Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
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To portray the professional experiences of men and women in academic general surgery with specific attention to factors associated with differing academic productivity and with leaving academia. ⋯ Addressing the differences between men and women academic general surgeons is critical in fostering career development and in recruiting competitive candidates of both sexes to general surgery.
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Reflective writing is one established method for teaching medical students empathetic interactions with patients. Most such exercises rely on students' reflecting upon clinical experiences. To effectively elicit, interpret, and translate the patient's story, however, a reflective practitioner must also be self-aware, personally and professionally. ⋯ Qualitative analysis of students' evaluation comments indicated that the exercise, although emotionally challenging, was well received and highly recommended for other students and residents. The reflective writing exercise may be incorporated into medical curricula aimed at increasing trainees' empathy. Affording students and residents an opportunity to describe and share their illness experiences may counteract the traditional distancing of physicians' minds from their bodies and lead to more empathic and self-aware practice.
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To describe the attitudes of female nurses and female resident physicians toward each other in surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics-gynecology, and emergency medicine in one Midwest teaching hospital in the United States. ⋯ With the number of female residents increasing each year in hospitals, this relationship should be further examined so that dysfunctional communication patterns between the two groups can be challenged.
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Since the U. S. Congress first requested an assessment of women's health content in medical school curricula ten years ago, surveys indicate at least a two-fold increase in the number of schools with a women's health curriculum and no change in the number that offer a women's health clinical elective or rotation. ⋯ The dominant factors that will influence future curriculum development are the increasing scientific knowledge base on sex and gender differences and the emerging scientific field of sex-based biology, both of which have potential to benefit the health of women. Evidence-based data on significant sex and gender differences will provide compelling reasons for schools to integrate this information into curricula, and new educational initiatives must further develop educational models to help implement change. As women's health becomes synonymous with the term "sex and gender differences," the challenge to schools is to address equally in their curricula those unique aspects of women's health that were part of the original intent of the congressional mandate.