Faculty Development and Diversity

Dot Space Space

January 28th, 2011 by pcahn

When I was in eighth grade, I took a typing class. The teacher was a no-nonsense woman who drilled into us the rules of typography. Tab to indent a new paragraph, Shift to capitalize a new sentence, and space bar twice after each period.

A polemic in Slate by technology writer Farhad Manjoo excoriates the persistence of outdated rules like two spaces between sentences. It seems that when typewriters could handle only fonts like Courier in which all the characters were the same size, putting two spaces after each sentence made sense. But for decades now we’ve had access to fonts with proportional sizing, so it’s not as necessary to mark the end of sentences with exaggerated space.

One space after the period is simpler and more elegant. Notice the difference between this sentence and the previous one and the two spaces after this sentence. Yet, there are still many writers who cling to the two space rule mostly because that was how they learned it. Like with other seemingly inviolate rules (no split infinitives, don’t end a sentence with a preposition), this one is based on nothing other than tradition.

Too many strict rules can make our writing stilted. We’ve given up the typewriter, so why not get rid of the norms that came with it?

Tags: grammar, Writing
Posted in Faculty development | 13 Comments »

Referral Communication

January 26th, 2011 by pcahn

Any project to improve patient care will have to pay attention to how doctors communicate with each other. When I shadowed primary care physicians, I was struck by how few patients could recall exactly what medications they were taking. Since there were discrepancies between the patients' memory and the electronic medical record, the doctor had to spend considerable time updating the list and tweaking the prescriptions.

We may not be able to train patients to keep better track of their medications, but doctors can certainly control how they control vital information to each other. A new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine analyzes data from the Health Tracking Physician Survey to test just that. They found that we still have room for improvement.

Over 63 percent of primary care physicians reported that they "always" or "most of the time" sent background information and the reason for the consultation to the specialist when they referred a patient. Specialists, on the other hand, say that only 34 percent of the time do they receive such information. The discrepancy works in the other direction, too. 80 percent of specialists say they "always" or "most of the time" alert primary care physicians of the results of the consultation, but only 62% of PCPs report receiving them.

Electronic record systems should make it easy for doctors to communicate with each other. Even where the technology is available, doctors should remember to use it.

Tags: clinical care, communication
Posted in Faculty development | 5 Comments »

Mandatory Retirement

January 25th, 2011 by pcahn

Many universities used to require faculty to retire by age 70.They wanted to encourage fresh thinking and hire younger (cheaper) professors. Opponents of mandatory retirement maintained that the most senior faculty possess the most experience and would be a loss if they were forced to retire while still productive.

Federal legislation ended the practice of mandatory retirement for university faculty in 1994. Some predicted that the change would result in a grayer, older faculty with fewer slots for new hires. With over 15 years of data, researchers are beginning to examine the effects of the policy.

The National Science Foundation compared retirement rates for Ph.D. faculty in science, engineering, and health fields in 1993, before the ban went into effect, and 2003. Retirement is particularly tricky to count because some faculty continue to work even after officially leaving the job.

They found that over ten years, the average age of faculty had shifted older but that the shift may not be the result of eliminating mandatory retirement. One surprising change is that after 1994 the rate of retirement for faculty under 70 went up while the rate of faculty over 70 retiring went down slightly. The study also found differences in retirement rate by sex, type of institution, and discipline.

Even with more data available, the debate over the benefits and drawbacks of retirement will continue.

Tags: retirement
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The Grammar Police

January 24th, 2011 by pcahn

In 2006, Lynne Truss wrote a book about grammar called Eats, Shoots and Leaves. The title refers to the joke about a panda who dines at a restaurant, points a gun at the server, and then takes off. When the astonished owner looks up"panda" in the dictionary, the strange behavior becomes clear: "an animal that eats, shoots, and leaves." The addition of those two commas changes the meaning entirely.

Truss's point is that we should be scrupulous about grammar. I admit I find a silent thrill in spotting a sign at the produce section marked "blueberry's $2.99." It makes me feel superior in my knowledge of punctuation. But when it comes to the check out line, I'm not sure I could say with certainty whether it should be "10 items or less" or "10 items or fewer." Suddenly, my feeling of superiority evaporates.

Two education experts share their tips for editing in a post on InsideHigherEd.com. They make a useful distinction between mistakes (careless slipups) and errors (rules we don't know). In editing, it helps to focus on the mistakes first. When it comes to errors, we will have to rely on other sources. As the panda example shows, correcting these glitches is not trivial. If it hinders clarity, then a grammatical mistake or error can confuse a reader, weakening our argument.

Tags: publication, Writing
Posted in Faculty development | 10 Comments »

Battling Burnout

January 21st, 2011 by pcahn

A study published in the journal Anesthesiology indicates that academic physicians face a high rate of burnout. The authors surveyed 117 chairpersons of academic anesthesiology departments using an instrument called the Burnout Inventory. The survey asked the respondents about exhaustion and likelihood of stepping down. They received 93 usable responses.

