Treatment Protocols for Eating Disorders: Clinicians’ Attitudes, Concerns, Adherence and Difficulties Delivering Evidence-Based Psychological Interventions

There are several protocols in existence that guide clinicians in the implementation of effective, evidence-based psychological interventions for eating disorders. These have been made accessible in the form of treatment manuals. However, relatively few clinicians use those protocols, preferring to offer more eclectic or integrative approaches. Following a summary of the research that shows that these evidence-based approaches can be used successfully in routine clinical settings, this review considers why there is such poor uptake of these therapies in such settings. This review focuses on the role of service culture and on clinicians’ own attitudes, beliefs and emotions. Possible means of enhancing uptake are considered, but these cannot be considered to be ideal solutions at present

Attaining full professor: Women’s and men’s experiences in medical education

Introduction: The underrepresentation of women among senior faculty members in medical education is a longstanding problem. The purpose of this international qualitative investigation was to explore women and men's experiences of attaining full professorship and to investigate why women remain underrepresented among the senior faculty ranks. Methods: Conducted within a social constructionist orientation, our qualitative study employed narrative analysis. Two female and two male participants working in medical education were recruited from five nations: Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States. All participants held an MD or PhD. During telephone interviews, participants narrated the story of their careers. The five faculty members on the research team were also interviewed. Their narratives were included in analysis, rendering their experiences equal to those of the participants. Results: A total of 24 full professors working in medical education were interviewed (n = 15 females and n = 9 males). While some aspects were present across all narratives (ie personal events, career milestones and facilitating and/or impeding factors), participants’ experience of those aspects differed by gender. Men did not narrate fatherhood as a role navigated professionally, but women narrated motherhood as intimately connected to their professional roles. Both men and women narrated career success in terms of hard work and overcoming obstacles; however, male participants described promotion as inevitable, whereas women narrated promotion as a tenuous navigation of social structures towards uncertain outcomes. Female and male participants encountered facilitators and inhibitors throughout their careers but described acting on those experiences differently within the cultural contexts they faced. Discussion: Our data suggest that female and male participants had different experiences of the work involved in achieving full professor status. Understanding these gendered experiences and their impact on career progression is an important advancement for better understanding what leads to the underrepresentation of women among senior faculty members in medical education