Laura Weiss Roberts
Biographic Data
| ID | 153459 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Laura Weiss Roberts |
| GIVEN NAMES | Laura Weiss |
| FAMILY NAME | Roberts |
| SIGNATURE | ROBERTS L W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Editor-in-chief,Academic Medicine |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4270-253X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 63 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 62 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
In Remembrance of Holly J. Humphrey MD, Macp
From Launch to Leadership: Successfully Navigating an Academic Career Path
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members. Navigating an academic career path, from launch to leadership, is often an ongoing focus for members of the academic medicine community at all career stages. Getting established and translating one’s excellence in education, science, clinical care, and community mission areas to academic promotion are crucial steps for early…
In Anticipation of the 100th Anniversary of Academic Medicine and Exciting Changes in 2026
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members. The field of academic medicine is inherently forward looking—educating a new generation of health professionals and scientists, engaging in research to understand disease and health and to develop novel therapies, strengthening clinical services, advancing community collaborations, and nurturing leaders. We who are involved …
Medical Schools and Their Universities and Health Systems: Facing a Far More Difficult Future
Recognizing the Value of Teaching Sexual History-Taking
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in this editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members. Learning how to take a sexual history with compassion, sensitivity, and thoroughness is a critically important clinical skill for health professions students to learn at all levels of training. Sexual histories provide valuable insight into the health of patients across the age spectrum, particularly regarding their overall …
Challenges in Publication Ethics, New and Old
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members. Some interesting things have been happening lately with submissions to Academic Medicine. Our journal recently received a very large number of manuscripts that appear to have been generated from a single origin but without a findable human author. Our journal has also recently received manuscripts and creative works that app…
Paying Attention to My Favorite Ethical Principle
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in this editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members. Of all of the ethical principles in medicine, I like respect for persons best. Many of my other favorites, such as autonomy, beneficence, compassion, dignity, fidelity, integrity, and justice, are rolled up into respect for persons. And some might throw in a few of the virtues, too, such as honesty and self-effacement. It is…
Reporting on Innovations in Academic Medicine
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members. Innovation brings forward new and better ideas. In the field of academic medicine, innovation improves human health by creatively addressing knotty problems encountered by scientists, teachers, learners, clinicians, community stakeholders, leaders, and policymakers. Our journal has long published research studies and article…
Recognizing the Work and Well-Being of Residency and Fellowship Program Coordinators
Program coordinators are a vital segment of the graduate medical education workforce. Program coordinators play an invaluable role in physician training by ensuring that education requirements are fulfilled, arranging lectures and clinical schedules, maintaining accurate documentation, organizing recruitment functions, and assuring policy adherence, among other duties.1 Many of these activities are high-stakes, such as interacting with accreditat…
Ensuring and Articulating Scientific Excellence in Accomplishing Human Good
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in this editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members. Academic medicine relies on excellence in science to fulfill the fundamental aim of improving human health. Our field’s ability to deliver on its obligations and its promise depends on our ability to advance discovery across a full continuum from basic to implementation science, to innovate creatively and with impact, and to…
Information, collaboration, regulation: Physician and AI researcher views on ethical considerations in clinical AI integration
Due to the potential scope and impact of artificial intelligence’s (AI's) adoption in medicine, a comprehensive assessment of the potential ethical considerations arising during clinical integration is needed. Existing ethical frameworks and principles have aided in the identification of ethical considerations that may arise during the clinical integration of AI, however, our understanding of these considerations remains preliminary to the extent…
Welcoming Manuscripts on Consequential Topics for Our Field of Academic Medicine
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members. So many consequential topics in academic medicine deserve greater inquiry and our sustained attention. As one example, in this issue of our journal, 3 articles focus on unionization in the context of graduate medical education (GME).1–3 These articles were written by trainees, faculty educators, and institutional officials, …
The Contributions of Rime in Furthering Medical Education Scholarship
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members. This issue of Academic Medicine is devoted to an exciting set of research reports, reviews, and commentaries selected for publication from more than 60 submissions as part of our ongoing collaboration with the Research In Medical Education (RIME) program.1–17 The topics are wide-ranging—experiences of moral distress among tr…
Why Storytelling in Medicine Matters
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members. It is rare to read something that puts a lump in your throat, tears in your eyes, and matters of genuine importance into crystal clear focus. Two stories, written by students in the health professions and published in this issue of Academic Medicine, do all 3. In “Baby J.’s Song,”1 nursing student Hailey Sommerfeld describes…
Academic Medicine —Engaging With Our Field Through and Beyond Its Pages
When a wonderful colleague of mine was asked whether he knew our journal, he quipped, “Oh, yes, I do. I have been rejected by Academic Medicine many times.” We laughed, but my thought at the time was that he is not alone. The authors whose work has been declined by our journal form rather a large group. With so many submissions, our journal is not able to accept many manuscripts, including numerous very meritorious scholarly and creative works, e…
Ethics and Clinical Neuroinnovation: Fundamentals, Stakeholders, Case Studies, and Emerging Issues
This unique title explores therapeutics for conditions such as Alzheimer's, depression, addiction, and other disorders with neuropsychiatric dimensions.
