John R. Rudisill

Skills for Mentors and Protégés Applicable to Psychiatry

The authors address the elements and dynamics involved in the life cycle of mentoring relationships applicable to psychiatry, including a proposed model for explicating the developmental stages experienced by participants in the process. They provide a review of the mentoring literature for use in psychiatric education, research, and practice and offer various perspectives, describing skills for mentors, skills for protégés, the dynamics of the mentoring relationship, benefits and barriers, and issues related to gender, race, and culture.

Medical student abuse: perceptions and experience

Summary. A questionnaire containing 18 vignettes of common clinical educational situations with potentially abusive treatment of medical students and a 10‐item attitude assessment about abusive behaviour were administered to the first‐and fourth‐year medical students at a mid‐west US university medical school. The first‐ and fourth‐year groups did not differ significantly on perceived abusiveness of most of the vignettes, although several of the individual vignettes were perceived significantly differently by the two groups. As hypothesized, the fourth‐year students had experienced such situations more frequently. Attitudes towards abusive behaviour did not differ between the two groups. The authors contrast teaching interactions perceived as educationally useful and not abusive with those seen as abusive and not useful and offer explanations for the differences observed. Finally, the possible implications of the results for medical education are discussed.

Coping with Job Transitions over the Work Life

A job transition is a process involving a number of steps, including thinking about goals and skills, evaluating the potential job market, conducting the job search, managing personal reactions, and negotiating entry into the new organization. As both a common and impactful transition of modern life, it is important to examine the factors associated with coping with job transitions. Specifically, we would like to consider the societal changes in the current work context, and the research evidence indicating job transitions can be significant life stressors. We then examine the role that coping plays in the transition process, and outline our mediation model of antecedents, coping and outcomes. Case studies of job transitions at four points in the work-life are presented to illustrate the model. We search for common themes and issues in the process of job transitions across the work-life, and raise questions regarding how these may be uniquely played out at different points in an individual’s life. The implications for the professional’s role in helping individuals and organizations facilitate transitions are discussed. Finally, we present directions for future research.

Teaching medical students about substance abuse in a weekend intervention program.

The authors of this article describe a new approach, called the Weekend Intervention Program, used to teach about alcoholism and substance abuse. The new program makes it possible for medical students to see the process of treatment and intervention unfold. The program places medical students under professional supervision in close, intense contact with drug and alcohol abusers. The program strongly reinforces the instruction presented in both basic science and clinical courses. More than 100 students have participated in the program, and they report it to be an intensely rewarding, valuable experience. The program requires no new resources and is cost-effective.

An Instructional Skills Workshop for Psychiatry Residents

Growing concerns about preparation, coaching and supervision of psychiatry residents as instructors generated a unique, experiential workshop design for teaching instructional skills. The authors share a replicable methodology featuring the learning principles of lectures, tutorials, small group instruction and supervision. Mimicking the workshop content paradigm, the paper incorporates tables of characteristics and principles of clinical teaching models. Assessed resident attitudes toward teaching fell in step with a previously reported attitudinal survey1 with this exception: that residents were interested in instructional skill training and the workshop was positively valued by residents. Preliminary evaluation data also indicate that the workshop produced knowledge change.

Incentives for Teaching Psychiatry

A questionnaire was sent to chairs and faculty in 137 academic departments of psychiatry regarding the methods used to promote teaching and their perceived value. The incentives most often used included promotion and retention, nomination to committees, and peer recognition. Least often used were bonuses and a designated teachers’ career track. Chairs and their faculty often disagreed as to whether some incentives were being used at all Recognition of teaching excellence was generally most highly valued as a useful incentive. Clarification of the nature and purpose of teaching incentives would likely improve their effectiveness.

Community vs. Private-Practice Psychiatrists: Lifestyle and Role as Related to Career Track

Around the late 1970s, the proportion Tasman, 1991; Clark & Vaccaro, 1987; Olafson, Klerman, & Pincos, 1993). Curof psychiatrists working in community mental health centers fell sharply. Some aurently, although some psychiatrists avoid even managed-care settings, others choose thors suggested that this was due to a change in psychiatrists’ roles in the public to work entirely in the public mental health sector. mental health system, which resulted in job dissatisfaction among all psychiatrists On the basis of the literature, we expected that psychiatrists currently working (Windle, Poppen, Thompson, & Marvella, 1988; Flaskeryd, 1986; Goldberg, Riba, & in community mental health centers would report a different “job description” than would psychiatrists in private, non-managed-care settings, and therefore would rePaulette Marie Gillig, M.D., Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry, port different reasons for choosing these School of Medicine, at Wright State University respective settings. We anticipated that in Dayton, Ohio. Ronald Markert, Ph.D.; David these choices would be based in part on Bienenfeld, M.D.; William Klykylo, M.D.; John lifestyle considerations, and in part on difRudisill, Ph.D.; Jerald Kay, M.D.; and James Bourgeois, O.D., M.D., also were affiliated with fering ideologies of the proper profesthe Department of Psychiatry at Wright State sional role of a psychiatrist (Baker & University. Baker, 1999). This research was supported by an educational research grant to Professor Gillig at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, from the Ohio Department of Mental Health. METHOD Address for correspondence: Paulette Marie Gillig, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Participants were a convenience sample Wright State University School of Medicine, of 272 full-time practicing psychiatrists seP.O. 927, Dayton, OH 45401. E-mail: pgillig@ your-net.com. lected from the American Psychiatric As-