Growth and distribution of selected allied health professional groups, United States, 1970-1980.

The growth and geographical distribution of selected allied health professional groups were compared with medicine, dentistry, and nursing for the periods 1970 to 1980 using data from the US census (1970 to 1980) and AMA Physician Masterfile. GINI indexes of health professionals concentration were computed as global measures to evaluate changes in the pattern of locational choice. All allied health professional groups reflected large percentage increases ranging from 25% to 432% in supply of practitioners from 1970 to 1980, with a median percentage increase of 71.9%, and compared well with medicine and dentistry. These allied health supply increases were generally related to better distributional outcomes among the general population and physicians, although several allied health groups became less evenly distributed during this decade. These gains were realized during a decade when less federal support was available for the allied health professions compared with medicine, dentistry, and nursing.

Professional performance of physician's assistants: a comparison of physician's assistant and physician ratings.

Physician's assistant educational programs have used surveys of their graduates as one method of evaluating educational objectives and curricula. A concern is the validity of physician's assistant self-ratings as measures of job performance. Ratings by supervising physicians have been suggested as more valid measures. In the present study ratings of physician's assistants and their supervising physicians were compared. Physician's assistants and their supervising physicians were interviewed using an interview instrument developed to cover the performance of the physician's assistant in the major activities of primary care practice. While the physicians and physician's assistants disagreed on several measures, in all cases the ratings of the physician's assistants were more conservative. Thus, the physician's assistants did not show any tendency to inflate ratings of their own performance.

Admissions procedures of educational programs for the specialist in blood bank technology.

A national survey of specialists in blood bank technology educational programs was performed to describe current admissions procedures. Programs generally were AABB approved for and accepted either two or four students annually from 10 to 14 complete applications which result from 25 to 50 inquiries. The program selection criteria usually included an evaluation of overall GPA, science GPA, prior blood bank experience, three professional references, and a non-standardized interview with the medical director, educational coordinator, and other faculty or staff. Admissions procedures were characterized by an admissions committee of four members differentially weighting the various selection criteria that often were not quantified through the use of a point value system. Programs reported that their admissions procedures were not quantified through the use of a point value system. Programs reported to their admissions procedures were objective enough and resulted in students of adequate quality, even though their procedures could be improved, possibly with more specific AABB guidelines.

Predicting academic performance in medical technology: a university-based program in retrospect.

In a study of the relative contribution of two achievement measures and five aptitude measures in determining three measures of academic performance, an achievement measure in combination with an aptitude measure provided the most efficient explanations. Stepwise multiple regressions were performed on data from 112 medical technology graduates to determine that science grade point average (GPA) and Nelson-Denny Combination sub-score significantly predicted professional GPA. Additionally, science GPA and the Otis Test score explained the variations in both certification examination performance and comprehensive examination performance.