Giving Friendship Proper Emphasis in Academic Medicine
I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; ... And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend. —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Arrow and the Song”1 We have all had one of those days when nothing seems to go right. Maybe you meet with a patient whose condition continues to worsen and you do not know how to help. Later you are teaching a class, but the students look like they would rather be s…
The Price of Becoming a Physician
We are always really carrying a ladder, but it’s invisible. We only know something’s the matter: something precious crashes; easy doors prove impassable.... —Kay Ryan, “Carrying a Ladder”1 Becoming a physician is expensive. In the United States in 2022, the median cost of attending a public medical school for 4 years was $268,476. A private medical school cost more at $363,836.2 Due to this expense, more than two-thirds of current U.S. medical st…
Appreciation for Peer Review and Peer Reviewers in Academic Medicine
The editorial team of Academic Medicine is indebted to the extraordinary contributions of our peer reviewers. Remarkably, from September 2021 until September 2022, our journal benefitted from the guidance provided by more than 1,800 reviewers from 45 countries. These reviewers provide insights of tremendous value in editorial decision making, and they assist our authors in strengthening the rigor, quality, and presentation of their scholarship. 1…
Toward a Larger, More Representative, and Fulfilled Health Professions Workforce
In the United States, as in many countries throughout the world, there is an increasing need for health care coupled with a significant shortage of health professionals.1 This mismatch has been recognized for some time, mostly in relation to the aging of the general population and the prevalence of chronic diseases.1,2 Recent potent threats to population health and individual well-being, including the COVID-19 pandemic, other infectious disease e…
Strengthening Academic Medicine’s Response to Humanitarian Concerns
As we in academic medicine become increasingly aware of humanitarian concerns across the globe, we encounter new opportunities to use our skills, training, and resources to respond in accordance with our professional values and missions.1 These efforts often require us to expand beyond our usual approaches to training and care delivery.2 These efforts also require us to confront tragedy—caused either directly by interpersonal violence or indirect…
Considering the Effects of the Dobbs Decision on Clinical Training and Practice and on the Lives of Medical Professionals
In Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court sought to resolve the complex question of whether “all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional,” an issue arising in a case related to the Mississippi Gestational Age Act.1 In a 6-3 vote, the Court decided that the U.S. Constitution does not confer a right to abortion,2,3 overturning precedents set in 2 prior decisions, Roe v Wade (1973)4 and Plan…
Responding to Patients and Society in Distress
Not long ago my mother was hospitalized. She shared a room with another patient who, within minutes of her arrival, verbally threatened her. The roommate complained bitterly, used abusive language, and often raised her voice toward both my mother and also the hospital staff and resident physicians when they entered the room. This patient was unpleasant and relentless in her demands of the nurses. As we waited for an operating room to open up over…
Advancing Ethically Sound Education Research in the Health Professions
Studies involving human volunteers, or the use of data derived from living people, are necessary to answer some questions of importance in our world. Human studies are beset with ethical challenges and risks, however, and there are innumerable examples of the exploitation of vulnerable individuals and groups in the context of research (e.g., the U.S. Public Health Service syphilis study at Tuskegee, the Cold War human radiation experiments, the p…
Academic Olympism and Authorship: Honoring Contributions to Collaborative Scholarship
On August 1, 2021, the world witnessed an act of true collegiality as 2 athletes, Mutaz Essa Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi, shared the podium for the gold medal in the high jump at the 2020 summer Olympic games. 1 When the 2 longtime friends and rivals reached the limit of their performance at the same height, an official proposed a jump-off to break the tie. Barshim asked if 2 gold medals were an option and the official promptly replied, “It’s p…
Strategies for managing impressions of racial identity in the workplace
This article deepens understanding of the workplace experiences of racial minorities by investigating racial identity-based impression management (RIM) by Asian American journalists. Racial centrality, directly or indirectly, predicted the use of 4 RIM strategies (avoidance, enhancement, affiliation, and racial humor). Professional centrality also predicted strategy use, which was related to life satisfaction and perceived career success. By shed…
