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This chapter treats relevant support structures for student and faculty engaged in Undergraduate Research, including the department, the institution, and the academy. It offers a cross-sectional summary of existing practices, discusses faculty and student needs, identifies Undergraduate Research as a significant form of teaching, and suggests some “best practices” used by institutions and departments in support of Undergraduate Research in Religious Studies.

This chapter shows how the creative unions, and the Composers' Union in particular, differed from other types of Stalinist institutions—including trade unions, conservatories, and government control institutions—by tracing the emergence of the Composers' Union's two functions and sketching the basic activities of the institution in its various guises. In 1939 and 1940, the new all-USSR Composers' Union paid a great deal of attention to institution-building measures, but the Composers' Union was never just a bureaucracy. Instead, it was primarily an institutional venue for the formation and operation of the Soviet music profession. Throughout its local and all-USSR existence, the Composers' Union had two main functions that are typical of professional organizations in any modern system: providing professional support for and monitoring of its members; and overseeing the conditions that maintain members as an elite group, especially by funding them.

This chapter presents findings from a case study of a sexual health outreach project that operated within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) community and used volunteer peer educators to promote uptake of sexual health screening services. Interviews were conducted with project staff, volunteers and external partners. The chapter starts with a brief review of peer interventions in sexual health promotion. In the case study, volunteers undertook peer education in gay bars and clubs with men who have sex with men. Professional and volunteer role boundaries and relationships are discussed and the value of involving volunteers able to reach into a community of identity is acknowledged. The chapter evidences some good practice in relation to professional support, training and risk management.

This chapter discusses the difficulties of surgery by presenting case studies. One was of Miriam who died unexpectedly following surgery and another, Jack, who suddenly showed up after ten years following is surgery, healthy and happy and appreciative. Alley asks: “How is it then that you can remember the Miriams of this world but not the Jacks?” After 40 years of practice, the author suggests he knows why: The Miriams of patient care are “bolts from the blue” for an important lesson in humility; despite the use of best practices and facilities and expertise, patients can still die. Both types of cases are important and always should be considered together. This chapter emphasizes the importance of finding a balance in your practice, being realistic about complication rates while realizing that most cases go well and the outcomes are near perfect, and forming and maintaining good collegial relationships to share the good times and the bad times.

It is estimated that between 7 and 12 percent of physicians may suffer health problems that impair their practice. Many either present late for help or do not present for help at all, despite the obvious risks for public health and the fact that doctors have better outcomes for a range of health problems and are frequently able to return to practice with appropriate treatment. This chapter provides an overview of physician impairment focusing particularly on its prevalence, the underlying health problems that lead to it, and its detection, treatment, and prevention.

This chapter presents an account of a curricular "experiment" at McMaster University in Canada that set out to enhance "resilience" for medical students, some theoretical underpinnings drawn from complexity sciences, and some observations that are intended to broaden our concept of what we think we are talking about when we consider issues of stress and resilience in the work of physicians and how this impacts medical education. This account draws upon thinking from recent social and complexity sciences to illustrate what other authors in this book will be emphasizing: that issues of stress, resilience, and professionalization are multifactorial and multidimensional. The English language tends to put things at rest: “stress” and “resilience” are often pointed to as static concepts to be looked at, explored, and planned for. If we think of the matters at hand in terms of processes, not nouns or objects, the question becomes more about the quality of our participating. What if “stress” and “resilience” were “verbs” or actions, showing themselves in everyday acts of relating? Perhaps then, learning the arts and skills of resilience would need to focus more on everyday interactions. In this chapter, we report on our experience over several years of trying to plan a new curriculum which had, among other things, the mandate to promote student self-care. Themes of both stress and resilience emerged for all involved: planners, teachers, and students. We invite you to consider how these themes relate to your own educational setting.

Adverse outcomes happen in health care, regardless of intent and quality of care provided. Patients may be harmed, or experience inadequate treatment, or be dissatisfied, causing them to seek redress through medico-legal processes against the doctor. In Australia, formal complaint mechanisms operate in all Australian states and territories, and a complaint to one of these complaint bodies is common. Patients also seek compensation as a result of medical negligence claims. A minority of patients claim for compensation when there has been no wrongful treatment or when there is found to be no cause for complaint. Bad outcomes cause distress for all concerned, not only for the patient and patient’s family, but also the doctor and doctor’s family. The medico-legal processes of complaints, claims, and inquiries that can follow can be distressing for the doctor regardless of the cause or the outcome. This chapter explores the impact the medico-legal process has on the health and well-being of the doctor and the impact on the doctor’s practice of medicine, including the way they relate to patients.

The challenges of physicians working in palliative care are discussed in this chapter. Palliative care practitioners have been shown to experience less burnout than physicians and oncologists. The word palliative means “to abate” or “reduce the violence of.” The term palliative care is care that eases the symptoms. The author notes that the most challenging aspect of palliative care is dealing with the flood of emotions that attend a person’s awareness of their mortality or their actual death. Managing the flood of emotions, as noted by Chynoweth and others in this book, is something that doctors are rarely trained to handle[SC2].

This chapter concludes the book with a range of advice and reminders for the conductor/educator. These recommendations include guidance about professional behavior, how to cultivate a growth mindset, effective approaches to taking over a choral program from a colleague, and the imperative to reach out for professional support and assistance when necessary. The author examines the importance for conductors to reconnect daily with the passion that first drew them to their chosen field. Finally, the chapter draws inspiration from a letter written by a fifteen-year-old who credits acquiring the joy of discovery in all learning through her experiences as a choral musician.