Background: The future composition of a country's physician workforce depends on medical students' choices of specialties. Students' familiarity with the job market (the healthcare system) they are about to enter and the influence job market conditions have on their choices has not been well explored. This study focuses on whether and how the healthcare system's employment landscape is taken into consideration by medical students and whether this facet adds information about the specialty selection process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Healthcare systems often face shortages of certain medical specialists due to lack of interest among medical students. We questioned a common "one solution fits all" approach to this problem which involves monetary incentives to lure students to these specialties. Instead, we used the marketing principle the "consumer knows best" to explore ways of elucidating the reasons and proposing solutions for such shortages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpiritual interventions (SI) are used by patients and their families as a means to promote health. The family continuum (FC), which includes finding a partner/spouse, getting married, becoming pregnant, and having a safe pregnancy/birth, is an important concept for the Jewish culture as well as other cultures that have a traditional family-centered approach. There is a dearth of professional literature pertaining to SI to promote the FC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Med Inform
September 2021
Background: The world is in the midst of the "digital" revolution characterized by the ascendency of computerization, information systems and artificial intelligence with an emphasis on innovation and creativity. This revolution has affected current medical practice and promises to significantly impact it in the future. This requires physician's understanding and participation in adopting such technology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIsr J Health Policy Res
February 2019
Background: Mechanical ventilation is a life supporting modality increasingly utilized when caring for severely ill patients. Its increasing use has extended the survival of the critically ill leading to increasing healthcare expenditures. We examined changes in the hospital-wide use of mechanical ventilation over 20 years (1997-2016) in two Israeli hospitals to determine whether there were specific patterns (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The greatest challenges facing healthcare systems include ensuring a sufficient supply of primary care physicians and physicians willing to work in rural or peripheral areas. Especially challenging is enticing young physicians to practice primary care in rural/peripheral areas. Identifying medical students interested in primary care and in residencies in Israel's periphery should aid the healthcare leadership.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Israeli medical school classes include a number of student subgroups. Therefore, interventions aimed at recruiting medical students to the various specialties should to be tailored to each subgroup.
Methods: Questionnaires, distributed to 6 consecutive 5th-year classes of the Hebrew University - Hadassah School of Medicine, elicited information on criteria for choosing a career specialty, criteria for choosing a residency program and the importance of finding a specialty interesting and challenging when choosing a residency.
Background: Strong evidence suggests that in order to prevent irreversible testicular damage surgical correction (orchidopexy) for undescended testis (UDT) should be performed before the age of 1 year.
Objectives: To evaluate whether orchidopexy is delayed in our medical system, and if so, to explore the pattern of referral for orchidopexy as a possible contributing factor in such delays.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review of all children who underwent orchidopexy for UDT between 2003 and 2013 in our institution.
Background: During their final year of medical school, Israeli students must consider which specialty to choose for residency. Based on the vocational counseling literature we presumed that choices are made by selecting from a cluster of related specialties while considering professional and socio-economic issues.
Methods: Questionnaires distributed to final-year medical students at two Israeli medical schools ascertained inclinations toward various medical specialties and the importance of various selection criteria.
Objective: To assess the effect of maternal age on preterm neonates' survival free from major morbidity at discharge from two neonatal intensive care units in Jerusalem, Israel.
Methods: A retrospective chart review of two hospitals from 2009-2010 was performed. Eligible neonates were born at less than 35 weeks of gestation and survived to discharge.
Purpose: Treatment for adolescents with eating disorders (ED) is multidimensional and extends after hospitalization. After participating in a four-step reintegration plan, treatment success including post-discharge community and social reintegration were examined from perspectives of patients, family members, and healthcare providers.
Design And Methods: Six pairs of patients and parents, and seven parents without their children were interviewed 2 to 30 months following discharge.
Pain is a symptom pediatric nurses commonly encounter in the hospital setting. Untreated pain can lead to adverse physiologic and psychological effects. This study examines in-hospital pain assessment methods nurses report using and assesses challenges, difficulties, and barriers nurses report to assessing pain in hospitalized children.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: There is an extremely small proportion of female medical students choosing to specialize in orthopedic surgery. The aim of the study was to assess medical students' and interns' interests and perceptions of orthopedic surgery and explore why women are not interested in orthopedic surgery.
Setting: Questionnaires were distributed to final-year medical students and interns assessing their interests and perception of orthopedic surgery.
Background: Choosing a medical specialty requires medical students to match their interests and social-cultural situations with their perceptions of the various specialties.
Objectives: Examine Israeli 6th-year medical students' perceptions of six key specialties: pediatrics, orthopedic surgery, anesthesiology, obstetrics/gynecology, general surgery and family medicine.
Methods: Questionnaires distributed to 355 6th-year students from three successive classes (2008-2010) of 6th-year students at the Hebrew University - Hadassah School of Medicine, Jerusalem, Israel and the 2010 class of the Ben Gurion University School of Medicine, Be'er Sheva, Israel.
Objective: To examine attitudes toward and use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by obstetricians during pregnancy and childbirth.
Methods: Between 2010 and 2011, obstetricians from 7 medical centers (n=170) in Israel completed questionnaires examining the use and recommendation of CAM treatments during pregnancy and childbirth. Attitudes were examined via the CAM Health Belief Questionnaire (CHBQ).
The treatment of breast cancer invariably results in severe and often debilitating symptoms that can cause significant distress and severely impair daily function and quality-of-life (QOL). We treated a series of 20 female breast cancer patients with the botanical compound LCS101 as adjuvant to conventional chemotherapy. At the end of the treatment regimen, patients rated their symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is an increasing trend of parents refusing vitamin K (VK) prophylaxis in newborns. We examined the knowledge, perceptions, cultural and religious barriers of expecting parents regarding VK prophylaxis.
Observations: Questionnaires were completed by 217 participants: 151 female participants and 85% were expecting their first child.
Objectives: This study was intended to examine whether a marketing research approach improves understanding of medical specialty selection by medical students. This approach likens students to consumers who are deciding whether or not to purchase a product (specialty). This approach proposes that when consumers' criteria match their perceptions of a product's features, the likelihood that they will purchase it (select the specialty) increases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Specialty selection by medical students determines the future composition of the physician workforce. Selection of career specialties begins in earnest during the clinical rotations with exposure to the clinical and intellectual environments of various specialties. Career specialty selection is followed by choosing a residency program.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To study non-vitamin, non-mineral (NVNM) supplements use and disclosure of among hospitalized internal medicine patients.
Methods: A convenience sample of patients completed an interviewer-administered questionnaire examining use of and perceptions regarding NVNM supplements, and disclosure to medical personnel.
Results: 280 patients were interviewed (54% female), 15.
Objective: The objective of the study was to evaluate the use and attitudes of nurse-midwives in Israel toward complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
Study Design: In a cross-sectional study, nurse-midwives from 5 Israeli medical centers completed the CAM Health Belief Questionnaire, a validated tool examining data regarding personal health behavior, use of CAM therapies, and attitudes toward CAM.
Results: One hundred seventy-three of 238 potential respondents completed the questionnaires (72.