Adnan Ataç

What do patients expect from their physicians? Qualitative research on the ethical aspects of patient statements

This study aimed to examine the thoughts and expectations of patients receiving healthcare from their physicians and evaluate the ethical aspects of these thoughts and expectations. To determine the ethical aspects of the thoughts and expectations of patients, an open-ended question was asked on the web page of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) Health Care Command, which is accessible to the users of the TAF intranet system (the internet system used within TAF institutions). The participants were asked to express their thoughts in their own words. A total of 804 participants answered the question by providing their input. The statements of the participants were classified separately by two public health specialists. The classification was made in accordance with the basic principles of patient rights, and they were collected under various headings including expectations about respect and care, good communication, informed consent, and fair and non-privileged distribution of healthcare services. The results show that patients tend to consider the physicians they see as solely responsible for all the negative issues that they encounter during their healthcare. This indicates that there is a need for extensive research on the underlying factors involved in the negative thoughts and feelings toward healthcare professionals in both TAF and Turkey in general.

Military Medical Graduates' Perceptions of Organizational Culture in Turkish Military Medical School

Organizational culture is the term used to describe the shared beliefs, perceptions, and expectations of individuals in organizations. In the healthcare environment, organizational culture has been associated with several elements of organizational experience that contribute to quality, such as nursing care, job satisfaction, and patient safety. A range of tools have been designed to measure organizational culture and applied in industrial, educational, and health care settings. This study has been conducted to investigate the perceptions of military medical graduates on organizational culture at Gülhane Military Medical School. A measurement of organizational culture, which was developed by the researchers from Akdeniz University, was applied to all military medical graduates in 2004. This was a Likert type scale that included 31 items. Designers of the measurement grouped all these items into five main dimensions in their previous study. The items were scored on a five-point scale anchored by 1: strongly agree and 5: strongly disagree. Study participants included all military physicians who were in clerkship training period at Gulhane Military Medical Academy in 2004. A total of 106 graduates were accepted to response the questionnaire. The mean age of participants was 25.2 ± 1.1. At the time of study only 8 (7.5%) graduates were married. The study results have showed that the measurement tool with 31 items had a sufficient reliability with a Cronbachs alpha value of 0.91. Factor analysis has resulted a final measurement tool of 24 items with five factors. Total score and the scores of five subdimensions have been estimated and compared between groups based on living city and marital status. The study has shown the dimension of symbol received positive perceptions while the dimension of organizational structure and efficiency received the most negative perceptions. GMMS has a unique organizational culture with its weak and strong aspects. Conducting this kind of studies contribute to improve organizational culture in order to increase educational and research capability.

Quality of an Informed Consent Prior to a Surgical Intervention? Experience of a Teaching Hospital.

Objective: To determine how far the information given by the physicians for the informed consent prior to the surgical intervention is comprehended by the patients. Methods: The study was carried out between July 1st, 2012 and July 1st, 2013 at Gulhane Medical Faculty. A total of 400 patients, who were in the third postoperative day after various surgical procedures (orthopedics, urology, ophthalmology, plastic surgery and breast surgery), were included in the study. Results: Of all the patients, 73.5% stated that the operative information was provided by physicians, whereas 22.7% claimed that no information was given in this regard. The patients who knew the name of the disease was 78%, while 18.3% did not know. Of all the patients, 25.7% knew the name of the operation, in contrast to of 52.3% who did not know it. About 12.5% of patients stated that they were not informed about the likely complications during the surgery, whereas 13.7% of patients reported that they were not informed about the post-operative complications. Conclusion: The verbal information and the written texts, different approaches such as drawings and visual materials (i.e. video’s and photographs) should be considered while providing information to the patients. While doing so the level of education of the community should also be taken into account.