabetes.  Unfortunately, physician bias against obese people may create a self-defeating environment that can produce less effective communication in a manner that could reduce the patient’s willingness to participate in their own health. Our overall goal is to prepare future physicians to appropriately engage the obese patient in order to optimize health care delivery. This study was initiated in response to the ever increasing demand on the medical profession to properly care for the obese patient. We demonstrated that medical students have the same inherent bias as other health care providers and this bias can be sustainably reduced by education. We hope that this reduction in bias shown in medical school will enable students to be better prepared to address the concerns of their obese patients and ultimately translate into better clinical outcomes for them. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Heart Disease, JAMA, Lifestyle & Health, Primary Care, UCLA / 28.07.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Carol M. Mangione, MD, MSPH, FACP Barbara A. Levey, MD, and Gerald S. Levey, MD Endowed chair in medicine David Geffen School of Medicine University of California, Los Angeles Professor of public health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Americans can experience several health benefits from consuming healthy foods and engaging in physical activity. The Task Force recommends that primary care professionals work together with their patients when making the decision to offer or refer adults who are not obese and do not have hypertension, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, or diabetes to behavior counseling to promote healthful diet and physical activity. Our focus was on the impact of a healthful diet and physical activity on cardiovascular risk because this condition is the leading cause of premature morbidity and mortality. The Task Force evaluates what the science tells us surrounding the potential benefits and harms of a particular preventive service. In this case, the Task Force found high quality evidence focusing on the impact a healthful diet and physical activity can have on a patient’s risk of cardiovascular disease. Relying on this evidence, the Task Force was able to conclude that there is a positive but small benefit of behavioral counseling to prevent cardiovascular disease. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Education / 21.07.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: E. Patchen Dellinger, M.D. Professor, Department of Surgery University of Washington, Box 356410 Seattle, Washington 98195-6410  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: As I passed the age of 70 myself and began considering when to slow down and/or retire I decided to examine the literature about age and physician competence.  I have had a wonderful, rewarding time in surgery but have always wanted to provide the best possible care for my patients.  On my review of an extensive literature on this topic I found examples of physicians who had become dangerous to their patients with age but persisted because of their eminence and also of physicians who continued to deliver high quality care well into old age. In medicine, unlike most other safety conscious industries, we have not really taken a systematic approach to the issue of policies related to the aging physician. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, NYU, Sexual Health / 05.07.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Richard E. Greene, MD, FACP Medical Director, Bellevue Adult Primary Care Center Assistant Professor, NYU School of Medicine Associate Program Director, Primary Care Residency Program Director, Gender and Health Education, Office of Diversity Affairs, NYU School of Medicine, OUTList Medical Director, CHIBPS, The Center for Health, Identity, Behavior and Prevention Studies VP of Membership and Development, GLMA-Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Transgender individuals face complex health disparities and have historically been mistreated and even denied care in medical settings. As a provider in New York City, I saw how this affected my trans patients, resulting in mistrust of the health care system, resulting in negative health outcomes. This sparked my interest in improving medical education to serve the needs of trans patients. It’s important to teach medical students and residents that they are not just treating a set of symptoms, they are working with a individuals with complex lived experiences who deserve compassionate care. I found with traditional didactic methods, like lectures, learners smiled and nodded in agreement, but when faced with a patient who was transgender, they would stammer and feel uncomfortable with aspects of the cases that were specific to transgender patients, from pronouns to hormones. Residents should be prepared to treat transgender patients not only with dignity, but also in medically appropriate ways. Without exposure to the transgender community, it’s difficult for providers to decipher their trans patients’ health care needs and contextualize them within a care plan. In order to provide a low stakes environment for residents to practice these skills, we developed an OSCE focused on a transgender woman with health care needs specific to her transition. The goal of the case was to discuss the patient’s medical concerns while also taking into consideration her goals around her hormone therapy and surgical interests. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Education, PLoS, Sleep Disorders / 21.06.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Dorothee Fischer Department of Environmental Health Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts Center for Injury Epidemiology, Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety Hopkinton, Massachusetts, MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Chronotypes are a result of how the circadian clock embeds itself into the 24h light-dark cycle, producing earlier and later individuals ("larks and owls") with regards to rhythms in physiology, cognition and behavior, including sleep. It can be beneficial for health and safety to sync forced wake times (work, school) with individual chronotypes, thereby reducing the misalignment between sleep, circadian rhythms and external demands. To better inform potential interventions such as tailored work schedules, more information is needed about the prevalence of different chronotypes and how chronotype differs by age and sex. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first large-scale and nationally representative study of chronotypes in the US. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Heart Disease, JAMA, Social Issues / 14.06.