My affair with the JAP

The medical community invests great confidence in published articles and research. It is incumbent on authors to be aware of the ethical responsibilities inherent in medical writing.     

On the practice of psychotherapy by the nonmedically trained.

Freud in his writing indicated that medical training was not necessary for psychoanalytic qualification. The problem (of the practice of psychotherapy by the nonmedically trained) is still very much with us; and it may be profitable to re-examine the arguments pro and con for allowing nonmedically trained individuals to perform psychotherapy. The positions of persons opposed to nonmedically trained psychotherapy are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bcl-2 expression and apoptosis in nephrotoxic nephritis

The aim of this paper is to present a conceptual and practical framework of the case-control design in medical research. To illustrate this method, practical examples directed to clinicians and other health professionals interested in medical research are presented. The case-control method is very versatile and allows for multiple applications. Guidelines for the selection of cases and controls, and some considerations on sample size are presented. In the statistical analysis we use concrete examples of how to estimate odds ratios, confidence intervals, and methods to control for potential confounders, from stratified analysis to logistic regression.     

Do citation conventions influence coauthorship patterns?

The main purpose of contributing to radiologic publications should be to advance the state of knowledge or increase awareness of issues useful in radiologic practice and research. According to experts on medical writing, however, the pride of discovery and the communication of scientific information for the enrichment of public knowledge are not the sole motives of authors. Success in the profession, prestige, and tenure have long been associated with prolific publishing in peer-reviewed journals. A proof of this association is the documented rise through recent years in the number of authors per paper. The phenomenon has been attributed in part to the increasing complexity and labor intensiveness of biomedical research, but this speculation remains unproved, and it is believed that often the allocation of authorship has a volitional component.     

Strategies for empowering women's voices in the medical culture

Power and knowledge are closely connected, and this is no less true for the medical profession than it is for any other sphere of life. Knowledge is constructed by voice. Unfortunately, women's voices are often silent in the factory where medical knowledge is produced. Medicalization and ignoring are symptoms of the medical oppression of women's voices. Empowerment of women's voices at various levels within the medical culture is essential for influence and social reconstruction. In this regard, a research project on alternative approaches to physician-patient communication as well as research methods is presented. Knowledge constructed from women's voices will be neglected by medical power unless it can hold up to systematic investigative procedures. Sensitive and sensible research from women's voices requires methodology that preserves women's messages and transforms them into medical knowledge. Such efforts may ultimately lead toward construction of a feminine medical epistemology--a medical knowledge that reflects women's reality.     

Gay Gaer Luce and Julius Segal: Distinguished Science Writing Award.

This year's Distinguished Science Writing Award, presented by the American Psychological Foundation, is given jointly to: Gay Gaer Luce and Julius Segal for their book entitled Sleep--published by Coward-McCann. This year's award is of special interest for at least two reasons: Gay Luce is a two-time winner, having received the award in 1962 for her magazine articles; and Julius Segal is the first APA member to receive the award. Gay Gaer Luce is a science writer who began preparing her material on the subject of sleep for the National Institute of Mental Health. Julius Segal is a psychologist and writer on the staff of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Brief autobiographical sketches are presented for the two writers. Through their painstaking research combined with clear and eloquent writing, Gay Luce and Julius Segal have made a brilliant contribution and have set a new standard for popular writing in the behavioral sciences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Health regimen of Anonymus Luneburgensis in 1442. 2: Medical consultations--Anonymus Luneburgensis consultations]

The tradition of "Gesundheitsregimina" is based on the ancient model of equilibrium ruling physical and non-physical life and going back also to mediaeval dietetics that reached its acme in the university of Salerno. Anonymus Luneburgensis proves to be an experienced medical author who apparently made his living at least in part by writing (concilia) for certain persons. Such conciliaries might contain general rules for preserving health, for example for the various seasons of the year, or provide specific advice on secondary prevention or treatment. The 2 Luneburg regimen texts "Medical advice on how to deal with podagra", and "Medical advice on treating catarrh or colds" are presented.     

Empirical foundations for writing in prevention and psychotherapy: mental and physical health outcomes

The use of writing, alone or in conjunction with traditional psychotherapy, has increased substantially in recent years. The most widespread use of writing has been for single-shot ad hoc purposes or to log behavior. The purpose of this review is to summarize a decade of research demonstrating the efficacy of writing about past traumatic experiences on mental and physical health outcomes. It is widely acknowledged in our culture that putting upsetting experiences into words can be healthy. Research from several domains indicates that talking with friends, confiding to a therapist, praying, and even writing about one's thoughts and feelings can be physically and mentally beneficial. This review highlights advances in written disclosure that determine some therapeutic outcomes. In addition, we attempt to explore the mechanisms that predict improved psychological and physical health. Finally, limitations of previous studies are highlighted, and suggestions for future research and application are made.     

Review of The Writing Cure: How Expressive Writing Promotes Health and Emotional Well-Being.

The reviewer notes that this book (S. J. Lepore and J. M. Smyth [Eds.], 2002; see record 2002-01516-000) consists of 14 chapters exploring the therapeutic implications of expressive writing. The book succeeds in its efforts to present and evaluate current research on the health benefits of writing. The contributors chart new directions for future research and suggest the clinical and therapeutic applications of writing. One common theme running throughout the book is that writing facilitates cognitive integration. Another theme is that writing leads to self-mastery. The Writing Cure is a groundbreaking book, but the reviewer wishes that the editors had widened their focus to include research in the humanities, particularly literary studies and rhetoric and composition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Writing research and the writer.

