Anticipatory guidance as a principle of faculty development: managing transition and change.

Although one cannot anticipate every individual's unique responses to the transitions and changes that regularly occur in academic medicine, a department-wide faculty development program, based on predictable transition points and supporting faculty at all levels, can minimize such negative responses to change as stress and burnout. In 2007, the authors implemented a new, formal faculty development program in the pediatrics department built on the principle of anticipatory guidance, defined as providing guidance in anticipation of future academic events. The primary components of the program are mentoring committees for individual junior faculty, group leadership development and teaching forums for midlevel faculty, and events that focus on life and career changes for senior faculty. Other department-wide activities augment the program, including review of grant submissions, annual review by a senior faculty committee of the progress of National Institutes of Health mentored research (K-) awardees, women faculty luncheons, and discussions about faculty development at regular faculty meetings. The department's faculty also participate in the University of Rochester Medical Center's active faculty development program. Feedback on the faculty development program has been constructive and mainly positive and will serve to guide the continuing evolution of the program.

Restrictive anorexia nervosa and set-shifting in adolescents: a biobehavioral interface.

PURPOSE: Set-shifting is a neurocognitive concept defined as the ability to switch tasks flexibly. Set-shifting scores are worse in adults with restrictive anorexia nervosa (AN-R) than in controls. Adolescence is a developmental period when young people must respond flexibly to new situations. The purpose of this study was to compare the set-shifting scores of 24 adolescent females with AN-R with 37 matched normal adolescent controls (ages, 14-20). METHODS: Methods used for the study included sociodemographic, psychological, and biological data, and neurocognitive testing using the Behavior Rating of Executive Function - Self- and Parent-Reports, the Cambridge Neuropsychological Automated Battery, and the Wisconsin Card-Sorting Test. Statistical analyses included t-tests, multiple analysis of variance, and correlations. RESULTS: Sociodemographic data and intelligence quotient of study and control subjects were similar. There were differences in body mass index and the Eating Disorder Inventory-3 evaluation. Significant differences in the composite score of set-shifting between the study and control groups were found using multiple analysis of variance. CONCLUSION: Adolescent females with AN-R had significantly worse set-shifting scores than the control subjects. Future studies of adolescent AN-R subjects should include biological (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and neurocognitive measures to determine the mechanisms at the brain-behavioral interface so that treatment can be directed specifically to set-shifting deficits.

Community as laboratory: reflections from Rochester, New York, in celebration of the dedication of the Robert J. Haggerty child health services research laboratories.

The dedication of the Robert J. Haggerty Child Health Services Research Laboratories at the University of Rochester (New York) Medical Center in October 2004 provided an opportunity to reflect on the current state of child health services research. Dr Haggerty had a grand vision for using the community in which children live as a laboratory for studying the varied medical, psychosocial, and behavioral morbidities that affect them. He believed that the diverse problems faced by children were best studied by a multidisciplinary team, including both academic and community pediatricians, epidemiologists, sociologists, policy makers, and community leaders. Research done in the community involving front-line providers allows investigation into the most challenging and relevant problems faced by children. To this end, Dr Haggerty made collaboration and cooperation between the community and the academic medical center a priority during his tenure at Rochester. His vision of community as laboratory continues through the child health services research emanating from the Haggerty Laboratories. Nevertheless, many barriers remain that need to be overcome for the sake of improving the lives of children in the United States and throughout the world.