Managing the Unpredictable: Recommendations to Improve Trainee Safety During Global Health Away Electives.

Background: For institutions offering global health programs, the safety of trainees during clinical rotations at international sites is paramount. Current guidelines for global health electives recommend pre-departure training and safety-net resources, yet their advice on managing unanticipated problems is limited. Objective: This report illustrates critical safety considerations requiring additional guidance for programs and students and highlights approaches that may improve trainee safety while abroad. Methods: We present a series of five cases adapted from the experiences of students traveling to and from the Yale School of Medicine between the years of 2011-2021. These cases include instances of personal injury, mental health challenges following trauma, sexual harassment, political instability, and natural disaster. For each case, we recommend ways in which programs and their participants may approach the challenges and we highlight issues requiring additional analysis. Findings: We categorized the types of trainee safety issues into three groups: personal health emergencies, individual-level stressors, and large-scale crises. Conclusion: Ultimately, we recommend that rather than solely emphasizing a universal policy, programs and trainees should also be educated on the tools and resources available for addressing unexpected emergencies.

COVID-19 Traumatic Disaster Appraisal and Stress Symptoms Among Health Care Workers: Insights From the Yale Stress Self-assessment.

OBJECTIVE: To determine to what extent did health care workers experience the pandemic as a severe stress event. METHODS: This cross-sectional evaluation of 8299 health care workers, representing a 22% response rate, utilized machine learning to predict high levels of escalating stress based on demographics and known predictors for adverse psychological outcomes after trauma. RESULTS: A third of health care workers experienced the pandemic as a potentially traumatic stress event; a greater proportion of health care workers experienced high levels of escalating stress. Predictive factors included sense of control, ability to manage work-life demands, guilt or shame, age, and level of education. Gender was no longer predictive after controlling for other factors. Escalating stress was especially high among nonclinical academics and clinical private practitioners. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest adverse effects on total worker health, care quality, professionalism, retention, and acute and chronic mental health.

Global health education in China's medical schools: A national cross-sectional study.

INTRODUCTION: Despite China's large and growing global presence, data about global health (GH) education (GHE) in China's medical schools are limited. We aimed to describe GHE in these schools and determine whether some may teach GH concepts without labeling them as such. METHODS: In 2019, 161 Chinese medical schools eligible for accreditation by the Ministry of Education were invited to complete a questionnaire as part of a national survey. Data were analyzed using descriptive analyses, Chi-square tests, Fisher exact tests, and logit models. RESULTS: Approximately 57% of schools completed the survey (n = 93). 33 (35.5%) indicated that GHE was included in the curriculum. Although the majority of responding schools reported the absence of GH in the curriculum, GH topics were identified at many institutions. Schools affiliated with the central government or an aspiring world-class university were more likely to report the inclusion of GHE and offered more opportunities at international away sites. CONCLUSIONS: Chinese medical schools are frequently teaching GH topics, but may not label the instruction as such. Policy-makers and educators should be equipped with a global perspective to facilitate GHE at China's medical schools and take measures to address differences between schools.

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Psychiatry Resident Prescribing: a Quality Improvement Education Intervention to Address Health Equity.

OBJECTIVE: Quality improvement (QI) tools can identify and address health disparities. This paper describes the use of resident prescriber profiles in a novel QI curriculum to identify racial and ethnic differences in antidepressant and antipsychotic prescribing. METHODS: The authors extracted medication orders written by 111 psychiatry residents over an 18-month period from an electronic medical record and reformatted these into 6133 unique patient encounters. Binomial logistic models adjusted for covariates assessed racial and ethnic differences in antipsychotic or antidepressant prescribing in both emergency and inpatient psychiatric encounters. A multinomial model adjusted for covariates then assessed racial and ethnic differences in primary diagnosis. Models also examined interactions between gender and race/ethnicity. RESULTS: Black (adjusted OR 0.66; 95% CI, 0.50-0.87; p < 0.01) and Latinx (adjusted OR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.49-0.86; p < 0.01) patients had lower odds of receiving antidepressants relative to White patients despite diagnosis. Black and Latinx patients were no more likely to receive antipsychotics than White patients when adjusted for diagnosis. Black (adjusted OR 3.85; 95% CI, 2.9-5.2) and Latinx (adjusted OR 1.60; 95% CI, 1.1-2.3) patients were more likely to receive a psychosis than a depression diagnosis when compared to White patients. Gender interactions with race/ethnicity did not significantly change results. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that racial/ethnic differences in antidepressant prescription likely result from alternatively higher diagnosis of psychotic disorders and prescription of antipsychotics in Black and Latinx patients. Prescriber profiles can serve as a powerful tool to promote resident QI learning around the effects of structural racism on clinical care.

