Dataset Information

Retention and recruitment of general dentists in an adjunct teaching model-A pilot study.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose/objectives

Retention and recruitment of part time clinical adjunct faculty members in dental education is becoming increasingly difficult as dental schools come to rely on this workforce for their increased involvement in clinical education. Contributing factors include full time faculty shortage, aging workforce, practice and student debt, practice and family commitments, and financial compensation. This study attempts to ascertain barriers to teaching so appropriate strategies can be formulated to address this issue.

Methods

In the spring of 2016 an email survey was sent to current and former adjunct faculty members to ascertain demographics and retention and recruitment strategies. Descriptive analyses were completed for all variables in the sample.

Results

Twenty nine of forty six subjects responded to the survey with a response rate of 63%. Subjects over the age of sixty comprised 55% with only 17% being under the age of forty five. Overall family and practice commitments along with compensation were the primary barriers to teaching part time. For new dentists, student loan debt was the primary barrier to teaching. Travel to teach was also a barrier as 70% of respondents drove 200 miles or less to the dental school.

Conclusion

The study demonstrated that the aging part time work force is a great concern and new part time clinical adjunct faculty members must be recruited. Barriers to recruitment and retention of faculty must be considered and addressed to sustain this teaching model.

SUBMITTER: Howe BJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5513532 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Retention and recruitment of general dentists in an adjunct teaching model-A pilot study.

Howe Brian J BJ Allareddy Verasathpurush V Barwacz Christopher A CA Parker I Reed IR Straub-Morarend Cheryl L CL Holmes David C DC

PloS one 20170717 7

<h4>Purpose/objectives</h4>Retention and recruitment of part time clinical adjunct faculty members in dental education is becoming increasingly difficult as dental schools come to rely on this workforce for their increased involvement in clinical education. Contributing factors include full time faculty shortage, aging workforce, practice and student debt, practice and family commitments, and financial compensation. This study attempts to ascertain barriers to teaching so appropriate strategies ...[more]

PMID: 28715479

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundA shortage of primary care physicians has been reported in many countries. Primary care systems are diverse and the challenges leading to a decline in workforce are at times context-specific and require tailored solutions. Inviting frontline clinicians to share their insights can help identify optimal strategies for a particular setting. To determine priorities for family physicians' and general practitioners' recruitment and retention in Singapore, we invited primary care physicians to rank pertinent strategies using PRIORITIZE, a transparent, systematic priority-setting approach.MethodsThe study advisory board, consisting of representatives of Singapore's key primary care stakeholders, determined the criteria for prioritising of general practitioners (GPs) and family physicians (FPs) recruitment and retention strategies in Singapore. A comprehensive list of GPs and FPs recruitment and retention strategies was extracted from a recent systematic review of the relevant literature. A questionnaire listing the strategies and the scoring criteria was administered online to doctors practicing in public and private sector in Singapore. Respondents' scores were combined to create a ranked list of locally most relevant strategies for improving GPs and FPs recruitment and retention.ResultsWe recruited a diverse sample of 50 GPs and FPs practicing in a variety of primary care settings, many with a range of additional professional responsibilities. Around 60 and 66% of respondents thought that there was a problem with recruitment and retention of GPs and FPs in Singapore, respectively. Strategies focusing on promoting primary care by emphasizing the advantages and enhancing the status of the profession as well as training-related strategies, such as sub-specialisation and high-quality rotations were considered priorities for improving recruitment. For retention of GPs and FPs, improving working conditions by increasing GPs' and FPs' salary and recognition, as well as varying or reducing time commitment, were seen as the most important strategies. The ranking between physicians working in public and private sector was mostly similar, with nine out of the top ten recruitment and retention strategies being the same.ConclusionPrimary care physicians' ranking of recruitment and retention strategies for GPs and FPs in Singapore provide important insight into the challenges and the solutions as seen by the members of the profession themselves. This information can guide future policy and decision making in this area.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Antibiotics are regularly prescribed by dental professionals in their practice, for the purpose of dental treatment as well as for the prevention of infection. The inappropriate use of antibiotics is a significant factor in the rise of antibiotic resistance. There is an immediate need for the advancement of prescribing guidelines and instructive polices to encourage the rational and appropriate utilization of medications especially antibiotics in dentistry. OBJECTIVE:The aim of this study was to identify the frequency of antibiotic prescription for treating dental infections in children among dentists in teaching institutions of Karachi, Pakistan and whether they are adhering to the prescribed international guidelines. METHODS:A cross-sectional study was conducted in three private and two public colleges of Karachi. After taking written informed consent and checking the inclusion criteria, a total of 380 participants were interviewed using a pre-designed validated questionnaire which included demographic profile and clinical case scenarios. Data were entered and analyzed on SPSS version 20. Inferential analysis was performed using chi-square test. The significance level was set at 0.05. RESULTS:Of the 380 subjects, a majority (71.3%) treated 15 or less children per month (n = 271) while 28.7% of dentists (n = 109) treated more than 15 children per month. Overall adherence to American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry guidelines was low from 26.1% to 44.2%. The difference between adherence of dentists with low and high volume of pediatric patients was significantly different for case scenarios 1, 3, 4 and 5 (p<0.001 for all) where dentists who treated 15 or less children per month were more likely to be adherent to standard antibiotic prescription guidelines than those who treated more than 15 children per month. CONCLUSIONS:This study shows that majority of dentists, particularly dentists with high volume of pediatric patients lacked adherence to professional guidelines for prescribing antibiotics for treating dental infection in children. There seem to be a lack of harmony between the recommended professional guidelines and the antibiotic prescribing pattern of dentists. Regular updates and continuing medical education for the health professionals regarding comprehensible and specific professional guidelines may lead to improved adherence of antibiotics prescription amongst dentists.

