• gender and physical/mental health
• cross-cultural health issues
• violence as a public health problem
• youth and constructions of risk
• child abuse and family violence
• illness, disease and injury in vulnerable populations
• drugs and alcohol
• sexualities and health
• social justice and social change
• cultures of health and healing
• medical pedagogy and health education
• integrative health and complementary and alternative medicine

Current Projects:

Masculinity, Health and the Public Sphere
Boys, Crime and Justice

Race, Difference and Community Health
Hate, Predation and Terror: the Crisis of Difference in American Society

Risk, Medicine and Public Health
Biotechnology, Politics and Culture

Integrative Medicine and Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Therapeutic Landscapes: Person, Place and Wellbeing
Health and Healing: Western, Traditional and CAM Perspectives

biographical profile

Research Interests:

• human biology
• aging
• stress
• long-term care
• grandparenting

Current Projects:

book manuscript entitled Measuring Stress in Humans. A Practical Guide for Field Research, with GD James, to be published by the Cambridge University Press.

biographical profile

Research Interests:

• medical decision making
• medical informatics
• medical education methods and technologies
• cognitive psychology applied to education

Current Projects:

Developing self-efficacy to apply OMM skills

Research question: How are osteopathic manipulation skills best taught to students in order to produce both a high skill level and high self-efficacy to apply the skill to real patients?

Methodology: Within-subjects research designs track the development of skills and self-efficacy in first- and second-year students during multi-step OMM skill training. Traditional OMM lab techniques have been enhanced using mastery learning concepts.

Diagnostic metacognition in fourth-year osteopathic medical students

Research questions: Is pattern-matching diagnostic ability related to, or separate from, the metacognitive ability to know whether or not diagnostic first impressions are correct? How can this metacognitive ability, which is essential for correcting diagnostic errors, be measured and developed?

Methodology: A 200-item, case-based internal medicine exam has been administered to fourth-year osteopathic medical students. Each diagnostic decision is accompanied by a confidence judgment in the accuracy of the selected diagnosis. This produces two scores: a diagnostic accuracy score and a diagnostic metacognition score.

Principles of cognitive psychology for designing optimal learning experiences

Research question: What are the most important principles for teaching and learning that can be derived from decades of research on memory, problem solving, judgment and decision making, and newer fields such as cognitive neuroscience?

Methodology: Literature review and synthesis. Preliminary results have been presented nationally and in several invited presentations.

Factors influencing patient commitment to a medical treatment regimen

Research question: What are the most important factors influencing a patient’s willingness to initiate and complete a course of medical treatment? These factors could include rapport with the caregiver, participation in decision making, self-efficacy, and other patient values and beliefs.

Methodology: This new (to me) line of research is at the stage of literature review and first-draft model building.

biographical profile

Research interests:

• history of pediatrics
• history of obstetrics
• history of public health

Current Projects:

History of Cesarean Section

Herman Bundesen and the Politics of Public Health:
Public Health Campaigns and Controversies, 1920-1960