surgeons. Clearer understanding of the facets of competence valued by the profession will hopefully contribute to refinement of curricula and assessment tools. References 1. Hamdorf JM. Critical evaluation. What makes a competent surgeon? ANZ J. Surg. 2010; 80: 656. 2. Arora S, Sevdalis N, Suliman I, Athanasiou T, Kneebone R, Darzi A.What makes a competent surgeon? Experts' and trainees' perceptions of the roles of a surgeon.

The authors tested whether dimensions of negative affect--specifically, trait levels of negative emotionality and state levels of depressive symptoms--increased risk for substance abuse onset and whether perceived social support moderated this relation using data from a 5-year prospective study of 496 school-recruited adolescent girls. Initial negative emotionality, but not depressive symptoms, and deficits in parental, but not peer, support predicted future substance abuse onset in a multivariate hazard model. Tests of the interaction between negative affect dimensions and social support suggested that support did not moderate the relation of negative affect to risk for substance abuse onset. Results provide prospective support for the etiological role in the onset of substance abuse of trait-linked negative affect and of parental support.

In this age of accountability, social work practitioners face greater demands to demonstrate the effectiveness of their interventions. A practical way to accomplish this is to use rapid assessment instruments (RAIs) to measure a client’s level of functioning so that any subsequent change in functioning can be accurately detected over time. Although great strides have been made during the past three decades in the development of RAIs, there remains a paucity of reliable and valid scales when compared to the increasingly complex range of problems that practitioners confront in their day-to-day work with clients. This article, the first in a two-part series, outlines how to conceptualize and create a scale and how to plan and subsequently implement a design testing the newly created scale’s reliability and validity. The second article in this series provides illustrations of these steps from the authors’ own works, detailing decision making and strategies for analyzing psychometric data.

The treatment of dually diagnosed adolescents is challenging for many reasons, including complex treatment needs, poor treatment engagement and retention, and a lack of sustainable treatment outcomes. Although a large percentage of adolescents are diagnosed with both substance abuse and mental health diagnoses, research is only beginning to identify effective treatments for this population. The current study systematically reviews randomized clinical trials of interventions for dually diagnosed adolescents. Results examining both between-group effect sizes and within group changes indicate the efficacy of several treatment modalities in improving specific aspects of treatment needs but highlight family behavior therapy and individual cognitive problemsolving therapy as showing large effect sizes across externalizing, internalizing, and substance-abuse outcomes in dually diagnosed youth. The study further discusses the complexities of systematically evaluating the currently limited state of research on dually diagnosed youth. Finally, preliminary guidelines for treating dually diagnosed adolescents are derived from a review of those treatments shown to be most effective. [Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 6:177-205 (2006)]

There is a marked increase in the number of adjunct faculty being hired nationally and internationally, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, in all academic arenas, including schools of social work. The development and support of adjunct faculty at a school of social work at one flagship university in the United States is discussed and described, including an examination of the issues leading to the increased use of adjuncts; the linkage of adjuncts to tenured faculty in the delivery of classroom teaching and teaching technologies; the inclusion of adjuncts into the broader academic culture; and the specific training, support, and retention needed to improve the quality of teaching done by adjuncts. In addition, linkage of the university to the community is examined as experienced social work practitioners, many of whom represent diverse ethnic and cultural perspectives, bring their seasoned administrative, policy, or clinical skills into the classroom. Systemic effects of these changes within social work academic programs are discussed, as well as broader and more far-reaching implications for social work practice.