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Yasuhiko Kubota, MD, MPH Visiting Scholar Division of Epidemiology and Community Health School of Public Health University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Educational inequality is one of the most important socioeconomic factors contributing to cardiovascular disease. Since education is usually completed by young adulthood, educational inequality may affect risk of cardiovascular disease early in the life course. We thought it would be useful to calculate the lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease according to educational levels in order to increase public awareness of the importance of education. Thus, our aim was to evaluate the association of educational attainment with cardiovascular disease risk by estimating the lifetime risks of cardiovascular disease using a US. biracial cohort. Furthermore, we also assessed how other important socioeconomic factors were related to the association of educational attainment with lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Pediatrics / 27.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Hermundur Sigmundsson Department of Psychology Norwegian University of Science and Technology MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: There are around 23 baby-swimming instructors in Iceland who are offering baby swimming-courses. However, Snorris way to do this is unice after my knowledge. He has been doing baby swimming from 1990 - and has had around 7.000.- babies He heard about this from Norway and discovered that very young babies can stand in this way. He discovered this through practical experience. It works like this:  When holding children in the water - He put his hand under the feet of the children - and lift little bit under i.e gives some pressure (tactile stimuli) the children are gradually able to stand in the feet - so stimuli and experience is important. When they are able to stand once they are able to stand again. How long time it takes for each baby to be able to stand varies a lot - as in our study - the youngest was 3.6 months old. One of the participants was standing in 15 sec in the hands of Snorri in the first week of baby swimming course. I did see babies stand first soon after Snorri started baby swimming instruction around 1990-1991. I was very surprised - and was thinking how is it possible? This is not supported by the literature. My colleagues an I thought about this as a window to study development of balance and coordination in infants. The issue about reflexes versus voluntary movement through experience was central. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education / 24.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Pallavi Amitava Banerjee, PhD, FRS Lecturer, Graduate School of Education St Luke's Campus University of Exeter  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Several educational programs are being run to increase an awareness and understanding of STEM generally and more specifically to encourage young people to take up STEM learning trajectories. A longitudinal study was conducted where nearly 60,000 year 7 students were followed up through secondary school. Every year these students took part in several hands on activities, ambassador led events, school STEM trips throughout each academic year from the beginning of year 7 till they took GCSEs. Two main educational outcomes were considered – a) GCSE attainment in science and math and b) continued post-16 STEM participation (AS- and A-levels). (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Psychological Science, Technology, University of Pennsylvania / 21.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jason Han, MD Resident, Cardiothoracic Surgery Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The inspiration for this study comes from my personal experience as a medical student on clinical rotations. Despite having been a victim of a medical error while growing up myself, I found it extraordinarily difficult to admit to even some of my smallest errors to my patients and team. Perplexed by the psychological barriers that impeded error disclosure, I began to discuss this subject with my advisory Dean and mentor, Dr. Neha Vapiwala. We wanted to analyze the topic more robustly through an academic lens and researched cognitive biases that must be overcome in order to facilitate effective disclosure of error, and began to think about potential ways to implement these strategies into the medical school curriculum with the help of the director of the Standardized Patient program at the Perelman School of Medicine, Denise LaMarra. We ultimately contend that any educational strategy that aims to truly address and improve error disclosure must target the cognitive roots of this paradigm. And at this point in time, simulation-based learning seems to be the most direct way to do so, but also remain hopeful that emerging technologies such as virtual and augmented reality may offer ways for students as well as staff to rehearse difficult patient encounters and improve. (more…)
ADHD, Author Interviews, Education, Gender Differences, JAMA, Pediatrics / 01.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Jill Pell MD Director of Institute (Institute of Health and Wellbeing) Associate (School of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing) University of Glasgow MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The novelty of our study lies in its scale and scope. In terms of scope, it reported on six educational outcomes and three health outcomes in the same group of children. In terms of scale, it is the first study of a whole country to compare educational outcomes of children with treated ADHD with their unaffected peers and is more than 20 times larger than previous studies on similar educational outcomes. The only previous countrywide study on health outcomes, included only children with very severe ADHD who were in psychiatric hospitals. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Technology / 01.05.