A new report
from the AAMC and the Association of American Universities (AAU)
calls on all medical schools and major research universities to
develop and implement institutional financial conflicts of interest
(COI) policies within the next two years, and to refine standards
for addressing individual financial COI. "Protecting Patients,
Preserving Integrity, Advancing Health: Accelerating the Implementation
of COI Policies in Human Subjects Research," provides a detailed
roadmap for academic institutions to identify, evaluate, and manage
financial COI in research that involves human research subjects.
The report recommends that institutions: accelerate the development
of COI policies covering faculty, institutions and their officials,
including deans, department chairs, and division chiefs; implement
a reporting, evaluation and management process for both individual
and institutional financial COI; and complete the development and
implementation of institutional COI policies in the next two years.
The report offers a model template for analyzing and managing conflict
of interest cases, and provides detailed case studies for use in
educating faculty, students, staff, and institutional officials.
Governors bring Medicaid GME
rule concerns to Congress
Several state governors testified before Congress last week, urging
legislators to prevent implementation of the Bush administration's
new Medicaid rules, which include the elimination of federal matching
funds for state Medicaid graduate medical education (GME) payments.
The testimony was delivered in conjunction with a Feb. 26 letter
from the National Governors Association to congressional leaders
requesting immediate action to prevent finalization of the Medicaid
rules. The current moratorium prohibiting action on the rules expires
on May 25.
Medical students experience decline in empathy
during school years
Medical students become significantly less empathetic as they progress
through their education, particularly after the first and third
years, according to research results published in the March issue
of Academic
Medicine. Bruce W. Newton, Ph.D., and colleagues also found
that students who choose specialties with more patient contact (e.g.,
internal medicine, obstetrics/gynecology) have higher levels of
empathy than students who choose specialties with less patient contact
(e.g., surgery, radiology). According to the authors, these findings
are of concern, because empathy is crucial for successful physician-patient
relationships.
CMS: health care spending will
double by 2017
U.S. health care spending is expected to nearly double by 2017,
reaching $4.3 trillion and consuming almost 20 percent of the nation's
gross domestic product, according to research conducted by Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) staff and published online
in Health
Affairs. Hospital spending, in particular, will also nearly
double to $1.3 trillion by 2017.
Study of administrative burden on research
grants released
Principal investigators on federal research grants spend about
42 percent of their time dealing with administrative work related
to their project rather than on science, according to a new report
released by the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP). The findings
of the "faculty burden survey" derive from responses by
more than 6,000 university faculty. The FDP notes that "the
'creep' toward increasing administrative burden decreases the productivity
of our nation's talented academic researchers and lessens the impact
of the federal dollars invested in research." The burden, in
part, consists of progress report submissions, personnel hiring,
project revenue management, institutional review board protocols
and training, and numerous other requirements. No single burden
stands out as the greatest problem, the report notes. The FDP, which
grew out of a project begun in 1986, is a cooperative initiative
between ten federal agencies and 98 institutions that collectively
receive more than $15 billion in federal funds, with a goal to streamline
procedures for administration of research grants and contracts.
The report has been circulated to the federal Office of Management
and Budget and other agencies.
Information: Stephen Heinig, AAMC Biomedical and Health Sciences
Research, 202.828.0488, sheinig@aamc.org
USMLE recommendations scheduled
for mid-March release
Recommended changes
to the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) are scheduled
for release in mid-March. The proposed changes in the USMLE's final
report will likely address issues such as the integration of basic
sciences across all USMLE program components; the provision of assessment
information to allow state licensing authorities to make decisions
at two points (entry into supervised and unsupervised practice);
and a redesign to better reflect competencies crucial to medical
practice. During the remainder of 2008, various stakeholders will
collaborate with USMLE committees to discuss the recommendations.
