Teaching occupational health to medical students

204 tivariate analysis confirmed that clinical severity of the patient’s illnesses and the type and number of recommendations were all predictors of compliance. To promote overall compliance, consultants should limit the total number of recommendations in their initial consultation to five or fewer, focusing on issues central to current patient care. This is especially true in severely ill patients. Since recommendations that must be implemented by physicians or nurses have a lower compliance rate, consultants must carefully follow up those requests. 12) Teaching occupational health to medical students REST, K.M., CORDES, D.H., and HAKE, J.C. Arizona Cent. Occup. Saf. Health, Tucson, AZ, U.S.A. J. Family Pratt. 16(5), 979-983, 1983 Occupational and environmental diseases and injury are both widespread and preventable, yet their study has been traditionally neglected in undergraduate medical education. Because family physicians will encounter many working patients who are subject to varying degrees of risk as a result of their job, home, or community environment, family-practice faculty must play an important role in teaching occupational and environmental health to medical students. Goals for the longitudinal integration of occupational and environmental health over the four-year curriculum include sensitizing students to the relationship between work and health, introducing and reinforcing the importance of the occupational and environmental history in patient care, integrating occupational and environmental health principles and examples with existing course work, and providing appropriate clinical, research, and didactic activities for interested students. Goal achievement will vary with the availability of curricular time and teaching faculty. Strategies for implementing occupational and environmental health curriculum in the face of these two variables are discussed. 13) A pediatric approach to visual handicap JAFFE, M., and SCHNITZER, M.R. Div. Pediatr., Hanna Khoushy Cent. Dev. Pediatr., Rothschild Univ. Hosp., Techn. Fat. Med., Haifa, Israel Clin. Pediatr. (Philadelphia) 22(4), 255-258, 1983 When dealing with a visually handicapped child, the pediatrician’s responsibility is considerable. He or she plays a key role in establishing the pathologic diagnosis and in coordinating the subsequent medical therapy and genetic counseling if required. These responsibilities also include providing emotional support to the family,

and advice regarding the various medical, developmental, and educational decisions that the family will face in the future. Basic knowledge regarding the effects of visual deprivation on the development of the child, and the use of appropriate compensatory stimuli utilizing the other sensory modalities, will be of greater value as the pediatrician accompanies the patient through the trials that await him or her and the family. 14) Provision of health education through internships at student health service RIENZO, B.A., KNIGHT, S.M., and TUCKER, M.D. Dept. Health Educ., Univ. Florida, Gainesville, FL, U.S.A. J. Am. Coil. Health Assoc. 30(6), 296-297, 1982 The University of Florida Student Health Service and the Department of Health Education have entered into a cooperative arrangement for the provision of health education services. Senior-level undergraduate majors in health education earn academic credit through a course entitled Health Counseling and Public Health Field Experience. Students in this course develop professional health-education skills by volunteering time in local health agencies and attending the class in which basic helping skills are taught. The agencies are chosen by the students from an approved list provided by the instructor. The University of Florida Student Health Service has become one such agency choice, particularly for those majors with a patient-education emphasis area. 15) Four major benefits result from operating a joint practice (Editorial) Hospitals 56(15), 42, 1982 Better patient care, increased patient satisfaction, improved nurse/physician relationships, and easier operational decisions are four major benefits of collaborative practice. As a result of the collaborative arrangement, physicians and nurses both know more about the condition and progress of patients. Both professionals use this knowledge to achieve better communication and coordination of health-care plans and to enhance their response to the medical and psychological needs of patients. A final benefit of the collaborative practice is improved management decisions. Goodwin notes that one of the most difficult tasks for administrators is to choose between dissimilar requests from nurses and physicians for supplies, equipment, scheduling, and so forth. Where collaborative practice exists, nurses and physicians discuss such operational issues and present a unified proposal to administration.

PATIENT EDUCATION AND COUNSELING