Residency interviews can be successfully conducted via the Internet. The web based interview process reduced costs and improved convenience. The findings of this study support the use of videoconferencing as an adjunct to traditional interview methods rather than as a replacement.

Rural Americans lack adequate health care access and quality.1 More than 10% of Americans live in federally designated health professional shortage areas where they have limited or nonexistent health care services. The shortages apply to physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, dentists, pharmacists, and many allied health professionals. Generally, the smaller, more isolated, and poorer the community, the worse the shortage problem becomes. 2To make matters worse, rural populations are older and poorer than their urban counterparts and often have more limited insurance coverage.3,4 People in rural communities often have high rates of chronic conditions, accompanied by increased prevalence of problem health behaviors including smoking, obesity, and lack of exercise.2 The need for core health services (eg, primary care, medical and hospital services, long-term care, oral health care, and public health services) is enormous.Rural

No abstract

Breastfeeding has long been believed to protect against infection in infants, but protection against respiratory illnesses has not been consistently demonstrated in studies in developed countries. Between 1988 and 1992, the authors assessed the effect of breastfeeding on incidence and duration of respiratory illnesses during the first 6 months of life in a prospective study that actively tracked breastfeeding and respiratory illnesses. A cohort of 1,202 healthy infants, born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, between January 1, 1988 and June 30, 1990, from homes without smokers was enrolled. The daily occurrences of respiratory symptoms and breastfeeding status were reported by the mothers every 2 weeks. Illnesses were classified as lower respiratory illness (LRI) if wheezing or wet cough was reported; the remaining illnesses were classified as upper respiratory. The annualized incidence rates for LRI were 2.8, 2.6, and 2.1 during follow-up time with no, partial, or full breastfeeding, respectively, but the incidence rates for upper respiratory illness and lower respiratory illness combined were similar in the three categories. After adjustment for potential confounding factors, full breastfeeding was associated with a reduction in lower respiratory illness risk (odds ratio=0.81, 95% confidence interval 0.68-0.96). Median duration of all respiratory illnesses was 5 days for the fully breastfed infants during the first 6 months of life compared with a median of 6 days for not breastfed and partially breastfed infants. Multivariate analysis confirmed that breastfeeding significantly reduced the duration of respiratory illness. This pattern of reduced incidence of LRI and shorter duration of all respiratory illnesses suggests that breastfeeding reduces the severity of infant respiratory illnesses during the first 6 months of life.

Drunk-driving offenders need assessment and treatment services not only for alcohol problems but also for drug use and the other psychiatric disorders that commonly accompany alcohol-related problems.