Publications by authors named "V M Aita"
The role of art in medicine is complex, varied and uncertain. To examine one aspect of the relationship between art and medicine, investigators analysed the interactions between a professional artist and five adult patients with head and neck cancer as they cocreated portraits in a clinical setting. The artist and four members of an interdisciplinary team analysed the portraits as well as journal entries, transcripts of portrait sessions and semistructured interviews.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Portraits of Care study used portraiture to investigate ideas about care and care giving at the intersection of art and medicine. The study employed mixed methods involving both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. All aspects of the study were approved by the Institutional Review Board.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: This study aimed to elucidate how clinical preventive services are delivered in family practices and how this information might inform improvement efforts.
Methods: We used a comparative case study design to observe clinical preventive service delivery in 18 purposefully selected Midwestern family medicine offices from 1997 to 1999. Medical records, observation of outpatient encounters, and patient exit cards were used to calculate practice-level rates of delivery of clinical preventive services.
Objective: This secondary, qualitative analysis examined physician-patient interaction and patient-centered care in a random sample of encounters of 44 physicians in 18 family practices.
Methods: Fieldworkers were trained in qualitative and quantitative data collection strategies including participatory observation, narrative description, interviewing techniques and note-taking regarding practice observations, patient encounters and community assessment. Fieldworkers spent 4-8 weeks in each practice.