Bad’ Boys and ‘Sad’ Girls? Examining Internalizing and Externalizing Effects on Parasuicides Among Youth
Ethical Considerations in Rural Health Care: A Pilot Study of Clinicians in Alaska and New Mexico
Perspectives on use and protection of genetic information in work settings: Results of a Preliminary Study
An Office on Main Street Health Care Dilemmas in Small Communities
Laura Weiss Roberts, John Battaglia, Margaret Smithpeter, Richard S. Epstein, An Office on Main Street Health Care Dilemmas in Small Communities, The Hastings Center Report, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 1999), pp. 28-37
Health Care on Main Street
Conducting Empirical Research on Informed Consent: Challenges and Questions
Greg A. Sachs, Gavin W. Hougham, Jeremy Sugarman, Patricia Agre, Marion E. Broome, Gail Geller, Nancy Kass, Eric Kodish, Jim Mintz, Laura W. Roberts, Pamela Sankar, Laura A. Siminoff, James Sorenson, Anita Weiss, Conducting Empirical Research on Informed Consent: Challenges and Questions, IRB: Ethics & Human Research, Vol. 25, No. 5, Supplement (Sep. - Oct., 2003), pp. S4-S10
Empirical Research on Informed Consent with the Cognitively Impaired
Gavin W. Hougham, Greg A. Sachs, Deborah Danner, Jim Mintz, Marian Patterson, Laura W. Roberts, Laura A. Siminoff, Jeremy Sugarman, Peter J. Whitehouse, Donna Wirshing, Empirical Research on Informed Consent with the Cognitively Impaired, IRB: Ethics & Human Research, Vol. 25, No. 5, Supplement (Sep. - Oct., 2003), pp. S26-S32
Ethical Considerations in Rural Health Care: A Pilot Study of Clinicians in Alaska and New Mexico
Perspectives on use and protection of genetic information in work settings: Results of a Preliminary Study
Survey Return Rates as a Function of Priority versus First-Class Mailing
Prior research indicates survey procedures that signal significance and individualized mailings have higher response rates. Thus, it was hypothesized that surveys delivered via Priority mail would result in higher return rates than surveys delivered via First-Class. 260 surveys were sent to individuals randomly selected from lists of licensed physical and behavioral healthcare providers in Alaska and New Mexico. Half of the selected individuals w…
Drug Abuse Research in Rural Communities: Current Knowledge and Future Directions
Ethical Disparities: Challenges Encountered by Multidisciplinary Providers in Fulfilling Ethical Standards in the Care of Rural and Minority People
Context: Health care disparities are well documented for people living in rural areas and for people who are members of ethnic minorities. Purpose: Our goal was to determine whether providers report greater difficulty in providing care for rural than urban residents and for ethnic minorities than patients/clients in general in 4 practice areas of ethical relevance: attaining treatment adherence, assuring confidentiality, establishing therapeutic …
When Providers and Patients Come from Different Backgrounds: Perceived Value of Additional Training on Ethical Care Practices
Fostering the therapeutic alliance, safeguarding confidentiality, gaining informed consent, and enhancing treatment adherence are critical aspects of patient care. We examined whether multidisciplinary health care providers perceive additional training on these areas as helpful in their work with patients from different ethnic backgrounds than the provider. Data are drawn from a National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded survey of 1555 providers in …
Bad’ Boys and ‘Sad’ Girls? Examining Internalizing and Externalizing Effects on Parasuicides Among Youth
“If Only Someone Had Told Me …”: Lessons From Rural Providers
PURPOSE: Health care providers face challenges in rural service delivery due to the unique circumstances of rural living. The intersection of rural living and health care challenges can create barriers to care that providers may not be trained to navigate, resulting in burnout and high turnover. Through the exploration of experienced rural providers' knowledge and lessons learned, this study sought to inform future practitioners, educators, and p…
Community-Based Participatory Research for Improved Mental Healthcare: A Manual for Clinicians and Researchers
Strategies for managing impressions of racial identity in the workplace
This article deepens understanding of the workplace experiences of racial minorities by investigating racial identity-based impression management (RIM) by Asian American journalists. Racial centrality, directly or indirectly, predicted the use of 4 RIM strategies (avoidance, enhancement, affiliation, and racial humor). Professional centrality also predicted strategy use, which was related to life satisfaction and perceived career success. By shed…
Psychiatry: Informed Consent and Care
Attitudes Regarding Enrollment in a Genetic Research Project: An Informed Consent Simulation Study Comparing Views of People With Depression, Diabetes, and Neither Condition