Project description:BackgroundThere have been few prospective observational studies which recruited older newly-diagnosed cancer patients, and of these only some have reported information on the number needed to screen to recruit their study sample, and the number and reasons for refusal and drop-out. This paper reports on strategies to recruit older newly-diagnosed cancer patients prior to treatment into an observational prospective pilot study and to retain them during a six-month period.MethodsMedical charts of all patients in the Segal Cancer Centre aged 65 and over were screened and evaluated for inclusion. Several strategies to facilitate recruitment and retention were implemented. Reasons for exclusion, refusal and loss to follow-up were recorded. Descriptive statistics were used to report the reasons for refusal and loss to follow-up. A non-response analysis using chi-square tests and t-tests was conducted to compare respondents to those who refused to participate and to compare those who completed the study to those who were lost to follow-up. A feedback form with open-ended questions was administered following the last interview to obtain patient's opinions on the length of the interviews and conduct of this pilot study.Results3060 medical charts were screened and 156 eligible patients were identified. Of these 112 patients participated for a response rate of 72%. Reasons for refusal were: feeling too anxious (40%), not interested (25%), no time (12.5%), too sick (5%) or too healthy (5%) or other reasons (5%). Ninety-one patients participated in the six-month follow-up (retention 81.3%), seven patients refused follow-up (6.2%) and fourteen patients died (12.5%) during the course of the study. The median time to conduct the baseline interview was 45 minutes and 57% of baseline interviews were conducted at home. Most patients enjoyed participation and only five felt that the interviews were too long.ConclusionIt was feasible to recruit newly-diagnosed cancer patients prior to treatment although it required considerable time and effort. Once patients were included, the retention rate was high despite the fact that most were undergoing active cancer treatment.

