Publications by authors named "William Elder"

Purpose: Patient outcomes can improve when primary care and behavioral health providers use a collaborative system of care, but integrating these services is difficult. We tested the effectiveness of a practice intervention for improving patient outcomes by enhancing integrated behavioral health (IBH) activities.

Methods: We conducted a pragmatic, cluster randomized controlled trial.

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Objective: There has been little evidence supporting the efficacy of psychoeducation as a stand-alone approach to alleviate posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study examined the efficacy of a stand-alone psychoeducation PTSD intervention using a group format that incorporated the option of bringing an emotional support person to sessions.

Method: PTSD 102 is an eight-session, 1-hr, weekly intervention for veterans and their family members.

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Background: Chronic diseases that drive morbidity, mortality, and health care costs are largely influenced by human behavior. Behavioral health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders can often be effectively managed. The majority of patients in need of behavioral health care are seen in primary care, which often has difficulty responding.

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Background: Faculty attrition has been widely acknowledged and poorly understood throughout academic medicine. To date, barriers to career advancement in academic surgery have been identified and described in a limited fashion using only survey data. The authors sought to characterize career barriers for women academic surgeons using grounded theory methodology.

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Purpose: Transformation of care teaching is often didactic and conceptual instead of practical and operational. Clinical environments, slow to transform, limit student exposure to key experiences that characterize transformed care. We describe the design and implementation of TEAM Clinic (Teach students, Empower patients, Act collaboratively, Meet health goals) - an early clinical learning experience to address this gap.

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Chronic pain is increasingly recognized as a public health problem. We assessed the effectiveness of a multi-modal, interprofessional educational approach aimed at empowering healthcare professionals to make deliberative changes, especially in opiate prescribing practices. Education activities included enduring webcasts, regional interprofessional roundtable events, and state-level conference presentations within targeted Kentucky and West Virginia regions of the United States.

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Objective: The authors sought to describe characteristics of effective mentoring relationships in academic surgery based upon lived experiences of mid-career and senior female academic surgeons.

Background: Prior qualitative work describes characteristics of successful mentoring relationships. However, no model exists of effective mentorship that is specific to academic surgery.

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Objective: While efficacy of massage and other nonpharmacological treatments for chronic low back pain is established, stakeholders have called for pragmatic studies of effectiveness in "real-world" primary health care. The Kentucky Pain Research and Outcomes Study evaluated massage impact on pain, disability, and health-related quality of life for primary care patients with chronic low back pain. We report effectiveness and feasibility results, and make comparisons with established minimal clinically important differences.

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Article Synopsis
  • Study focuses on male sexual trauma among veterans, highlighting its unique mental health impact.
  • Interviews with 21 male veterans revealed their experiences with military sexual trauma, which included unwanted sexual touching, verbal coercion, and forced sex.
  • Data analysis identified three key areas: types of trauma experienced, negative life effects like trust issues and substance use, and the potential for posttraumatic growth, suggesting a need for tailored clinical treatments.
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Background: Surgeons are the physician group most commonly identified as "disruptive physicians." The aim of this study was to develop a conceptual model of the results of disruptive surgeon behavior and to identify the coping strategies used by perioperative staff.

Methods: Perspectives of 19 individuals of diverse occupations in the perioperative setting were drawn together using a grounded theory methodology.

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Background: Pragmatic clinical trials (PCTs) are increasingly recommended to evaluate interventions in real-world conditions. Although PCTs share a common approach of evaluating variables from actual clinical practice, multiple characteristics can differ. These differences affect interpretation of the trial.

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Background: Surgeons are the physicians with the highest rates of documented disruptive behavior. We hypothesized that a unified conceptual model of disruptive surgeon behavior could be developed based on specific individual and system factors in the perioperative environment.

Study Design: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 operating room staff of diverse occupations at a single institution.

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Introduction: Few NIH funded studies give community massage therapists the opportunity to become study personnel. A recent NIH/NCCAM-funded study investigating chronic low back pain (CLBP) recruited, trained, and utilized community massage practitioners (CMPs) as study personnel. This study's aim was to determine whether health-related outcomes for CLBP improve when patients are referred from primary care to select CAM modalities including massage therapy (MT).

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Background: A significant faculty attrition rate exists in academic surgery. The authors hypothesized that senior residents and early-career faculty members have different perceptions of advancement barriers in academic surgery.

Methods: A modified version of the Career Barriers Inventory-Revised was administered electronically to surgical residents and early-career surgical faculty members at 8 academic medical centers.

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Background: Women represent roughly 50% of US medical students and one third of US surgery residents. Within academic surgery departments, however, women are disproportionately underrepresented, particularly at senior levels. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that female surgeons perceive different barriers to academic careers relative to their male colleagues.

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Objectives: Internet-based information has potential to impact physician-patient relationships. This study examined medical students' interpretation and response to such information presented during an objective clinical examination.

Method: Ninety-three medical students who had received training for a patient centered response to inquiries about alternative treatments completed a comprehensive examination in their third year.

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Purpose: Responding to suggestions that physicians are obligated to inquire fully about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and its scientific evidence, to acknowledge patients' health beliefs and practices, and to accommodate diverse healing practices, our interdisciplinary CAM integration project created an advisory committee (AC) composed of CAM practitioners and institutional personnel to incorporate CAM- related information into health professions training. We report on the collaborative process and describe group members' perceptions of medicine and clinical teaching.

Methods: Information collected from the first two years' quarterly meetings, the first annual retreat, and other venues was analyzed in conjunction with semi-structured in-person interviews of 10 biomedical and CAM practitioner committee members.

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Context: Teaching and evaluating professionalism remain important issues in medical education. However, two factors hinder attempts to integrate curricular elements addressing professionalism into medical school training: there is no common definition of medical professionalism used across medical education, and there is no commonly accepted theoretical model upon which to integrate professionalism into the curriculum.

Objectives: This paper proposes a definition of professionalism, examines this definition in the context of some of the previous definitions of professionalism and connects this definition to the attitudinal roots of professionalism.

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Content on integrative healthcare and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is being taught in hundreds of educational programs across the country. Nursing, medical, osteopathic, chiropractic, acupuncture, naturopathic, and other programs are finding creative and innovative ways to include these approaches in new models of education and practice. This column spotlights such innovations in integrative healthcare and CAM education and presents readers with specific educational interventions they can adapt into new or ongoing educational efforts at their institution or programs.

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Background: People in the United States are using complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) increasingly while they are also receiving conventional care. National population-based surveys and studies in primary care settings have documented inadequate communication about CAM between patients and their conventional healthcare providers. Most studies about CAM communication have surveyed urban practices and focused on physicians.

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To prepare allopathic providers to advise patients about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies, the University of Kentucky CAM curriculum integration project has identified and trained CAM practitioners to coteach, precept, and demonstrate their respective practices. This project is interested in integrating CAM practitioners as teachers into this university and has formed a multidisciplinary committee for advice. The committee has recognized the importance of increased understanding of CAM practices to enhance communication within itself and to decide to which CAM practices students should receive exposure.

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