Drug-naïve first-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders: Pharmacological treatment practices in inpatient units in Hunan Province, China.

AIM: This study describes antipsychotic prescription patterns for drug-naïve inpatients diagnosed with first-episode schizophrenia-spectrum (FES) disorders and factors associated with practices deviating from China's current guidelines. METHODS: All inpatients aged 7 to 45 years experiencing a first episode of schizophrenia-spectrum disorder with a duration of untreated illness of less than 18 months and admitted between 1 August 2016 and 1 August 2017 to one of eight psychiatric hospitals in Hunan were included. Demographics, clinical characteristics and prescriptions at discharge were collected from electronic medical records. Logistic regression and random forest methods were used to model relationships between demographic and clinical factors and deviations from China's guidelines. RESULTS: Of the 602 inpatients included in the study, 598 (99.3%) were prescribed antipsychotics, and no patients were discharged on long-acting injectable antipsychotics. Polypharmacy (more than one antipsychotic prescribed) was present in 121 (20.2%) participants. Clozapine was prescribed to 45 (7.5%) patients. Adults receiving polypharmacy were more likely to be prescribed high-dose antipsychotics than those receiving a single antipsychotic. Minors under 13 years of age were more likely to receive polypharmacy and unapproved antipsychotics than those older than 13 years. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that most of the inpatients were prescribed a single antipsychotic at discharge, consistent with China's guidelines. Minors with FES and patients discharged on polypharmacy and clozapine may require more intense monitoring and management. With the current implementation of China's National Mental Health Working Plan, these results will assist decision-makers in allocating resources and conducting reforms to facilitate best practice treatment for FES.

Mobilizing an institutional supportive response for healthcare workers and other staff in the context of COVID-19: The Yale experience.

The burden of the COVID-19 pandemic upon healthcare workers necessitates a systematic effort to support their resilience. This article describes the Yale University and Yale New Haven Health System effort to unite several independent initiatives into a coherent integrated model for institutional support for healthcare workers. Here, we highlight both opportunities and challenges faced in attempting to support healthcare workers during this pandemic.

Training Psychiatrists to Achieve Mental Health Equity.

This article highlights the history of the psychiatric training practices that have contributed to inequity in mental health service delivery, particularly to underserved populations. It discusses current training practices that may be effective at reducing such disparities, suggests policy recommendations to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in health services, and makes recommendations for the further development and implementation of training practices that address health inequity. The article reviews issues in both general psychiatry and child/adolescent training in addition to lifelong learning needs.

Reconsidering Systems-Based Practice: Advancing Structural Competency, Health Equity, and Social Responsibility in Graduate Medical Education.

Health inequities stem from systematic, pervasive social and structural forces. These forces marginalize populations and create the circumstances that disadvantage these groups, as reflected in differences in outcomes like life expectancy and infant mortality and in inequitable access to and delivery of health care resources. To help eradicate these inequities, physicians must understand racism, sexism, oppression, historical marginalization, power, privilege, and other sociopolitical and economic forces that sustain and create inequities. A new educational paradigm emphasizing the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to achieve health equity is needed.Systems-based practice is the graduate medical education core competency that focuses on complex systems and physicians' roles within them; it includes topics like multidisciplinary team-based care, patient safety, cost containment, end-of-life goals, and quality improvement. This competency, however, is largely health care centric and does not train physicians to engage with the complexities of the social and structural determinants of health or to partner with systems and communities that are outside health care.The authors propose a new core competency centered on health equity, social responsibility, and structural competency to address this gap in graduate medical education. For the development of this new competency, the authors draw on existing, innovative undergraduate and graduate medical pedagogy and public health, health services research, and social medicine frameworks. They describe how this new competency would inform graduate medical education and clinical care and encourage future physicians to engage in the work of health equity.

