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Patient perception of caregiver empathy has been studied internationally for decades. Although leadership empathy has been described as having a critical influence on staff retention, this subject is less evident in the literature. This article described a study undertaken to gain a baseline understanding of nurses' perceptions of leader empathy from those they identify as their managers. A baseline for nurses' perception of leader empathy has been established that may be used to benchmark future interventions to assess and improve nurses' perception of their leaders' empathy in the work setting.

Traditional methods for research study recruitment such as snail mail lists and posting flyers may fail to reach the tech-savvy participants needed for today's healthcare studies. Word of mouth can be effective for recruiting a few participants but can rarely accomplish the numbers needed for a representative sample. Social media can be a viable avenue to reach increased numbers of sample participants; however, a good understanding of the risks and benefits of using social media is needed before embarking on active recruitment. A recent study developed an evidence-based participant recruitment plan for the use of Facebook. Potential participant misrepresentation was addressed with clear inclusion criteria, no incentives, and open-ended questions. The Facebook ads to recruit study participation targeted licensed nurses who worked in the prior 2-year period living in the United States based on information in Facebook user profiles. A total of 536 participants responded to all questions on the survey at a cost of $1.78 per completed survey. Daily activity and cost for ads were closely monitored and adjusted to maintain cost control. Facebook can be an effective tool for study participant recruitment across all age ranges for completion of online surveys.

Objectives A community engagement service-learning experience was planned to provide health services for the homeless during a local 1-day event. The objectives were to (a) determine the feasibility of a service-learning experience, and to (b) examine the effects on students' attitudes toward persons experiencing homelessness. Methods A quasi-experimental, institutional review board approved study, including health-related students enrolled in a local university or community college, was planned. The attitudes toward the homeless survey was administered before and after participation in the service-learning experience. Qualitative data were through student reflections of the experience. Results Participants (n = 106) completed a pre and post questionnaire and a self-reflection. A statistically significant t(26) = -2.2, p = .04 change in attitudes toward the homeless were found. Three themes were revealed from the reflections: inherent bias, individualized care, and the societal context of people experiencing homelessness. Conclusion Both quantitative and qualitative findings may help students reflect on preconceived stereotypes; therefore, affecting their attitudes toward the homelessness.

The 2010 Institute of Medicine's Future of Nursing report posed recommendations to increase numbers of nurses with baccalaureate degrees or greater to 80%. This project engaged associate degree nurses in motivational interviewing focusing on finding and removing barriers to baccalaureate matriculation and completion. Results indicated a statistically significant influence on attitudes and return-to-school decision making and identified a qualitative theme: "I know more now… I could be a better nurse."

Background While women in the Deep South area of the United States have higher rates of maternal and infant mortality, palliative and supportive care programs are lacking. Additionally, few studies have detailed referral triggers that are specific to the mother, infant, or pregnancy for inclusion in perinatal and neonatal palliative and supportive care programs. Purpose The purpose of this retrospective, descriptive study was to examine the sociodemographic factors and referral triggers for perinatal-neonatal palliative and supportive care services for women enrolled in a newly developed perinatal-neonatal palliative and supportive care program. Methods Data were collected from medical records of 135 women enrolled in the program. Triggers for referral to the program were classified as fetal, maternal, or prenatal complications. Results A diverse sample of women were enrolled in the program. Most infants survived to birth and discharge from the hospital. Two-thirds of referrals were related to infant complications and 34% were for multiple complications (fetal, maternal, and/or prenatal). Triggers for referral to the program were not related to sociodemographic characteristics of women. Implications for practice A comprehensive list of triggers that include maternal and prenatal complications, in addition to infant complications, may ensure at-risk women and infants, are enrolled in perinatal-neonatal palliative and supportive care programs early in pregnancy, regardless of sociodemographic factors. Implications for research Prospective research on the effectiveness of perinatal-neonatal palliative and supportive care programs in diverse populations of women is needed. This includes the examination of family health outcomes and provider perspectives.