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Frederick W. Kron, MD President and Founder of Medical Cyberworlds, Inc Department of Family Medicine,Ann Arbor, MI and Michael D. Fetters, M.D., M.P.H., M.A. Professor of Family Medicine University of Michigan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this technology and study? Dr. Kron: Communication is the most important component of the doctor-patient relationship. I know that through research, but also through personal experience. As a cancer survivor, I’ve seen first-hand the difference that outstanding communication skill can make to a vulnerable patient. At the beginning of the project, we asked medical educators about the challenges they had in assessing and training communication competency. They told us that technical skills are easy to teach and assess, but communication skills are mainly behavioral skills that involve verbal and nonverbal behaviors, facial expressions, and many other cues that pass between patient and provider. That’s hard to teach and assess. Activities like role play with standardized patients (SPs) have been widely used, but it’s impossible for SPs to accurately portray these behaviors, or for faculty to fully assess the nuanced behaviors of both learner and patient. Supporting this idea is a lack of evidence proving that SP encounters translate in behavioral changes or transfer into clinical settings. Developments in virtual reality provided us with a great opportunity for assessing and teaching of communication behaviors. Working with a national group of experts, we created computer-based Virtual Humans that interact with learners using the full range of behaviors you’d expect from two people talking together. They are so behaviorally realistic and compelling, that they trigger emotional responses in learners, and make learners want to learn so they can do their best. Dr. Fetters: Our team has particular interest in doctor-patient communication in the context of cancer. There are many critical aspects of cancer communication: breaking the bad news to the patient, negotiating sometimes conflicting family opinions about treatment, and communication among team members about the patient's care, just to name a few. We’ve begun building out those scenarios in the technological platform we developed, Mpathic-VR. (more…)
Author Interviews, Critical Care - Intensive Care - ICUs, Education, Nursing, Pediatrics / 25.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Deborah A. Raines PhD, EdS, RN, ANEF School of Nursing University at Buffalo MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: This research grew from my experience as a neonatal nurse. I have worked with many families preparing to take their baby home and have seen the anxiety they experience wondering if they will be able to take care of their baby’s medical needs at home. Parents are usually most anxious about emergency situations that may occur. Majority of these parents are able to state what they should do, but have never experienced the actual situation with their baby. This study was designed to see if a simulation experience would fill this gap in parents’ preparation for the discharge of their baby from the NICU. This study had parents participated in a customized simulation to have them experience the care needed by their baby at home following discharge from the NICU. The findings revealed that parents reported a nearly 30 percent increase in confidence in their abilities to care for their baby after participating in the simulation. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, JAMA, Outcomes & Safety, Surgical Research / 24.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Haggi Mazeh, MD, FACS Endocrine and General Surgery Department of Surgery Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Mount Scopus Jerusalem, Israel 91240 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The level of operating room autonomy given to surgical residents varies greatly between different institutions and different countries. On one hand, providing residents the opportunity to operate alone augments their confidence and their sense of responsibility, possibly accelerating their learning process. On the other hand, it may be argued that the presence of a senior general surgeon in every operation is a safer approach. Before 2012, a large proportion of appendectomies at our institution were performed by surgical residents alone. After 2012, our institutional policy changed to require the presence of a senior general surgeon in every appendectomy case. This unique situation provided us the opportunity to compare the outcomes of appendectomies performed by residents alone to those performed in the presence of a senior general surgeon. Our study demonstrated no difference in the complication rates between the two groups of patients. However, surgeries performed in the presence of senior general surgeons were significantly shorter than those performed by residents. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Electronic Records, JAMA, Johns Hopkins / 06.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ge Bai, PhD, CPA Assistant Professor The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Washington, DC 20036 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We examined the hospital data breaches between 2009 and 2016 and found that larger hospitals and hospitals that have a major teaching mission have a higher risk of data breaches. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Education / 22.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jiemin Ma PhD MHS Strategic Director, Cancer Interventions Surveillance American Cancer Society, Inc. Atlanta, GA 30303 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Previous studies have shown that educational disparities are smaller in the elderly than in working-aged Americans. The differences may partly be explained by the higher health insurance coverage among the elderly (near universal coverage through Medicare for adults aged 65), as well as some aging-related changes in lifestyle and social factors (e.g. retirement). Some of the previous studies were limited by the use of proxy-reported educational information, which tended to be inaccurate for the elderly. Our study used self-reported educational attainment to estimate relative differences in educational disparities in mortality rates between adults aged 50–64 and 66–79 years in a national representative cohort from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study (NLMS). We found that educational disparities in all-cause mortality for ages 66–79 years were about 41% and 61% lower than those for ages 50–64 years in non-Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic blacks, respectively. Diminished disparities in the elderly were also found for deaths from cardiovascular disease and cancer among non-Hispanic Americans. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Gender Differences / 20.