Teaching the Skill of Shared Decision Making Utilizing a Novel Online Module: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Study.

Objectives: In this pilot study, we developed and tested an online educational module for the purpose of teaching optimal shared decision making (SDM) behaviors for physicians in training. We hypothesized that those who received this intervention would show significant improvement in SDM behaviors afterward as compared with those who had not received the intervention.

Methods: Pediatric subspecialty fellows (pediatric critical care medicine, neonatology, hematology and oncology, and pulmonology) at the Monroe Carell Jr Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt were eligible to participate, if approved by their respective program directors.

The role of ethicists in pediatric hematology/oncology: Current status and future needs.

As pediatric hematology/oncology (PHO) becomes more complex and sub-subspecialized, dedicated PHO ethicists have emerged as sub-subspecialists focused on addressing ethical issues encountered in clinical and research practices. PHO physicians and other clinicians with advanced training in bioethics contribute to the field through ethics research, education, and ethics consultation services. Furthermore, there exists a newer generation of PHO trainees interested in bioethics.

Patient Perspectives on Perioperative Supportive Care Needs Surrounding Major Abdominal Operations for Cancer.

Purpose: The development of supportive care interventions delivered by surgeons for their patients is a major research priority. Designing such interventions requires understanding patients' supportive care needs for major operations. This qualitative analysis aimed to determine the supportive care needs of patients undergoing major abdominal operations for cancer.

Measuring morality: Analyzing the factor structure of the moral foundations questionnaire in veterans.

Objectives: Moral reasoning is an underexamined and potentially useful area of research relative to the care of moral injury in veterans. However, the most widely used measure of moral reasoning, the moral foundations questionnaire (MFQ), has not been validated in this population.

Methods: Post-9/11 veterans (N = 311) completed questionnaires which included the MFQ.

Managing Resident Mental Health: Prevention is Better than Cure.

Objective: There is a high prevalance of burnout and mental health illness among trainees. Through structured meetings, Program Directors (PDs) have an opportunity to screen and aid residents that may be affected by mental health concerns. However, barriers to this process exist.

The Reevaluation of AΩA: Updating the Outdated.

Medical schools across the country are reconsidering the place of Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society (AΩA) as evidence of disparities in membership selection continues to mount. Although AΩA national leadership responded to backlash with a reaffirmation of their motto "Be Worthy to Serve the Suffering," and their commitment to diversity, little meaningful progress has been made to this end. By continuing as an organization based on exclusivity, AΩA is an outdated institution that contributes to the structural racism observed in multiple domains of medical education.

Mapping parents' journey following prenatal diagnosis of CHD: a qualitative study.

Objective: To better understand parents' accounts of their prenatal and postnatal experience after prenatal diagnosis of CHD - particularly emotional processing and coping mechanisms - to identify strategies to improve support.

Methods: This single-centre, longitudinal qualitative study included pregnant mothers and their support persons seen in Fetal Cardiology Clinic at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital from May through August 2019 for probable complex CHD. Twenty-seven individuals from 17 families participated in 62 phone interviews during pregnancy and postpartum: 27 conducted after the initial prenatal cardiology consultation, 15 after a follow-up prenatal visit, and 20 after birth.

"Choice of law" in precision medicine research.

Large-scale precision medicine research requires massive amounts of data representing people from all walks of life; thus, in the US, it is often multistate research. Significant legal and ethical quandaries arise as a result of the patchwork of laws states have enacted that may apply to research, are not preempted by federal law, and may impose requirements or provide participant rights and protections that differ from other states. Determining which state's laws apply, and under what circumstances, is not solved by the transition to a single-IRB model and researchers cannot simply choose one state's laws to apply uniformly.

Interfacility Transfer Guidelines for Isolated Facial Trauma: A Multidisciplinary Expert Consensus.

Background: The objective of this study was to develop guidelines for the transfer of patients with isolated craniomaxillofacial trauma.

Methods: A national, multidisciplinary expert panel was assembled from leadership in national organizations and contributors to published literature on facial reconstruction. The final panel consisted of five plastic surgeons, four otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeons, and four oral and maxillofacial surgeons.

Board Certification in Cosmetic Surgery: An Analysis of Punitive Actions.

Background: American Board of Plastic Surgery (ABPS) diplomates complete training in aesthetic surgery through an Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education-accredited program. American Board of Cosmetic Surgery (ABCS) diplomates complete residency training in a "related" specialty, some historically nonsurgical, followed by an American Association of Cosmetic Surgery fellowship. Unlike the ABPS, the ABCS is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties as an equivalent certifying board.

Use of pragmatic and explanatory trial designs in acute care research: lessons from COVID-19.

Unique challenges arise when conducting trials to evaluate therapies already in common clinical use, including difficulty enrolling patients owing to widespread open-label use of trial therapies and the need for large sample sizes to detect small but clinically meaningful treatment effects. Despite numerous successes in trials evaluating novel interventions such as vaccines, traditional explanatory trials have struggled to provide definitive answers to time-sensitive questions for acutely ill patients with COVID-19. Pragmatic trials, which can increase efficiency by allowing some or all trial procedures to be embedded into clinical care, are increasingly proposed as a means to evaluate therapies that are in common clinical use.

Board Certification in Cosmetic Surgery: An Examination of Online Advertising Practices.

Background: Aesthetic surgery patients commonly use online resources to select a surgeon. The American Board of Plastic Surgery is the American Board of Medical Specialties member board that certifies plastic surgeons. The American Board of Cosmetic Surgery (ABCS) provides aesthetic surgery credentials through a non-American Board of Medical Specialties-recognized process.

Ethical Considerations in Ever-Expanding Utilization of ECLS: A Research Agenda.

Technological advancements and rapid expansion in the clinical use of extracorporeal life support (ECLS) across all age ranges in the last decade, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to important ethical considerations. As a costly and resource intensive therapy, ECLS is used emergently under high stakes circumstances where there is often prognostic uncertainty and risk for serious complications. To develop a research agenda to further characterize and address these ethical dilemmas, a working group of specialists in ECLS, critical care, cardiothoracic surgery, palliative care, and bioethics convened at a single pediatric academic institution over the course of 18 months.