When an expectant mother hears the news that her infant has a fetal anomaly, she may feel unsure of the future. A RN recognized the needs of women (and their families) expecting infants with critical fetal diagnoses and reached out to help them through their journey—through the pregnancy, delivery, and beyond. The act of walking alongside the mothers through their experience has grown into a formal program at a specialized children's and womens' hospital in the southeastern United States. This article describes the purpose of the program, how the program came into existence, and what services the program provides to this special population. The program continues to evolve, and the team members have worked with over 169 mothers to date.

Authentic leadership is used to describe a leadership style that is moral, inclusive, transparent, and original. Authentic leadership is believed to translate to a healthy work environment by engaging employees and demonstrating genuineness. This genuineness is seen first in the leadership and transfers throughout the organization. This is true in healthcare, in the business setting, and in the academic environment. This chapter will explore what an authentic leader is, how their attributes affect the workplace environment and the employees in that environment. Further, the chapter will examine decision-making and problem-solving through the lens of authentic leadership, with considerable focus on the academic setting. The academic leader is responsible for not only subject matter education (the ‘hard' information), but also an emotional education for teachers (the ‘soft' lessons) that is further shared with the students.

We have achieved the ability to synthesize thousands of unique, long oligonucleotides (150mers) in fmol amounts using parallel synthesis of DNA on microarrays. The sequence accuracy of the oligonucleotides in such large-scale syntheses has been limited by the yields and side reactions of the DNA synthesis process used. While there has been significant demand for libraries of long oligos (150mer and more), the yields in conventional DNA synthesis and the associated side reactions have previously limited the availability of oligonucleotide pools to lengths

Complex human diseases are known to have a significant genetic component. Despite some important successes (Altshuler et al. 2000; Hugot et al. 2001), the elucidation of the underlying genetic determinants have proven resistant to standard methods. Linkage analysis using affected sib pairs has limited power to uncover such signals, as each individual functional variant contributes only modestly to disease risk (Risch 2000). Large-scale association studies that would allow genome-wide mapping in large collections of cases with matched controls have therefore been proposed (e.g., Kruglyak 1999; Risch 2000). Some of the barriers to adopting such strategies, including the need to establish large-case control populations (Geschwind et al. 2001; Shmulewitz et al. 2001; Cupples et al. 2003) and develop comprehensive SNP resources (dbSNP), have been overcome. In addition, the International HapMap project (The International HapMap Consortium 2003) is completing a first draft of a whole genome haplotype map in the Centre d'Etude du Polymorphisme Humain (CEU) population by the end of 2004. The Hap-Map effort will yield a broad view of the genetic architecture of human populations and allow for the efficient selection of the most informative tagging SNPs for subsequent association studies. The remaining requirement to fully enable large-scale genetic association studies is the development of truly cost-effective and scalable SNP genotyping technologies. These methods must allow hundreds of thousands of markers to be efficiently and accurately scored in thousands of patients. The first generation of SNP genotyping technologies were based on single amplification reactions for each locus and were not appropriate for these largescale, whole-genome studies. Recent advances have assayed thousands of random SNPs using ultra high-density wafer hybridizations (Matsuzaki et al. 2004) but will not allow the advantages of the tagging SNP approach to be fully realized because these technologies will not be able to convert all the informative tagging SNPs and/or putative functional SNPs into working genotyping assays. Multiplexed genotyping technologies that allow the multiplexing of hundreds of targeted SNPs have recently been developed based on various versions of the Oligo Ligation Assay (OLA) (Grossman et al. 1994; Samiotaki et al. 1994; Oliphant et al. 2002). These technologies would still demand a fairly large infrastructure in order to process the thousands of reactions necessary per patient. Here, we describe an advanced Molecular Inversion Probe (MIP) genotyping technology (Hardenbol et al. 2003) that combines the strengths of all of the above methods. MIP exploits the advantages of the OLA methodologies but can be more highly multiplexed due to a unique unimolecular method of action and an enzymology that combines the specificity of both ligase and polymerase enzymes. This assay enables the use of >12,000 oligo probes to simultaneously interrogate human genomic DNA and, following a single PCR, detect the results via a single universal tag DNA chip array. The application of MIP to generate a haplotype map of Chromosome 12 in CEU families (The International HapMap Consortium 2003) as part of the Human HapMap project has yielded 3,509,052 genotypes from 38,429 assays. In this study we analyze the important features of the assay performance that will enable MIP to be effectively used for many future largescale studies.