Articles: adult.
-
Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract · Jan 2002
ReviewAndragogy and medical education: are medical students internally motivated to learn?
Andragogy - the study of adult education - has been endorsed by many medical educators throughout North America. There remains, however, considerable controversy as to the validity and utility of adult education principles as espoused by the field's founder, Malcolm Knowles. Whatever the utility of andragogic doctrine in general education settings, there is reason to doubt its wholesale applicability to the training of medical professionals. ⋯ The validity of this hypothesis in medical education is examined, and it is demonstrated that medical students' internal and external motivation are context-dependent, not easily distinguishable, and interrelate with one another in complex ways. Furthermore, the psychological motivation for medical student learning is determined by a variety of factors that range from internal to external, unconscious to conscious, and individual to societal. The andragogic hypothesis of increased internal motivation to learn on the part of adults in general, and medical trainees in particular, is rejected as simplistic, misleading, and counterproductive to developing a greater understanding of the forces that drive medical students to learn.
-
The complexities of current societal trends impose a daunting challenge to providers of maternal child health services. Demographers, anthropologists, sociologists, policy makers, and health care providers struggle to grasp the multiple issues in an effort to create useful strategies for the 21st century. ⋯ Legislative and policy efforts have focused new and much-needed attention on women as recipients and providers of health care. The realities of mothers in the work force, the epidemic of adolescent pregnancy, the swelling ranks of women and children in poverty, the increasing number of women with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, the new advances in reproductive technology, and the effect of population and immigration trends greatly influence the childbearing client of the future and create enormous pressures for critical problem solving.
-
Epidemiologic reviews · Jan 1990
ReviewThe epidemiology of acute respiratory infections in children and adults: a global perspective.
While a number of advances have been made in our understanding of the epidemiology of acute respiratory infections in the past two decades, a number of serious questions still require urgent answers. The associations of factors such as chronic disease in adults, direct smoking, passive smoking, crowding, and breast feeding to acute respiratory infections are now well documented. Appropriate changes in public health policy need not be predicated on results from still further studies. ⋯ Greater standardization of data collection methods in developed and developing countries also needs to be more seriously addressed. Given that some advances have been made in this area, the time may be right for development of acute symptom questionnaires, akin to the American Thoracic Society chronic respiratory questionnaire, for use in both developed and developing countries. Standardization of diaries, although somewhat more difficult, would also be extremely useful in many instances.
-
Diarrheal diseases are major causes of morbidity, with attack rates ranging from two to 12 or more illnesses per person per year in developed and developing countries. In addition, diarrheal illnesses account for an estimated 12,600 deaths each day in children in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The causes of diarrhea include a wide array of viruses, bacteria, and parasites, many of which have been recognized only in the last decade or two. ⋯ The rational management of infectious diarrhea requires the highly selective use of laboratory tests for these varied etiologic agents, depending on the clinical and epidemiologic setting. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the magnitude, special settings, and etiologies of diarrhea endemic to developed and developing countries. This information permits a practical approach to the diagnosis and management of common diarrheal illnesses in different settings.