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Tasseli McKay, MPH Violence and Victimization Research Program Center for Justice, Safety and Resilience RTI International MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Prompted by a mass murder of LGBTQ+ individuals in Orlando in 2016 and a range of pending legislation affecting LGBTQ+ communities, RTI researchers analyzed 20 years’ worth of published studies on violence and LGBTQ+ communities. The systematic review identified patterns of evidence across 102 peer-reviewed studies as well as a few unpublished analyses and non-peer-reviewed papers. With The Henne Group, RTI also carried out a series of focus-group discussions to elicit the perspectives of members of LGBTQ+ communities on the violence and victimization issues identified in the review. These were conducted with LGBTQ+ communities in San Francisco; New York City; Durham, North Carolina; and rural Wyoming. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Dermatology, Education, Environmental Risks, JAMA / 16.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sherry Everett Jones PhD, MPH, JD, FASHA Health Scientist, Division of Adolescent School Health Centers for Disease Control & Prevention MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. Results from the School Health Policies and Practices Study found that in 2014, most schools lacked practices that could protect children and adolescents from sun exposure while at school. Positive attitudes and beliefs about sun safety behavior, which would make such behavior more likely, can be promoted and supported by school system policies and practices. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Mental Health Research, Pediatrics, Sleep Disorders / 11.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Elsie M. Taveras, MD MPH Chief, Division of General Pediatrics Director, Pediatric Population Health Management Director, Raising Healthy Hearts Clinic MassGeneral Hospital for Children MedicalResearch.com: What are the primary findings of this study and why are they important? Response: The primary findings of this study are that children who get an insufficient amount of sleep in their preschool and early school age years have a higher risk of poor neurobehavioral functioning as reported by their mothers and independently by their teachers at age 7. These behaviors included poorer executive function and more hyperactivity/inattention, emotional symptoms, conduct problems, and peer relationship problems. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, JAMA, Race/Ethnic Diversity, Yale / 06.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dowin Boatright, MD, MBA Department of Emergency Medicine Yale School of Medicine New Haven, Connecticut Fellow, Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program Veterans Affairs Scholar MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Studies have demonstrated racial and ethnic inequities in medicine, including disparities in the receipt of awards, research funding, and promotions. Yet few studies have examined the link between race and ethnicity and opportunities for medical school students. Our results show that black and Asian medical school students are less likely to be selected for membership in a prestigious medical honor society, Alpha Omega Alpha (AΩA), than white medical school students. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Gender Differences, JAMA, UCLA / 06.03.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Julie R. Boiko, MD, MS Resident Physician, PGY1 Department of Pediatrics University of California, San Francisco MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Grand rounds is an over 100-year-old tradition in US medical school clinical departments of recurring, expert-delivered lectures to update physicians and physicians-in-training on recent advances in relevant medicine. We wanted to determine whether gender representation of speakers at grand rounds aligns with the gender distribution of people typically represented in grand rounds audiences -- faculty, residents, and medical students -- by clinical specialty according to national academic medical trainee and workforce statistics. We chose to focus on grand rounds speakers as visible representations of women in academic medicine. This is important because, despite women and men entering medicine at comparable rates, women are much more likely to depart academic medical careers. As current and recent medical students, we considered that consistent exposure to successful female role models in grand rounds speaking venues may positively reinforce women trainees’ desires to continue in academic medical careers. We found that the people at the podiums do not resemble the people in the audience. Only 26% of grand rounds speakers are women. Even accounting that some clinical specialties contain few women faculty and residents, grand rounds speakers in most specialties we studied were statistically less likely to be women as compared to faculty and residents. Across the specialties, grand rounds speakers are 44% less likely than medical students, 39% less likely than residents, and 21% less likely than faculty to be women. (more…)
Addiction, Alcohol, Author Interviews, Cannabis, Education, Pediatrics, Smoking / 23.02.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. James Williams UCL Medical School UCL, London, UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Despite a downward trend over the last decade in the usage of particular substances amongst adolescents in the UK, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis remain prevalent behaviours in this demographic. These risky health behaviours present a large problem in terms of public health due to the immediate and long-term health problems they cause, as well as negative non-health outcomes such as poor educational attainment and reduced employment. The role of academic ability in determining patterns of substance use is not clear and no study has evaluated academic ability at age 11 in relation to the onset and persistence of all three substances from early to late adolescence and into young adulthood. Our study sought to determine the association between academic ability and the onset and persistence of substance use in adolescence in a representative sample of English school pupils. This would answer for the first time whether ability was associated with ‘experimentation’ in early adolescence or if the association persists into late adolescence. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Education, Outcomes & Safety / 06.02.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Yusuke Tsugawa, MD, MPH, PhD Research Associate at Department of Health Policy and Management Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Prior evidence has been mixed as to whether or not patient outcomes differ between U.S. and foreign medical graduates. However, previous studies used small sample sizes or data from a small number of states. Therefore, it was largely unknown how international medical graduates perform compared with US medical graduates. To answer this question, we analyzed a nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries admitted to hospitals with a medical condition in 2011-2014. Our sample included approximately 1.2 million hospitalizations treated by 40,000 physicians. After adjusting for severity of illness of patients and hospitals (we compared physicians within the same hospital), we found that patient treated by international medical graduates had lower mortality than patients cared for by US medical graduates (adjusted 30-day mortality rate 11.2% vs 11.6%, p<0.001). We observed no difference in readmissions, whereas costs of care was slightly higher for international medical graduates. (more…)
Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Education, Electronic Records / 30.01.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dresse Nathalie Wenger Cheffe de clinique FMH médecine interne Département de Médecine Interne CHUV - Lausanne  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The structure of a residents’ working day dramatically changed during the last decades (limitation of working hours per week, wide implementation of electronic medical records (EMR), and growing volume of clinical data and administrative tasks), especially in internal medicine with increasing complexity of patients. Electronic Medical Records (EMR) have some positive effects but negative effects have been also described ie more time writing notes, more administrative works, and less time for communication between physicians and patients. Few time motion studies have been published about the resident's working day in Internal Medicine: the impact of the computer, and what really do the residents do during their work, especially the time spent with the patient versus the computer, as now the EMRs are widely implemented. Previous studies have been mostly performed in the US, so we decided to conduct one observational and objective study in Europe. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Neurological Disorders, Neurology, University of Pittsburgh / 30.01.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Neil A. Busis, M.D. University of Pittsburgh Physicians Department of Neurology Chief of Neurology, UPMC Shadyside Director of Community Neurology MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Previous studies showed that neurologists have both one of the highest rates of burnout and the lowest rates of satisfaction with work-life balance, compared to other physicians. The mission of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) is to promote the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care and enhance member career satisfaction. This is why AAN President Dr. Terrence Cascino initiated this research, to better define the issue. Our findings can guide current and future programs to prevent and mitigate neurologist burnout, promote neurologist career satisfaction and well-being, and direct efforts to advocate on behalf of neurologists and their patients. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, PNAS / 20.01.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Janet Shibley Hyde Evjue-Bascom Professor Helen Thompson Woolley Professor of Psychology and Gender & Women’s Studies Director, Center for Research on Gender & Women University of Wisconsin Madison, WI MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The background is that, in the U.S. and many other Western nations, we don’t have enough people going into STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Innovations in STEM fields are enormously important in 21st century economies. So, we need to encourage more people to go into STEM fields. To do that, they have to major in a STEM field in college, and to do that, they need to prepare in high school. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Nature / 12.01.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Shulamit (Shu) Kahn Department of Markets, Public Policy and Law Questrom School of Business Boston University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We started this research because Donna Ginther (Kansas) and I had an NIH R01 to study gender differences in biomedical careers. We quickly discovered that a major problem for women was the fact that between many years of graduate study and long postdocs, their biological clocks had almost expired before they would have a decent amount of time in their lives to think about having children. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education / 17.12.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Pallavi Amitava Banerjee, PhD Lecturer, Graduate School of Education University of Exeter, UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Science technology engineering mathematics skills are highly valued in the UK as in most other developed countries of the world. Concerns were raised in the past by the Royal Society, Science Council and other learned societies and the UK Parliament about the insufficient number of young people wanting to take up these subjects beyond school. What then followed were a range of STEM enrichment and enhancement activities delivered at the local and national level. These activities were run to help young people appreciate science and math better to break the myth that these are only for the brainy. Students from secondary schools did hands-on practical activities, had STEM ambassador visits and several other events organized. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, JAMA, Surgical Research / 15.12.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Mohammed Al-Omran, MD, MSc, FRCSC Head, Division of Vascular Surgery St. Michael’s Hospital Professor, Department of Surgery University of Toronto MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: General surgery residency is among the most demanding clinical training programs in medicine. Several studies have suggested surgical residents have a relatively high attrition rate; however, no study has systematically reviewed the overall prevalence and causes of attrition among general surgery residents. We included over 20 studies representing 19,821 general surgery residents in our review. Most studies were from the US. We found the pooled estimate of attrition prevalence among general surgery residents was 18%. Female residents were more likely to leave than male (25% versus 15%), and residents were most likely to leave after their first training year (48%). Departing residents most commonly switched to another medical specialty (such as anaesthesia, plastic surgery, radiology or family medicine) or relocated to another general surgery program. The most common causes of attrition were uncontrollable lifestyle (range of 18% to 88%) and transferring to another specialty (range of 18% to 39%). (more…)