Enhancing the Professional Culture of Academic Health Science Centers ─ Creating and Sustaining Research Communities

For researchers, administrators, and policy makers, Inui and Frankel (medicine and geriatrics, Indiana U.) compile 11 chapters by contributors working at academic health science centers in the US and China, as well as the National Institutes of Health, a Veterans Affairs medical center, and a research network, to explore the relationship between the culture and environments of academic health science centers and their productivity in research. To do so, they draw on interviews in which these scientists told stories about situations in which they felt at their best and their contributions in facilitating success, what other people in the situation offered, and what the organization and its environment contributed. They illustrate the embodiment of foundational principles for organizational leadership, program management, and career advancement in specific incidents, including how universities embodied the principles of sharing explicit and strategic processes, allowing diversity of all kinds, sharing foundational values with society, being hard-working and adhering to reasonable policies, being humane and supportive of human welfare, and recognizing achievements. Published by Radcliffe Publishing, UK, and distributed in the US by BookMasters. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)