The author presented the situation of staff performance assessment at Ministry of Health and provided some solutions to improve this performance such as grasping principles leader and manager performance assessment; renovating of assessment (about ethical and political virtue, lifestyle, professional level, ability of management and leading, results of activities in his section, his responsibilities and tasks); choosing methods of assessment (based on the criteria and score, the contracts, and the judgments); the duration for organizing of comment, assessment, and grading staffs; improving system and process of leader and manager performance assessment
Medical Staff ; Medical Staff, Hospital ; Nursing Staff

Background: Smoking in health staffs is a essential issue to be concerned. In Europe, the rate of smoking in male and female doctors were 30 - 54% and 40%, respectively. Because of the high rate of smoking in health staffs, the prevention programs should focus on promoting interventions to reduce smoking rate in healthstaffs because they are people who cause negative effects to patients and community. Objectives: To investigate smoking patterns, compare knowledge, beliefs and attitudes and identify predictors of smoking status among health staffs in Bach Mai hospital. Subjects and method: This was a cross-sectional described epidemiological study by using the questionnaire of a global survey (modified accordance with Vietnam's conditions) on tobacco use among health staffs was adapted for data collection on a sample of 656. Data was analyzed by SPSS 10.0 software. Results and Conclusion: Overall smoking rate is fairly high (~21%), dominantly among males. Physicians and dentists display a greater smoking proportion than nurses, in among over \ufffd?30 \ufffd?year \ufffd?old cohort than among less \ufffd?30 \ufffd?year \ufffd?old cohort. One main predictor of smoking is belief of health staffs on their role as non \ufffd?smoking exemplary.
Medical Staff ; Hospital ; Smoking ;

Humans ; Medical Staff ; Occupational Exposure ; Personnel, Hospital

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to assess broadly the attitudes ad perceptions of consultant doctors, fellows, residents, medical interns, nurses and orderlies toward mental illness.

METHODOLOGY: A representative sample of 326 medical hospital staff 18 years old and above in the Medical City was surveyed from March 15, 2010 to June 19, 2010. Attitudes and perceptions of the respondents were measured by using the two scales: Community Attitudes Toward the Mentality III Scale (CAMI) and Empathy Toward the Mentally III Scale. CAMI was divided into 4 subcategories: authoritarianism, benevolence, restrictiveness and Community Mental Health Ideology (CMHI). Empathy Toward the Mentally III Scale represented the eight concepts with a positive and negative counterpart for each concept. Data was encoded and tallied in SPSS Version 10 for windows.

RESULTS: Results indicated that orderlies/nurse aides were more authoritative than the residents/fellows as well as medical interns and lowest among orderlies/nurse assistants. Scores with social restrictiveness decreased with increasing age of the respondents. Although there was no significant difference with regard to positive and negative empathy with age, a trend of increasing positive scores with increasing age was noted. According to sex, no significant difference in the attitudes and perceptions of the respondents was found. With regards to previous experience/ contact with mentally ill, higher scores on benevolence and CMHI were seen. Furthermore, higher scores for positive empathy were noted among those with experience on the mentally ill and have the lowest negative score.  On the other hand, among those without previous experience /contact with the mentally ill, higher scores were noted for authoritarianism and social restrictiveness. Highest scores for positive attitude were noted among consultants, residents, fellows, and medical interns and lowest among orderlies/nurse assistants.

CONCLUSION: The level of care and service to psychiatric patients can be compromised by stigmatizing attitudes from the medical hospital staff. It is therefore imperative that further education on mental health is promoted in hospital institutions and anti-stigma initiatives established in our society.

Attitude ; Mental Disorders ; Medical Staff, Hospital

In modem medical industries as in others, it has been emphasized by many experts such as Dr. Mayer and Dr. Donabedean that there should be quality assurance activities applying statistical knowledges in the processes of medical management and medical staff themselves for the better medical care and customer satisfaction. Three of our quality assurance programs for the purpose of shortening the treatment time In the department of emergency medicine in Keimyung University, Dong-San Medical Center had been carried out during the period of June 94 through December 95. Our methodology was mainly the process emphasized ; finding the causes of delaying factors in various processes related to the works of nurses, doctors, laboratory services, radiology services etc. in the emergency room, holding various meetings among the related groups with genuine discussions, notifying the new results in each step, encouraging the positive ones and also applying the new leadership technics. During the period of June 94 through December 95(for 1.5 years), the average E.R. patient treatment time from registrations to dispositions had been reduced by about 2 hours (from 5 hours 3 minutes to 2 hours 5 minutes) and its variations among the different specialities had been narrowed down to significant degree (p<0.05) revealing the preprogram base line standard deviation of 2.43 to 1.28 in post program through continuous quality assurance programs. It was also noted that the successful results of Q/A program have been closely related to the fact that the process should be designed and redesigned repeatly as needed and that all the participants related were actively involved in the planning and redesigning processes.
Emergency Medicine ; Emergency Service, Hospital ; Humans ; Leadership ; Medical Staff ; Modems

Congresses as Topic ; Medical Staff, Hospital ; organization & administration ; Otorhinolaryngologic Surgical Procedures

OBJECTIVETo investigate the occupational stressors and modifiers of pediatricians and nurses in order to find the measurements for control of the job stress.

METHODS427 pediatricians and nurses working in five hospitals of a city served as subjects. Of them, the staff in section of pharmacy and toll offices in each hospital mentioned above served as control group. The General Job Stress Questionnaire was used to investigate the job stress by self-assessment.

