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Biomedical subjects

V Abernethy

Publications and source records attributed to V Abernethy.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

Environmental and ethical aspects of international migration.

"U.S. immigration policy has a beneficent intent. However, recent work suggests that the signal it sends internationally--that emigration can be relied upon to relieve local (Third World) population pressure--tends to maintain high fertility rates in the sending country. This effect is counterproductive because high fertility is the primary driver of rapid population growth. In addition, it appears that the relatively open U.S. immigration policy has resulted in a rate of domestic population growth that threatens both the well-being of American labor and cherished environmental values."

Americas↗
PubMed1993

The demographic transition revisited: lessons for foreign aid and U.S. immigration policy.

"The completed demographic transitions in industrialized countries inspired a model which underlies many well-meant policies affecting the Third World. However, the model's postulate--modernization and prosperity will lower fertility rates--has exacerbated rather than helped control worldwide population growth and the associated environmental degradation. Here we show that perceived economic opportunity leads to raising family size targets and to discarding elements of traditional cultures which formerly held fertility rates in check. Conversely, fertility rates fall when limits are recognized. These observations imply that a liberal immigration policy and large-scale foreign aid are counterproductive for restoring balance between population size and carrying capacity."

Conservation of Natural Resources↗
PubMed1993

First do no harm.

Many traditional societies, which have long survived in balance with the carrying capacity of their local environments, have recently experienced rapid rates of population growth that threaten their survival. In examining the reasons for these deleterious trends, the author notes that they have occurred despite international technological assistance, improved health care, increased literacy, democratization, and liberal immigration and refugee policies favoring developing countries. "She argues that well meant programs and policies work at cross purposes with their stated goals when they dispel motivation to exercise caution and restraint. Family size targets stay high or rise when people think that limits which formerly operated have been relieved; so a windfall of resources or emigration opportunity frequently results in a population explosion in the region supposedly being helped."

Conservation of Natural Resources↗
PubMed1990

Parent characteristics and sex differential infant mortality: the case in Tennessee.

Females survive males at most ages in virtually all modern industrialized societies. However, stratification of a sample by socioeconomic indicators shows that white infant male and female postneonatal mortality rates converge as the mothers' or parents' education rises and as the mothers age. These results are congruent with the parental selection hypothesis and with other findings that suggest that families at the pinnacle of the local social structure invest heavily in males and that parents nearing the end of their reproductive career try hard to effect the survival of all offspring.

Educational Status↗
PubMed1984

Compassion, control, and decisions about competency.

A competent patient has the right to refuse any medical intervention. However, hospitalized patients who refuse treatment sometimes find their competency challenged. The author describes the grounds for deciding that an elderly woman who resisted amputation "lacked capacity" to refuse the intervention, so that custody was conditionally awarded to a state social service department. Questions are raised about the evaluation process. The author suggests that the standard for finding a patient not competent to refuse treatment should be no less than generalized incompetence, including clear evidence that a patient is uninformable on emotionally neutral issues and cognitively incapable of making ordinary decisions on matters unrelated to the crisis at hand.

Aged↗
PubMed1983

Chronic schizophrenic women's attitudes toward sex, pregnancy, birth control, and childrearing.

Interviews with 23 chronically institutionalized, schizophrenic women living on a chronic care unit indicated that the majority had a continuing interest in sex and engaged in sexual activity. Fourteen of the women wanted to become pregnant. Few seemed to recognize their limited potential to be adequate parents. Respondents often gave bizarre or inaccurate responses to the interview questions, indicating that their ideas about contraception, pregnancy, and childrearing were affected by psychopathology. The authors concede that the task of designing and implementing birth control programs for severely ill schizophrenic patients is formidable but encourage mental health professionals to openly discuss sex, birth control, and having children with their patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Physician attitudes toward relicensure: the simulated patient option.

Primary care physicians in one Southern city were asked to return a mail questionnaire stating their attitudes toward relicensure issues. Respondents overwhelmingly preferred continuing education as the method of creditation for relicensure, but as a second choice preferred the simulated patient procedure to formal examinations. Nearly one half of the respondents agreed to participate in a pilot study of this method. The MD author received more positive replies than the PhD author, possibly because different segments within well matched subsamples were motivated to respond.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1978

Feminists' heterosexual relationships: more on dominance and mating.

The hypothesis that female dominance inhibits mating whereas male dominance facilitates it, and seemingly incongruous findings suggesting that dominant women take more initiative and are more interested than others in sex, are explored through comparison of feminist and control subjects, ie, women who were expected, a priori, to be located at widely separated points on a theoretical dominance continuum. Principal findings are the following: (1) sexual initiative and satisfaction appear to be greater among feminists than others, (2) there is no difference between groups in frequency of coitus in a present (or most recent) sexual relationship, but (3) there is a tendency for feminists to have had less stable first marriages than control subjects. These findings do permit more than one interpretation: the greater sexual satisfaction combined with marital instability among feminists may reflect their energy and willingness to change an unsatisfactory condition, or, in addition, the more general proposition that personal power is associated with positive sexual response in both men and women, so that there is minimal complementarity along this dimension. Both cultural and biologic factors appear to contribute to the relative instability of feminists' marriages.

Achievement↗
PubMed1977

Conversion reaction. Differential diagnoses in the light of biofeedback research.

The criteria for differentiating between psychophysiological disorder and hysterical neurosis, conversion type, have been reviewed in the light of recent biofeedback research. The data strongly support the view that a single process, instrumental learning, can explain functional disorders mediated by either the voluntary or autonomic nervous systems, so that a differential diagnosis should probably not be based on the autonomic/voluntary dichotomy. On the contrary, both biofeedback findings and a case history support the definition of conversion reaction broadened to include fantasied bodily sensations that develop into either behavioral or physiological dysfunctions. It is a central consideration that instrumental learning depends on a system of rewards, and that, in clinical observations of conversion reactions, it also is apparent that the conversion sympton is rewarding: the sympton provides the patient with a relatively gratifying adaptation to a frustrating stressful life experience. Classification of many, if not most, functional disorders mediated by the autonomic nervous system as conversion reactions has the advantage of emphasizing the primary and secondary gain characteristics of these symptoms. Thus, the use that the patient makes of his illness becomes salient in the therapeutic process at the same time that the diagnosis is established.

Addison Disease↗
PubMed1976

Family planning during psychiatric hospitalization.

Ongoing experience with development of family planning programs in psychiatric hospitals suggests that models must be flexible to allow for varying structures and traditions of institutions and for special needs of specific patient populations. However some issues, particularly those related to patients' rights and to usefulness of particular contraceptives, are broadly applicable. Introduction of a family planning program for psychiatric patients is described.

Adolescent↗