In this study, participants with a self-reported history of depression, diabetes, or no illness underwent a simulated informed consent process for a hypothetical genetic study related to depression or diabetes. Participants completed a survey assessing their perceived understanding of the research process, perceptions of its risks and benefits, their satisfaction with the informed consent process, and their readiness to make a hypothetical enroll…
Belonging, Respectful Inclusion, and Diversity in Medical Education
Belonging is the experience of being accepted, included, and valued by others. A fundamental human motivation, belonging positively influences an individual’s health, abilities, relationships, and overall well-being.1 Belonging is an interpretation of cues that suggests that one fits in and is welcome in a given context; it is an inference based on observations, interactions, values, and past events that define the culture and environment.2 Encou…
Why Write
If my doctor told me I only had six months to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster. —Isaac Asimov1 The field of academic medicine is filled with extraordinary educators and brilliant clinicians. Many of these professionals are also gifted communicators who, seemingly with little effort, can share knowledge and inspire their students and patients. And, yet, many of these colleagues struggle when it comes to writing. They fret. They del…
On the Use and Value of Reporting Guidelines in Health Professions Education Research
Conversations about the use and value of reporting guidelines in research publications often elicit polarized views. Such views signal a need for more information and thoughtful consideration. As an example from our own field of health professions education, the editors’ panel discussion at the 2019 meeting of the Association for Medical Education in Europe in Vienna, Austria, entitled Controversies and Challenges in Publishing Health Professions…
Women and Academic Medicine, 2020
A full century after the passing of the 19th amendment, the composition of today’s medical school classes reflects the gender balance of the U.S. population. Of the country’s 92,733 medical students in 2019, 46,878 were women.1 In that year, women comprised nearly half of residents and fellows in training, and most graduate students enrolled in doctoral programs in the biological and medical sciences in the United States were women.2 The proporti…
The USMLE Step 1 Examination: Can Pass/Fail Make the Grade
On February 12, 2020, the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) announced that the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 will transition to pass/fail results reporting in 2022. This examination is one of several tests from the USMLE that must be passed to practice medicine in the United States. Performance on Step 1 is one of many factors considered in the selection of ca…
Sacred Trespass
Too much rain loosens trees. In the hills giant oaks fall upon their knees. You can touch parts you have no right to—places only birds should fly to. —Kay Ryan1 When I was 19, I went to Australia for several months as part of a 5-person field research team studying the Satin Bowerbird. The Satin Bowerbird is polygynous (unusual for birds) and a relative of the Birds of Paradise. Instead of extraordinary plumage, the Satin looks quite ordinary, bu…
Attitudes of Mothers Regarding Willingness to Enroll Their Children in Research
This study assessed mothers' perspectives regarding research involvement by their children, factors that might affect perceptions of research risks, and attitudes regarding willingness to enroll children in research. Participants completed a survey on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Mothers were less inclined to enroll children in research involving procedures posing higher risk (regression coefficient = -0.51). Mothers without mental health issues with …
The Importance of Integrating the Arts and Humanities Into Medical Education
The arts and humanities contribute immensely and immeasurably to medical education. As different ways of knowing, sharing, and meaning-making, the arts and humanities strengthen our understanding, inspire compassion and creativity, and stimulate our cognitive capacities. The arts represent complex ideas, often conveyed with simplicity and aesthetic frisson, and generate interpretations and analyses that may stretch far beyond the original intenti…
Going Extraordinary Distances With Physician–Scientists
The only justification for extraordinary lengths is extraordinary distances. —Kay Ryan1 Medicine is far from its goal of ensuring good health for all people. Getting there requires advancing our understanding of mechanisms of disease and the underpinnings of well-being, inventing novel therapeutics, and providing excellent and safe clinical care. Getting there is predicated on the development of health services and systems that are accessible, eq…
Medicine (51 works) · Psychology (42 works) · Political science (38 works) · Medical education (30 works) · Law (23 works) · Innovations in Medical Education (17 works) · Family medicine (14 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Diversity and Career in Medicine (12 works) · Health and Medical Research Impacts (12 works)