Journal of general internal medicine
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Assessment of authorship contribution is often based on unreliable questionnaires. ⋯ Ordinal scales for reporting authors' contributions to manuscripts were more sensitive than tick boxes for assessing the appropriateness of authorship. The exception is "Final approval of the article," which should be considered a dichotomous variable and may not be appropriate for the ICMJE definition of authorship.
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There are limited data describing how pre-existing heart failure affects mortality following pneumonia. ⋯ History and severity of heart failure are associated with a poor outcome for patients hospitalized with pneumonia.
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Effective behavior change counseling is an important component of the optimal care of patients, yet only a minority of medical schools currently include such training in their curriculum. ⋯ Participation in a focused curriculum on the use of motivational interviewing techniques significantly improved 3rd year medical students' knowledge, confidence, and skills in the area of behavior change counseling. These gains may help students succeed in promoting good health habits in their future patients.
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Multicenter Study
Empathy and life support decisions in intensive care units.
Although experts advocate that physicians should express empathy to support family members faced with difficult end-of-life decisions for incapacitated patients, it is unknown whether and how this occurs in practice. ⋯ Physicians vary considerably in the extent to which they express empathy to surrogates during deliberations about life support, with no empathic statements in one-third of conferences. There is an association between more empathic statements and higher family satisfaction with communication.