Depending on the type of physical contact involved during a sexual assault offense, samples collected from a suspect's body may carry greater probative value than samples collected from a victim's ...body. However, unlike forensic medical examinations for persons identified as victims of a sexual assault, no professional consensus exists for what constitutes a high-quality forensic medical examination standard for persons identified as suspects, or the accused. The purpose of this article is to explore underlying assumptions that may contribute to disparate practices and inequalities in the provision of forensic medical examinations for persons suspected of committing a sexual offense and persons identified as victims of a sexual offense.
Background:
We conducted a randomized trial of a simulation-based multisession workshop to improve palliative care communication skills (Codetalk). Standardized patient assessments demonstrated ...improved communication skills for trainees receiving the intervention; however, patient and family assessments failed to demonstrate improvement. This article reports findings from trainees’ self-assessments.
Aim:
To examine whether Codetalk resulted in improved self-assessed communication competence by trainees.
Design:
Trainees were recruited from the University of Washington and the Medical University of South Carolina. Internal medicine residents, medicine subspecialty fellows, nurse practitioner students, or community-based advanced practice nurses were randomized to Codetalk, a simulation-based workshop, or usual education. The outcome measure was self-assessed competence discussing palliative care needs with patients and was assessed at the start and end of the academic year. We used robust linear regression models to predict self-assessed competency, both as a latent construct and as individual indicators, including randomization status and baseline self-assessed competency.
Results:
We randomized 472 trainees to the intervention (n = 232) or usual education (n = 240). The intervention was associated with an improvement in trainee’s overall self-assessment of competence in communication skills (P < .001). The intervention was also associated with an improvement in trainee self-assessments of 3 of the 4 skill-specific indicators—expressing empathy, discussing spiritual issues, and eliciting goals of care.
Conclusion:
Simulation-based communication training was associated with improved self-assessed competency in overall and specific communication skills in this randomized trial. Further research is needed to fully understand the importance and limitations of self-assessed competence in relation to other outcomes of improved communication skill.
The intensive care unit (ICU) represents a hospital setting in which death and discussion about end-of-life care are common, yet these conversations are often difficult. Such difficulties arise, in ...part, because a family may be facing an unexpected poor prognosis associated with an acute illness or exacerbation and, in part, because the ICU orientation is one of saving lives. Understanding and improving communication about end-of-life care between clinicians and families in the ICU is an important focus for improving the quality of care in the ICU. This communication often occurs in the “family conference” attended by several family members and members of the ICU team, including physicians, nurses, and social workers. In this article, we review the importance of communication about end-of-life care during the family conference and make specific recommendations for physicians and nurses interested in improving the quality of their communication about end-of-life care with family members. Because excellent end-of-life care is an important part of high-quality intensive care, ICU clinicians should approach the family conference with the same care and planning that they approach other ICU procedures. This article outlines specific steps that may facilitate good communication about end-of-life care in the ICU before, during, and after the conference. The article also provides direction for the future to improve physician-family and nurse-family communication about end-of-life care in the ICU and a research agenda to improve this communication. Research to examine and improve communication about end-of-life care in the ICU must proceed in conjunction with ongoing empiric efforts to improve the quality of care we provide to patients who die during or shortly after a stay in the ICU.
Communication among doctors, nurses, and families contributes to high-quality end-of-life care, but is difficult to improve.
Our objective was to identify aspects of communication appropriate for ...interventions to improve quality of dying in the intensive care unit (ICU).
This observational study used data from a cluster-randomized trial of an interdisciplinary intervention to improve end-of-life care at 15 Seattle/Tacoma area hospitals (2003-2008). Nurses completed surveys for patients dying in the ICU. We examined associations between nurse-assessed predictors (physician-nurse communication, physician-family communication) and nurse ratings of patients' quality of dying (nurse-QODD-1).
Based on 1173 nurse surveys, four of six physician-nurse communication topics were positively associated with nurse-QODD-1: family questions, family dynamics, spiritual/religious issues, and cultural issues. Discussions between nurses and physicians about nurses' concerns for patients or families were negatively associated. All physician-family communication ratings, as assessed by nurses, were positively associated with nurse-QODD-1: answering family's questions, listening to family, asking about treatments patient would want, helping family decide patient's treatment wishes, and overall communication. Path analysis suggested overall physician-family communication and helping family incorporate patient's wishes were directly associated with nurse-QODD-1.