RESULTSThe scores of job demand, job risk, drug using, daily job stress, positive feelings, patient A behavior, physical environment and feeling balance in pediatricians and nurses were higher than those of control group, but the scores of job-person conflict, environmental control, technology utility, mental health, responsibility on things were lower than those of control group (P<0.05). The points of job future, job locus of control, self-esteem, job satisfaction, job load variance, depression in nurses were higher than those of pediatricians, and non-work activities, job risk and daily life stress were lower than those of doctors (P<0.05). The main affecting factors on job strain of pediatric staff included job monotony, higher job demand, more non-work job, lower job control, more job risk, job future ambiguous, poorer social support, lower job locus control and lower self-esteem.

CONCLUSIONThe stress degree of pediatric staff is higher than that of controls. The pediatricians have more job stress than that of nurses. The main stressors of pediatric staff are job monotony, higher job demand, more non-worker activity, lower job control, higher job risk and ambiguous job future. The main modifiers are good social support, external job locus of control and higher self-esteem.

Adult ; Burnout, Professional ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Medical Staff, Hospital ; psychology ; Nursing Staff, Hospital ; psychology ; Pediatrics ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Young Adult

INTRODUCTIONWe aimed to create a definition of neurophobia, and determine its prevalence and educational risk factors amongst medical students and junior doctors in Singapore.

MATERIALS AND METHODSWe surveyed medical students and junior doctors in a general hospital using electronic and paper questionnaires. We asked about knowledge, interest, perceived difficulty in neurology, and confidence in managing neurology patients compared to 7 other internal medicine specialties; quality and quantity of undergraduate and postgraduate neuroscience teaching, clinical neurology exposure, and postgraduate qualifications. Neurophobia was defined as ≤4 composite score of difficulty and confidence with neurology.

RESULTSOne hundred and fifty-eight medical students (63.5%) and 131 junior doctors (73.2%) responded to the questionnaire. Neurophobia prevalence was 47.5% in medical students, highest amongst all medical subspecialties, and 36.6% in junior doctors. Multivariate analysis revealed that for medical students, female gender (OR 3.0, 95% CI, 1.3 to 6.7), low interest (OR 2.5, 95% CI, 1.0 to 6.2), low knowledge (OR 10.1, 95% CI, 4.5 to 22.8), and lack of clinical teaching by a neurologist (OR 2.8, 95% CI, 1.2 to 6.6) independently increased the risk of neurophobia. For doctors, low interest (OR 3.0, 95% CI, 1.3 to 7.0) and low knowledge (OR 2.7, 95% CI, 1.2 to 6.2) independently increased the risk of neurophobia, and female gender was of borderline significance (OR 2.0, 95% CI, 0.9 to 4.6).

CONCLUSIONNeurophobia is highly prevalent amongst Singapore medical students and junior doctors. Low interest and knowledge are independent risk factors shared by both groups; female gender may also be a shared risk factor. The mnemonic GIK (Gender, Interest, Knowledge) identifies the risk factors to mitigate when planning teaching strategies to reduce neurophobia.

Attitude of Health Personnel ; Humans ; Medical Staff, Hospital ; Neurology ; Physicians ; Students, Medical ; Surveys and Questionnaires

We expatiate on an initiative management mode of medical instruments and equipments' operation and maintenace, which is different from the usual passive management. The application of this mode is helpful for keeping them in good condition and increasing the activity ratio, and thus to increase their economic and social benefits.
Equipment and Supplies ; Hospital Administration ; methods ; Humans ; Inservice Training ; methods ; Maintenance ; methods ; Medical Staff, Hospital ; education

BACKGROUNDMedical superstitions remain prevalent in today's stressful and technology driven healthcare environment. These irrational beliefs commonly involve night calls, which are periods of volatile workload. In Singapore and Hong Kong, it is commonly held that consumption of steamed buns ("bao") by on-call physicians is associated with increased patient admissions and mortality, due to a homonymous interpretation of the word "bao" in dialect.

MATERIALS AND METHODSA prospective unblinded randomised controlled trial with a permuted block randomisation design was performed on weekdays over 6 weeks. Steamed buns or control food were offered to the internal medicine night-call team of a tertiary-care hospital on a nightly basis. Information on admissions and mortality was collected from the hospital electronic database. Data on sleep patterns and shift duration were obtained by interview.

RESULTSThere were no significant differences in the median number of hours slept on days on "bao" administration versus "control" intervention (2 +/- median absolute variation of 1.5 h vs 2 +/- 1.5 h, P = 0.30) or in the number of hours spent in the hospital (30.8 +/- 1.9 h vs 30.5 +/- 2.2 h, P = 0.09). There were no significant differences in the median number of general ward admissions per night (n = 73 +/- 6 versus 71 +/- 7 admissions, P = 0.35), monitored care unit admissions (4 +/- 1.5 vs 4 +/- 1.5 admissions, P = 0.65) or inpatient mortality (2 +/- 1.5 vs 2 +/- 1.5 deaths per night, P = 0.47).

CONCLUSIONThe consumption of steamed buns ("bao") has no effect on inpatient admissions, mortality, or sleep duration on call. Regardless, our results indicate that the night call in Singapore remains a challenge in terms of workload and shift duration.

Food ; Hospital Mortality ; Humans ; Medical Staff, Hospital ; Night Care ; Patient Admission ; Superstitions ; Workload