Medical student depression and its correlates across three international medical schools.

BACKGROUND: Medical students have high rates of depression, anxiety, and burnout that have been found to affect their empathy, professional behaviors, and performance as a physician. While studies have examined predictors for burnout and depression in the United States (US), no study, to our knowledge, has compared depression in medical students cross-culturally, or has attempted to examine the effect of factors influencing rates including burnout, exercise, stress, unmet mental health needs, and region. AIM: To examine rates of depression in three international cohorts of medical students, and determine variables that may explain these differences. METHODS: Convenience samples of medical students from three countries (US, China, and a Middle Eastern country whose name remains anonymous per request from the school) were surveyed in this observational study. Using the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) and a modified Maslach Burnout Inventory, depression and burnout were examined among medical students from the three cohorts (n = 473). Chi-square test and analysis of variance were used to examine differences in demographics, behavioral, and psychological variables across these three schools to identify potentially confounding descriptive characteristics. Analysis of covariance compared depression and the emotional exhaustion component of burnout identified through Principal Component Analysis across countries. Multiple linear regression was used to analyze the impact of demographic, behavioral, and psychological variables on screening positive for depression. RESULTS: Medical students from the Middle Eastern country had the highest rates of positive depression screens (41.1%), defined as a PHQ-2 score of ≥ 3, followed by China (14.1 %), and then the US (3.8%). More students in the Middle Eastern school had unmet mental health needs (50.8%) than at the medical school in China (34.8%) or the school in the US (32.8%) (Pearson chi-square significance < 0.05). Thus, PHQ-2 scores were adjusted for unmet mental health needs; however, the Middle Eastern country continued to have the highest depression. Adjusting for PHQ-2 score, medical students from the US scored the highest on emotional exhaustion (a measure of burnout). Demographic variables did not significantly predict medical student depression; however, lack of exercise, unmet mental health needs, stress, and emotional exhaustion predicted nearly half of depression in these cohorts. In comparison to the US, coming from the Middle Eastern country and China predicted higher levels of depression. CONCLUSION: Depression rates differ in three international cohorts of medical students. Measured factors contributed to some observed differences. Identifying site-specific prevention and intervention strategies in medical student mental health is warranted.

A Qualitative Study of Implementation Challenges of Mental Health Clubhouse Rehabilitation Services in China's Hunan Province.

OBJECTIVE: Psychosocial rehabilitation has been established as a critical component of client-centered recovery-oriented services for people with serious mental illness. Despite its importance, the implementation of mental health rehabilitation services in low- or middle-income countries has not been well studied. In this study, the authors document the regional challenges of planning and implementing mental health rehabilitation services in clubhouses in Hunan Province in the People's Republic of China. METHODS: Participants were purposively selected and consisted of diverse stakeholders, including rehabilitation directors and psychiatric hospital leaders in Hunan Province, China. Information was collected from 33 individuals by using three focus groups, 23 semistructured interviews of key informants, and participant observation. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed by using standard qualitative methods. RESULTS: Implementation challenges were characterized by four themes: skepticism toward psychosocial rehabilitation services, resource shortage, insufficient system integration and incentives, and stigma of mental illness. CONCLUSIONS: Psychosocial rehabilitation is an emerging public health priority in China. This study on clubhouses in Hunan Province used qualitative methods to inform future directions for service development and research. Early identification of regional implementation challenges is a first step in assessing the applicability of psychosocial rehabilitation services locally in Hunan Province. Successful implementation of clubhouse psychosocial rehabilitation services will benefit not only from strong government commitment but also from developing standard evaluations of evidence-based practices, tackling stigma, and addressing low resource investment.

Confronting Racial Violence: Resident, Unit, and Institutional Responses.

By describing an instance of racial violence by a patient against a resident physician, the authors hope to stimulate further discussion by addressing three specific questions about managing racist patients: (1) How should the resident (or any level of trainee) respond to the immediate situation? (2) How should the unit respond to the event as a community? and (3) How should the institution (hospital and/or academic institution) respond to the event? The authors argue that responses to such incidents should acknowledge the history of structural racism in U.S. society and in medicine. The authors recommend an approach that names the racism directly while addressing the safety of the patient and the providers in the moment, supports those affected in the aftermath, and considers appropriate consequences for the perpetrators of violence.