OBJECTIVE To examine the reasons and search strategies related to physicians' search for evidence and to compare clinician and physician manager approaches. DESIGN Qualitative analysis of verbatim transcripts of four focus groups in 2002. Study setting. Clinicians and managers in community practices in Southern California. PARTICIPANTS Pediatricians, family practitioners, and general intern...

BACKGROUND The direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription medications is proliferating in the United States. The relationship between patient exposure to DTCA and the response of clinicians is not well understood. METHODS A randomized postal survey of Arizona primary care provider physicians (n = 1080) and physician assistants (n = 704) was conducted. A questionnaire was created us...

OBJECTIVE No studies have explored the barriers to implementing lung-protective ventilation in patients with acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Our objective was to identify barriers to using lung-protective ventilation in patients with ALI/ARDS. DESIGN Survey with content analysis of open-ended responses. SETTING Medical center. PARTICIPANTS Experienc...

In medicine, it is critical that clinicians demonstrate both empathy (perceived as warmth) and competence. Perceptions of these qualities are often intuitive and are based on nonverbal behavior. Emphasizing both warmth and competence may prove problematic, however, because there is evidence that they are inversely related in other settings. We hypothesize that perceptions of physician competenc...

In a quality and cost-conscious health care environment, the pediatrician and emergency physician must work as a team. This statement clarifies important issues of this relationship, including coordination of patient care, communication between clinicians, provision of continuity care, and responsibility for quality emergency care.

BACKGROUND Lebanon suffers from a large scale emigration of physicians coupled with an oversaturation of the physician job market. Lebanon is currently witnessing an expansion of its medical education capacity with the establishment of new private medical schools, raising the fears of a worsening market oversaturation. DISCUSSION The neighboring Arabian Gulf countries are suffering from a ser...

Implementation of practice guidelines is a beguilingly complex activity that requires attention to the task of clinicians, the constraints they face, and the social practice of medicine. Local clinical opinion leaders can accelerate the pace of change by encouraging early adoption and modeling new practices. "Tough love" approaches to guideline adoption have a role in raising the salience of th...

This study projects that the per capita supply of alternative medicine clinicians (chiropractors, naturopaths, and practitioners of oriental medicine) will grow by 88 percent between 1994 and 2010, while physician supply will grow by 16 percent. This increase is associated with growth in the number and size of alternative medicine colleges and in the opportunities these graduates have for licen...

The majority of the treatments for epilepsy are anticonvulsant drugs. These medications include carbamazepine, diazepam, ethosucimide, gabapentin, levetiracetam, phenobartital, phenytoin, etc. Early identification of epilepsy non-responders allows prompt switching to an alternative therapy, as well as saving significant time and money and increasing patient and physician satisfaction. Clinician...

PURPOSE Clinicians often are required to switch prescribed therapy for their patients in response to health plan initiatives for controlling drug expenditures. To explore the effect of these initiatives, we sought clinicians' feedback regarding their practices and processes for switching patients' medications to accommodate insurance coverage. DESIGN Self-administered Intranet-based survey of...