A review of research on the structure of writing processes shows that writing is goal directed, that goals are hierarchically organized, and that writers use 3 major processes—planning, sentence generation, and revision. The planning process is outlined in terms of the representation of knowledge, the source of the writing plan, and the use of strategic knowledge. Differences between average and expert writers in the sentence generation process are noted, and the nature of the revision process is described in terms of experts' ability to attend to global problems, writers' difficulty in detecting faults in their own text, the cues that initiate revision, and the detection and diagnosis of text problems. The importance of understanding the cognitive processes underlying writing and the value of a process-oriented approach to instruction are emphasized. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why doesn't the writing cure help poets?

This paper examines the literature on creative writing and mental illness and relates it to the "writing cure" research that shows that expressive writing improves health. There is an abundance of evidence that professional poets have poorer health outcomes relative to both other writers and to the population at large. Why doesn't the writing cure help them? The formation of a narrative, an element often missing in poetry, may provide the answer. Other possible explanations are that poets may be more depressed to begin with and may be even worse off if they did not write. For female poets, they may be subject to stereotypic expectations about writing themes, which may put them at further risk. Those seeking improvements in health through writing are advised to adopt a narrative style. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Professional psychologists in general health care settings: A review of the financial efficacy of direct treatment interventions.

Research is reviewed that evaluates the extent to which psychologists can reduce medical costs of health problems while still maintaining treatment effectiveness. Specific areas on cost-effectiveness include the following: preparation for anxiety provoking medical procedures, smoking cessation, detection and treatment of somatizing patients, psychological intervention in general rehabilitation, rehabilitation of chronic pain patients, behavioral treatment of cardiovascular disorders, and adherence to medical regimens. Major conclusions on these areas are presented. Difficulties with the research are discussed along with areas for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Putting the conceptual model into the research report

Writing research can be challenging--especially writing the conceptual model. Deciding how much to include of the conceptual model and where to place it is difficult. This experienced research author presents four steps to guide the nurse author in writing the conceptual model for research reports.     

Hypertension, antihypertensive drugs, and mortality from cancer among women

It is well known that black American women are poorly represented in medically oriented research and that this has far reaching implications for their personal health, the health of their families and the overall health of the larger society. The research reported was premised on the assumption that learning more about black American women's beliefs and values regarding health and illness could inform public policy initiatives in the area of cancer prevention and control so that a more equitable basis for participation could be achieved in future medical and scientific research. Qualitative methods of research were used in this investigation. A semi-structured interview guide was used in 36 h. of in-depth and face-to-face interviews with 13 black American women recruited to the study using a snowball technique. The women interviewed were middle-class, professional and semi-professional women. The results of the study indicate that there is a poor understanding by the dominant white medical community concerning the beliefs and values of black patients and that this compromises their health and illness care. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment is often used as the rationale for the low recruitment of black women into clinical trials both therapeutic and non-therapeutic. The women interviewed do not agree with this claim. These women suggest that if they were asked to participate in trials and the trial was relevant to their primary medical concerns they would consider joining. The research results indicate the importance of using specific research methodologies and a number of recommendations are presented.     

The nature of lexical knowledge

This paper considers the nature of lexical knowledge and its role in language and information processing. The lexicon is the central component of language and plays a pivotal role in current linguistic theory [3, 4] and, increasingly, in natural language processing systems [5-7]. The lexicon embodies information about the lexical items of the language and serves as the foundation for morphologic, syntactic, and semantic processing. The differences as well as commonalities among dictionaries, thesauri, and lexicons are discussed, and distinctions between words, lexical items, and terms are drawn. Next, the scope and content of the SPECIALIST lexicon are presented, followed by a discussion of certain writing conventions that can be troublesome for text processing applications. One approach to handling orthographic and other lexical variation is discussed in a section that reports on the design and implementation of the SPECIALIST lexical programs. The paper concludes with a discussion of controlled terminologies for the medical domain. Throughout the discussion, examples are drawn from the SPECIALIST lexicon and from the other UMLS knowledge sources [8, 9].     

Conceptual graph grammar--a simple formalism for sublanguage

There are a wide variety of computer applications that deal with various aspects of medical language: concept representation, controlled vocabulary, natural language processing, and information retrieval. While technical and theoretical methods appear to differ, all approaches investigate different aspects of the same phenomenon: medical sublanguage. This paper surveys the properties of medical sublanguage from a formal perspective, based on detailed analyses cited in the literature. A review of several computer systems based on sublanguage approaches shows some of the difficulties in addressing the interaction between the syntactic and semantic aspects of sublanguage. A formalism called Conceptual Graph Grammar is presented that attempts to combine both syntax and semantics into a single notation by extending standard Conceptual Graph notation. Examples from the domain of pathology diagnoses are provided to illustrate the use of this formalism in medical language analysis. The strengths and weaknesses of the approach are then considered. Conceptual Graph Grammar is an attempt to synthesize the common properties of different approaches to sublanguage into a single formalism, and to begin to define a common foundation for language-related research in medical informatics.