How Are We Doing on Brexit?

Understandably we have heard little recently from Remainers or the second referendum brigade. As the football fans chant “they’ve all gone quiet over there”. Right from 10pm on election night when an accurate forecast announced Boris Johnson’s stunning victory the opponents of Brexit have been too shocked to say much

How Are We Doing? A Corporate Strategy For Finding Out

How many times have you watched struggling students leave your writing center and wondered how much they got out of the conference you just had with them? It is hard to know. Even if they listened and paid attention, even if they made all of the changes you suggested and successfully revised their papers, did they really learn anything? Will their next papers be better for the time you just spent with them? Does the training you receive translate into better consultations for writers? These are evaluation questions. Evaluation is perhaps the most elusive aspect of writing center work, and there are many theories about how to do it, some too complicated and too abstract to be easily implemented. Corporate America may have a simpler way to do evaluation. Donald L. Kirkpatrick’s book, Evaluating Corporate Training Programs: The Four Levels, provides us with a simple and straightforward model to evaluate the work we do.University Writing Cente

Management of Cryptococcosis: How Are We Doing?

Perfect discusses the implications of a national prospective study (the "CryptoA/D" study) of the factors influencing clinical presentation and outcome of patients with cryptococcosis

How Are We Doing? One Foundation's Efforts to Gauge its Effectiveness

Provides an overview of the path the Wallace Foundation staff followed in an effort to develop a tool for measuring their own organizational effectiveness. Includes lessons learned

Ten years to VISION 2020: how are we doing?

We have just passed the halfway mark for the VISION 2020 global initiative, which was launched in 1999 with the goal to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020. This is a good time to take stock of what we have achieved and what still needs to be done

Social Work Practitioners and Practice Evaluation: How Are We Doing?

Practice evaluation is an important component of evidence-based social work practice. Previous research in this area has concluded that even though social workers receive evaluation training, it remains under-utilized in practice. This study discusses the results of a survey of 134 social workers across different social work settings, positions, and level of preparation, examining incidence and type of evaluation activity, training received, and barriers related to implementing practice evaluation in the practice setting. Results report that the majority of social workers are not involved in evaluation activities beyond collecting basic statistics

Transanal total mesorectal excision: how are we doing so far?

Aim This subgroup analysis of a prospective multicentre cohort study aims to compare postoperative morbidity between transanal total mesorectal excision (TaTME) and laparoscopic total mesorectal excision (LaTME). Method The study was designed as a subgroup analysis of a prospective multicentre cohort study. Patients undergoing TaTME or LaTME for rectal cancer were selected. All patients were followed up until the first visit to the outpatient clinic after hospital discharge. Postoperative complications were classified according to the Clavien–Dindo classification and the comprehensive complication index (CCI). Propensity score matching was performed. Results In total, 220 patients were selected from the overall prospective multicentre cohort study. After propensity score matching, 48 patients from each group were compared. The median tumour height for TaTME was 10.0 cm (6.0–10.8) and for LaTME was 9.5 cm (7.0–12.0) (P = 0.459). The duration of surgery and anaesthesia were both significantly longer for TaTME (221 vs 180 min, P < 0.001, and 264 vs 217 min, P < 0.001). TaTME was not converted to laparotomy whilst surgery in five patients undergoing LaTME was converted to laparotomy (0.0% vs 10.4%, P = 0.056). No statistically significant differences were observed for Clavien–Dindo classification, CCI, readmissions, reoperations and mortality. Conclusion The study showed that TaTME is a safe and feasible approach for rectal cancer resection. This new technique obtained similar postoperative morbidity to LaTME