Douglas F. Kauffman

Implementation of a Novel Structured Social and Wellness Committee in a Surgical Residency Program: A Case Study

This article provides a theoretical and practical rational for the implementation of an innovative and comprehensive social wellness program in a surgical residency program at a large safety net hospital on the East Coast of the United States. Using basic needs theory, we describe why it is particularly important for surgical residency programs to consider the residents sense of competence, autonomy, and belonging during residence. We describe how we have developed a comprehensive program to address our residents’ (and residents’ families) psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and belongingness.

The Intersection of Gender and Resuscitation Leadership Experience in Emergency Medicine Residents: A Qualitative Study

The objective was to examine emergency medicine (EM) residents’ perceptions of gender as it intersects with resuscitation team dynamics and the experience of acquiring resuscitation leadership skills.

The Impact of Competency-Based Learning and Digital Self-assessment on Facilitating Students’ Cognitive and Interpersonal Skills

This paper aims to utilize a mixed-methods assessment for an innovative interdisciplinary course, Application Period, in a world-class Russian University. In order to examine how the cognitive (competency-based learning) and motivational (self-efficacy for interpersonal skills) concepts impact students’ achievement in engineering education, an exploratory sequential design was conducted by firstly collecting qualitative data to signify the students’ interactive learning process during the project-based collaboration and team communication. Subsequently, two instruments measuring the students’ learning outcomes were built based on the previous qualitative data and preliminary learning objectives. The suggestions and implications are provided to specify how to employ competency-based learning and self-efficacy for interpersonal skills in teaching and how to assess those content knowledge and pedagogical skills in contemporary education.

Socially Responsible Surgery: Building Recognition and Coalition

Importance Socially responsible surgery (SRS) integrates surgery and public health, providing a framework for research, advocacy, education, and clinical practice to address the social barriers of health that decrease surgical access and worsen surgical outcomes in underserved patient populations. These patients face disparities in both health and in health care, which can be effectively addressed by surgeons in collaboration with allied health professionals. Objective We reviewed the current state of surgical access and outcomes of underserved populations in American rural communities, American urban communities, and in low- and middle-income countries. Evidence review We searched PubMed using standardized search terms and reviewed the reference lists of highly relevant articles. We reviewed the reports of two recent global surgery commissions. Conclusion There is an opportunity for scholarship in rural surgery, urban surgery, and global surgery to be unified under the concept of SRS. The burden of surgical disease and the challenges to management demonstrate that achieving optimal health outcomes requires more than excellent perioperative care. Surgeons can and should regularly address the social determinants of health experienced by their patients. Formalized research and training opportunities are needed to meet the growing enthusiasm among surgeons and trainees to develop their practice as socially responsible surgeons.

Validating the Inventory of School Motivation with Mainland Chinese Students

The purpose of this study was to validate the Inventory of School Motivation (Mainland China), which was developed specifically for use with Mainland Chinese students. Development of the instrument was grounded in Personal Investment theory and built on the Inventory of School Motivation instrument, which has been shown to accurately tap the achievement goal constructs hypothesized by the theory. Our data analysis indicated that the subscales in our instrument do represent dimensions associated with achievement goals: task, effort, competition, social power, affiliation, social concern, praise, and token. Participants were 458 undergraduates from five universities in eastern China. A series of nested confirmatory factor analyses supported a multidimensional school motivation structure. The results indicated both convergent and concurrent validity for the instrument with Mainland students. Relationships were found between Inventory of School Motivation goal constructs and global motivation goals, family-oriented goals, self-concepts, and learning approaches. Our findings support that Mainland Chinese students’ achievement goal orientation is consistent with that found in other cultures, suggesting that the instrument and the theory that informs it may further cross-cultural research in this area. At the same time, though, our findings show that Mainland students endorse some goal orientations differently from other groups, suggesting an inventory instrument specific to Mainland China is both important and necessary.