Post-Katrina: Study in crisis-related program adaptability
OBJECTIVE: To discuss disaster planning, didactic reorganization, and clinical realignments useful in rebuilding academic otolaryngology residency programs after disaster. SUMMARY: We describe our reorganization and analysis of objective measures in resident education before and after Hurricane Katrina. Post-Katrina, the number of full-time faculty and part-time clinical instructors/gratis faculty has decreased (4 vs 9 and 36 vs 43, respectively), but the number of part-time LSU faculty (private-academic partnership) has increased (0 vs 3) with overall improved resident supervision. Resident complement decreased by 9.3%. Surgical case loads are essentially unchanged. Reorganization of the didactic schedule has increased attendance and maintained examination scores above national averages. Establishment of two new practice sites provided an adequate number of patients for residency training. CONCLUSION: Poststorm reorganization has maintained or exceeded pre-Katrina performance standards. Establishment of communication and data retrieval proved irreplaceable and demand advance preparation.
Finding Focus in Crisis: Resident-Driven Graduate Medical Education at a Military Training Facility during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Pandemics offer a multitude of challenges to healthcare providers and medical institutions, particularly within military medicine. In addition to administering world-class patient care and maintaining the overall health and safety of the hospital staff, military training facilities (MTFs) affiliated with graduate medical education (GME) face particular challenges. Preservation of adequate trainee education remains difficult when resources are limited, elective surgeries and evaluations are postponed, and social distancing requirements keep trainee-staff interactions minimized. Nevertheless, maintenance of GME at MTFs is of utmost importance in terms of medical and operational readiness. There is limited structural guidance with regards to sustaining quality GME during these unique times.1–3 The presence of such difficulty offers opportunity for the discovery of innovative approaches to resident education, and limited research on GME has been performed during periods of required social distancing.4 As such, the authors propose a novel and structured approach to the persistence of not only adequate, but perhaps improved strategies to provide GME while mitigating exposure risks and
Adolescent sexual offenders: incidence of childhood maltreatment, serious emotional disturbance, and prior offenses.
Adolescents incarcerated for sexual offenses were compared to those incarcerated for other crimes on measures of prior child abuse and neglect, serious emotional disturbance, and involvement in child welfare and the juvenile justice system. Sexual or physical abuse was more common than neglect among sexual offenders with fewer than three prior maltreatment reports. Sexual offenders were twice as likely to be receiving special education services for severe emotional disturbance, and were usually incarcerated later than other offenders. Implications for research and practice are discussed.