Several topics of physician-nurse communication, as rated by nurses, were associated with higher nurse-rated quality of dying, whereas one topic, nurses' concerns for patient or family, was associated with poorer ratings. Higher nurse ratings of physician-family communication were uniformly associated with higher quality of dying, highlighting the importance of this communication. Physician support of family decision making was particularly important, suggesting a potential target for interventions to improve end-of-life care.
Despite a considerable overlap between child welfare and juvenile justice populations, the child welfare literature contains sparse information about transition and reentry programs for incarcerated ...youth. Using mixed methods, this paper explores the benefits and limitations of a six-week transitional living program for incarcerated youth offenders. Logistic regression analysis found that only age at arrest and number of prior offenses predicted the odds of recidivism at one-year post-release. Youth who participated in the transitional living program and dual status youth (those involved in both child welfare and juvenile justice systems) were slightly more likely to recidivate, but these differences were not statistically significant. Qualitative interviews with youth and staff revealed that both groups viewed the transitional living program as having many benefits, particularly independent living skills training. However, follow-up with youth in the community lacked sufficient intensity to handle the types of challenges that emerged. Implications for future research and transition programming with vulnerable youth are discussed.
Abstract The intensive care unit (ICU), where death is common and even survivors of an ICU stay face the risk of long-term morbidity and re-admissions to the ICU, represents an important setting for ...improving communication about palliative and end-of-life care. Communication about the goals of care in this setting should be a high priority since studies suggest that the current quality of ICU communication is often poor and is associated with psychological distress among family members of critically ill patients. This paper describes the development and evaluation of an intervention designed to improve the quality of care in the ICU by improving communication among the ICU team and with family members of critically ill patients. We developed a multi-faceted, interprofessional intervention based on self-efficacy theory. The intervention involves a “communication facilitator” – a nurse or social worker – trained to facilitate communication among the interprofessional ICU team and with the critically ill patient's family. The facilitators are trained using three specific content areas: a) evidence-based approaches to improving clinician–family communication in the ICU, b) attachment theory allowing clinicians to adapt communication to meet individual family member's communication needs, and c) mediation to facilitate identification and resolution of conflict including clinician–family, clinician–clinician, and intra-family conflict. The outcomes assessed in this randomized trial focus on psychological distress among family members including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder at 3 and 6 months after the ICU stay. This manuscript also reports some of the lessons that we have learned early in this study.
Disclosure of medical errors has been conceptualized as occurring primarily in the physician-patient dyad. Yet, health care is delivered by interprofessional teams, in which nurses share in the ...culpability for errors, and hence, in responsibility for disclosure. This study explored nurses' perspectives on disclosure of errors to patients and the organizational factors that influence disclosure.
Between October 2004 and December 2005, 11 focus groups were conducted with 96 registered nurses practicing in one of four health care organizations in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. Focus groups were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.
Nurses reported routinely independently disclosing nursing errors that did not involve serious harm, but felt the attending physician should lead disclosures when patient harm had occurred or when errors involved the team. Nurses usually were not involved in the error disclosure discussion among the team to plan for the disclosure or in the actual disclosure, leading to ethically compromising situations in nurses' communication with patients and families. Awareness of existing error disclosure policies was low. Nonetheless, these nurses felt that hospital policies that fostered a collaborative process would be helpful. Nurse managers played a key role in creating a culture of transparency and in being a resource for error disclosures.
Nurses conceived of the disclosure process as a team event occurring in the context of a complex health care system rather than as a physician-patient conversation. Nurses felt excluded from these discussions, resulting in their use of ethically questionable communication strategies. The findings underscore the need for organizations to adopt a team disclosure process. Health care organizations that integrate the entire health care team into the disclosure process will likely improve the quality of error disclosure.
Current research offers conflicting findings regarding how, or if, fatherhood influences youth offenders’ criminal trajectories. Through repeated qualitative interviews with seven incarcerated teen ...fathers, this study provides insight into these young fathers’ understandings of their responsibilities toward their children and prospects for future criminal activity. Analysis reveals that these young fathers take their parental roles very seriously and identify their children as the principal motivator for desistance from crime. They also articulate substantial obstacles to achieving their paternal ideals, including financial pressure, strained relationships with their children's mothers, and lack of male role models. Implications for social work practice are provided.