Project description:AimTo investigate recruitment, retention, and estimates for effects of formula supplementation with Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) on inflammatory biomarkers and fecal microbial community in infants with colic.MethodsA prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted in otherwise healthy infants with colic. We screened 74 infants and randomized and analyzed results in 20 infants [9 receiving LGG (LGG+) and 11 not receiving LGG (LGG-)]. LGG was incorporated in the formula (Nutramigen(®)) (minimum of 3 × 10(7) CFU/d) in the LGG+ group. Fecal microbiota and inflammatory biomarkers, including fecal calprotectin (FC), plasma cytokines, circulating regulatory T cells (Tregs), and crying + fussing time were analyzed to determine optimal time points and effect sizes for a larger trial.ResultsRecruitment in this population was slow, with about 66% of eligible infants willing to enroll; subject retention was better (75%). These rates were influenced by parents' reluctance to volunteer their infant for a clinical trial and by their tendency to change formulas. The maximal difference of crying + fussing time was observed at day 14, comparing the 2 groups, with a mean difference of -91 (95%CI: -76, 259) min (P = NS). FC showed no significant difference, but the optimal time to determine a potential effect was at day 90 [with a mean difference of 121 (95%CI: -48, 291) μg/g stool], observing a lower level of FC in the LGG+ group. The fecal microbial communities were chaotic, as determined by Shannon's diversity index and not apparently influenced by the probiotic. No significant change was observed in plasma inflammatory cytokines or Tregs, comparing LGG+ to LGG- groups.ConclusionDesigning future colic trials involving a probiotic-supplemented formula for infants in the United States will require consideration for difficult enrollment. Infants with colic have major variations in feal microbiota and calprotectin, both of which improve with time, with optimal time points for measurement at days 14 and 90 after treatment.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Recruitment and retention strategies for patient-centered outcomes research are evolving and research on the subject is limited. In this work, we present a conceptual model of patient-centered recruitment and retention, and describe the recruitment and retention activities and related challenges in a patient-centered comparative effectiveness trial. METHODS:This is a multicenter, longitudinal randomized controlled trial in localized prostate cancer patients. RESULTS:We recruited 743 participants from three sites over 15 months period (January 2014 to March 2015), and followed them for 24 months. At site 1, of the 773 eligible participants, 551 (72%) were enrolled. At site 2, 34 participants were eligible and 23 (68%) enrolled. Of the 434 eligible participants at site 3, 169 (39%) enrolled. We observed that strategies related to the concepts of trust (e.g., physician involvement, ensuring protection of information), communication (e.g., brochures and pamphlets in physicians' offices, continued contact during regular clinic visits and calling/emailing assessment), attitude (e.g., emphasizing the altruistic value of research, positive attitude of providers and research staff), and expectations (e.g., full disclosure of study requirements and time commitment, update letters) facilitated successful patient recruitment and retention. A stakeholders' advisory board provided important input for the recruitment and retention activities. Active engagement, reminders at the offices, and personalized update letters helped retention during follow-up. Usefulness of telephone recruitment was site specific and, at one site, the time requirement for telephone recruitment was a challenge. CONCLUSIONS:We have presented multilevel strategies for successful recruitment and retention in a clinical trial using a patient-centered approach. Our strategies were flexible to accommodate site-level requirements. These strategies as well as the challenges can aid recruitment and retention efforts of future large-scale, patient-centered research studies. TRIAL REGISTRATION:Clinicaltrials.gov , ID: NCT02032550 . Registered on 22 November 2013.

Project description:The "replication crisis" is a methodological problem in which many scientific research findings have been difficult or impossible to replicate. Because the reproducibility of empirical results is an essential aspect of the scientific method, such failures endanger the credibility of theories based on them and possibly significant portions of scientific knowledge. An instance of the replication crisis, analytic replication, pertains to reproducing published results through computational reanalysis of the authors' original data. However, direct replications are costly, time-consuming, and unrewarded in today's publishing standards. We propose that bioinformatics and computational biology students replicate recent discoveries as part of their curriculum. Considering the above, we performed a pilot study in one of the graduate-level courses we developed and taught at our University. The course is entitled Intro to R Programming and is meant for students in our Master's and PhD programs who have little to no programming skills. As the course emphasized real-world data analysis, we thought it would be an appropriate setting to carry out this study. The primary objective was to expose the students to real biological data analysis problems. These include locating and downloading the needed datasets, understanding any underlying conventions and annotations, understanding the analytical methods, and regenerating multiple graphs from their assigned article. The secondary goal was to determine whether the assigned articles contained sufficient information for a graduate-level student to replicate its figures. Overall, the students successfully reproduced 39% of the figures. The main obstacles were the need for more advanced programming skills and the incomplete documentation of the applied methods. Students were engaged, enthusiastic, and focused throughout the semester. We believe that this teaching approach will allow students to make fundamental scientific contributions under appropriate supervision. It will teach them about the scientific process, the importance of reporting standards, and the importance of openness.

Dataset Information

Retention and recruitment of general dentists in an adjunct teaching model-A pilot study.

Purpose/objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Retention and recruitment of general dentists in an adjunct teaching model-A pilot study.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets