Annals of Family Medicine articles from September 2006

Annals of Family Medicine archives from September 2006

In this issue: capacity for caring and generating new knowledge.(health policy and family medicine scope in overall public health improvement)(Editorial)
September 1, 2006... DOI: 10.1370/afm.631. This issue presents research, theory, and commentary on a wide range of topics. Studies of the effects of health policy, health care, and how disease manifests are balanced by research and essays that address ways of...

Reliving history and renewing the health care reform debate.(Editorial)
September 1, 2006... As the 2008 presidential elections approach, health care reform is once again easing its way into the consciousness of many Americans. At last count, 48 million of them--nearly one fifth of those younger than 65 years--lacked health insurance,...

Short-term impacts of coverage loss in a Medicaid population: early results from a prospective cohort study of the Oregon Health Plan.
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT PURPOSE Medicaid programs in all 50 states recently implemented cost-saving strategies, including benefit reductions, cost sharing, and tightened administrative rules. These changes resulted in loss of insurance coverage for...

Primary care physicians' perceptions of the effect of insurance status on clinical decision making.
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT PURPOSE Americans who do not have health insurance receive fewer health services and have poorer health status than those who have insurance. To better understand this disparity, in this study we characterize primary care...

Mandatory reporting of elder abuse: between a rock and a hard place.
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT PURPOSE Despite mandated reporting laws that require physicians to report elder abuse, physicians have low rates of reporting. The purpose of this study was to identify physician's perspectives on mandated reporting of elder...

Excess mortality caused by medical injury.
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT PURPOSE We wanted to estimate excess risk of in-hospital mortality associated with medical injuries identified using an injury surveillance system, after controlling for risk of death resulting from comorbidities. METHODS The...

Psychological distress and multimorbidity in primary care.
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT PURPOSE Psychological distress may decrease adherence to medical treatments and lead to poorer health outcomes of chronic diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between psychological distress and...

Associations between night sweats and other sleep disturbances: an OKPRN study.
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT PURPOSE Surprisingly little is known about the causes and implications of night sweats. This study was designed to clarify further the associations between night sweats and sleep-related symptoms. METHODS We undertook a...

Evidence of nephropathy and peripheral neuropathy in US adults with undiagnosed diabetes.
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT PURPOSE Nearly one third of diabetes cases in the United States is undiagnosed, with mounting evidence that complications accrue even before clinical diagnosis. We wanted to determine whether persons with undiagnosed diabetes have...

US men discussing prostate-specific antigen tests with a physician.
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT PURPOSE Informed decision making is recommended for prostate cancer screening. I wanted to examine demographic and screening-related factors associated with men's discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of prostate-specific...

NIH funding in family medicine: an analysis of 2003 awards.(National Institutes of Health)
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT PURPOSE We wanted to analyze National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards to departments of family medicine. METHODS We obtained the list of NIH awards to departments of family medicine in 2003, and collected additional...

Creating innovative research designs: the 10-year methodological think tank case study.
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT PURPOSE Addressing important but complex research questions often necessitates the creation of innovative mixed methods designs. This report describes an approach to developing research designs for studying important but...

General medical practitioners need to be aware of the theories on which our work depends.(REFLECTIONS)
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT When general practitioners and family physicians listen, reflect, and diagnose, we use 3 different theories of knowledge. This essay explores these theories to highlight an approach to clinical practice, inquiry, and learning that...

Family medicine's identity: being generalists in a specialist culture?(REFLECTIONS)
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT Family medicine has been in conflict about whether it is a specialty or a generalist discipline. Although for a time the family was offered as a solution to family medicine being marginalized in biomedicine, a more biomedical...

Si, Doctora.(REFLECTIONS)
September 1, 2006... ABSTRACT Experience with seeing Latino patients at a community health center has taught a family physician that the patient's response, "Si, doctora [Yes, doctor]" can have multiple meanings. Patients might say "yes" during consultations...

On TRACK: 'allows readers and authors to go one step further'.(ON TRACK)
September 1, 2006... As noted by a recent participant, the Annals TRACK discussion of articles can be "a good forum for communication on publications, and allows readers and authors to go one step further." (1) Since the last issue, readers and authors have gone...

Title VII: our loss, their pain.(Family Medicine Updates)
September 1, 2006... Despite spending more per capita on health care than any other nation, the United States lags behind other industrialized nations in all major health outcome measures. This is due to 2 main factors: (1) relative to the rest of the world, the...

Primary care research in Canada and the United States.
September 1, 2006... The state of primary care research in Canada and the United States has much in common. The development of this important body of knowledge is still in an emergent phase in both nations and while different strategies have been implemented to...

June happenings: significant for specialty?
September 1, 2006... June 2006 could prove to have been a watershed month for family medicine because of a convergence of events that bode well for the specialty's future. Many of the events were brought about by the AAFP's hard work over time, said AAFP President...

ABFM announces MC-FP early start.(MC-FP EARLY START, EM/FM COMBINED PROGRAM)(American Board of Family Medicine)(Maintenance of Certification for Family Physicians)
September 1, 2006... In response to the many requests received from Diplomates, the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) is pleased to announce that it has accelerated many of the changes to Maintenance of Certification for Family Physicians (MC-FP) that were...

Emergency Medicine/Family Medicine combined training program.(MC-FP EARLY START, EM/FM COMBINED PROGRAM)
September 1, 2006... The American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) and the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) have approved guidelines for a 5-year combined training program that, upon completion, will provide graduates the opportunity to seek certification...

STFM new partners initiative: a productive first year!(FAMILY MEDICINE UPDATES)(Society of Teachers of Family Medicine)
September 1, 2006... The Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) established the New Partners Initiative (NPI) as a way to develop the people and mechanisms to enhance the long-term support and viability of family medicine programs. By emphasizing the...