ABSTRACT Natural resources are essential to health and are global commons. Recognizing the devastating damage posed by extraction to health and the environment, as well as the erosion of the ...sovereignty of our governments that have increasingly conceded people’s health in the interest of profit and development, is important in framing our resistance. Our communities experience growing displacement, the loss of social services, of land, water and livelihood, heightened militarization, violence and repression, and increased incidence of communicable diseases and health problems resulting from exposure to toxics. All of these are linked to an extractivist project driven by global financial capital promoting an unsustainable and inequitable development model that threatens people’s health and the health of the planet. Is it compatible with the right to health to finance national health systems with revenues of activities that intrinsically destroy life? The essay portrays the inconsistency of development policies that fund health/right to health with extractivism and depicts examples of resistance to extractive industries tied to the People’s Health Movement (Canada,Turkey, India and Ecuador) in different types of governments. The need to strengthen the link between the right to health struggles and anti-extractive resistance is highlighted.
RESUMO Os recursos naturais são essenciais para a saúde e são bens comuns globais. Reconhecer os danos devastadores causados pelo extrativismo à saúde e ao meio ambiente, bem como a erosão da soberania de nossos governos, que cada vez mais têm subordinado a saúde das pessoas ao interesse do lucro e do desenvolvimento, é importante para enquadrar nossa resistência. Nossas comunidades sofrem deslocamentos crescentes, a perda de serviços sociais, de terra, água e meios de subsistência, militarização aumentada, violência e repressão e aumento da incidência de doenças transmissíveis e problemas de saúde resultantes da exposição a substâncias tóxicas. Tudo isso está vinculado a um projeto extrativista impulsionado pelo capital financeiro global que promove um modelo de desenvolvimento insustentável e desigual que ameaça a saúde das pessoas e a saúde do planeta. É compatível com o direito à saúde financiar sistemas nacionais de saúde com receitas de atividades que destroem intrinsecamente a vida? Este ensaio retrata a inconsistência das políticas de desenvolvimento que financiam a saúde/direito à saúde com o extrativismo e descreve exemplos de resistência às indústrias extrativas ligadas ao Movimento pela Saúde dos Povos (Canadá, Turquia, Índia e Equador) em diferentes tipos de governo. Destaca-se a necessidade de fortalecer o vínculo entre o direito à saúde e a resistência antiextrativa.
RESUMEN Los recursos naturales son bienes comunes a escala global esenciales para la salud. Reconocer la devastación que produce el extractivismo en la salud y el ambiente, así como la erosión de la soberanía de nuestros gobiernos que han cedido en favor del desarrollo y el lucro es importante para estructurar nuestras resistencias. Nuestras comunidades sufren un creciente desplazamiento, la pérdida de servicios sociales, tierras, agua, medios de subsistencia, militarización, violencia y represión. A la par vemos una mayor incidencia de enfermedades transmisibles y problemas de salud derivados de la exposición a sustancias tóxicas, todo ello vinculado a un proyecto extractivista impulsado por el capital financiero global que promueve un modelo de desarrollo insostenible e injusto, amenazando la salud de las personas y del planeta. ¿Es compatible con el derecho a la salud financiar los sistemas nacionales de salud con ingresos de actividades que destruyen la vida intrínsecamente? El ensayo reflexiona sobre la inconsistencia del modelo de desarrollo que financia el derecho a la salud con extractivismo y coloca historias de resistencia a las industrias extractivas ligadas al Movimiento para la Salud de los Pueblos (Canadá, Turquía, India, Ecuador) y en diferentes tipos de gobiernos. Destaca la necesidad de fortalecer el vínculo entre las luchas por el derecho a la salud y la resistencia contra el extractivismo.
Errors that harm patients often have many contributing factors and ideally should be disclosed by a team rather than an individual provider. However, most health professions students learn about ...errors and error disclosure in a single-profession class.
We developed a 2-hour small-group session in which our students practice discussing and disclosing a medical error that involves several professions, following a communication map. As they practice, students gain an understanding of the roles, skills, and perspectives of the other professions represented in the group.
Over the last 5 years, student evaluations have been very positive. In 2016, our students strongly agreed that "The small group skills practice was a useful and interesting learning opportunity," "Learning with other professional students was valuable," and "Thinking about error disclosure from a team perspective was helpful." Student comments consistently indicated that they learned both about disclosing medical errors as well as other professionals' roles and perspectives.
This activity has met both of our major goals. The first was to bring health professions students together to learn with, from, and about each other. The second was to practice a critical and challenging communication skill. This activity has been successfully implemented at other institutions, and can be adapted to fit other groups of students.
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