When they analyzed the results, 28% of chairs met the criteria for high burnout and 31% met the criteria for moderately high burnout. As many as 69% of the chairs exhibited signs of exhaustion, one of the elements of burnout. The likelihood of burnout did not correlate with age, sex, or time as chair, but it did relate to low levels of support from spouses and other personal relationships.

Chairs face more complex demands and interact with more constituencies than the average faculty member. Still, similar studies show that physicians and residents also put themselves at high risk for burnout. Fortunately, there are some simple ways to forestall burnout. They include making time for wellness and not postponing gratification. Mentorship is important to make chairs and other faculty feel that their challenges are shared and not theirs alone. Lastly, it's important to have a network of peers inside and outside the institution to talk to and receive support.

Tags: mental health; work/life balance
Posted in Faculty development | 2 Comments »

Trainees or Employees

January 12th, 2011 by pcahn

In November, I wrote about arguments before the Supreme Court debating whether medical residents count as employees or students for tax purposes. The distinction has financial implications because if ruled to be workers, hospitals must contribute money to Social Security and Medicare for residents. It also has more philosophical consequences related to how faculty interact with housestaff. Boston Medical Center along with other academic medical centers supported the side that considered residents students.

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that medical residents are indeed employees and not subject to the student exemption for taxes. The decision was unanimous (except for Justice Elena Kagan, who recused herself). The petitioner's claim that 80-hour work weeks constitute part of residents' educational training proved unpersuasive. The justices ruled that residents are just the type of workers that Congress had in mind when mandating that employers contribute taxes on wages to employees.

The opinion could mean up to a $1 billion in additional costs that teaching hospitals must bear. I can understand why BMC joined the Mayo Clinic's case in defending the student status of residents, but they had a tricky distinction to make. From the outside, residents' work resembles the duties of any regular employee. Even with supervision from attending physicians, they are moving beyond student into the realm of professionals.

Tags: residency; medical education
Posted in Faculty development | 3 Comments »

The Urge to Merge

January 7th, 2011 by pcahn

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey is the country's largest public institution of health sciences, but unlike other states, it is not affiliated with a research university. A new report on higher education in New Jersey is calling for the merger of the medical school with Rutgers University.

Like Boston Medical Center, the clinical arm of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is a large, urban hospital that provides care for the underserved. University Hospital in Newark is also carrying debt of $125 million. Any merger would have to address the hospital's shaky finances.

It's heartening to hear about a state government take medical education seriously. Seeing how the leaders in New Jersey follow through on the commission's recommendations will be instructive for other academic medical centers seeking to implement systemic change.

Tags: medical education
Posted in Faculty development | 3 Comments »

From Translation to Convergence

January 6th, 2011 by pcahn

In biomedical research, the latest emphasis has been on translational science. That is, connecting bench work to clinical applications. At a recent MIT and AAAS conference, scientists hailed the next revolution in research: Convergence Science.

Their report points to the increasing integration of physical and engineering sciences into biomedical fields. Harnessing these different disciplines allows for innovative discoveries like a lab that engineered E. Coli bacteria to detect tumors and deliver drugs.

The authors of the paper caution that convergent science will require institutional restructuring. Traditional departmental divisions won't make sense as more work is done in teams. Traditional methods of recognizing individual achievement for promotion will also have to be reworked. Importantly, funding agencies like the NIH will have to retool their policies.

The proposal reminds me of E. O. Wilson's argument in Consilience. He advocated a return to the unification of scientific fields. As logical as convergence sounds, it comes across as a bit naive when so many other reforms have failed to shift the entrenched divisions of disciplines and academic achievement.

Tags: research, science
Posted in Faculty development | 6 Comments »

Going Paperless

January 5th, 2011 by pcahn

One of my perennial new year's resolutions is to be kinder to the environment. Often, choosing sustainability is no more burdensome. I can put my newspaper in the recycling box just as easily as putting it in the trash. Shutting off my computer overnight costs me little in time to reboot it. But for as much as I try to be green, I still haven't found a way to get rid of paper entirely.

Kerim Friedman, an academic in Taiwan, blogged about his attempt to go paperless this year. He uses a scanner to turn documents digital and then an iPad to read and annotate them. Still, there always seems to be bits of paper floating around: business cards, boarding passes, passing thoughts jotted on a Post-it.

For those, Friedman recommends Evernote. This free software can store photos, sound recordings, text, and web pages in an easy to search format. All this syncs between your computer and mobile device and is safely stored in the cloud. I'm a little skeptical of setting up yet another account with another password and migrating my notes from Word documents to Evernote, but I'm willing to give it a try.

Of course, what these advances save on paper they probably expend on energy for computer servers, so fulfilling my resolution might have to wait until next year.

Tags: technology
Posted in Faculty development | 9 Comments »