Report: Consumers concerned about health-care safety, quality
Nearly half of all consumers worry about the safety of their health care, according to a report released last week by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Harvard School of Public Health. Five years after an Institute of Medicine report focused attention on medical errors in hospitals, new data show that Americans do not believe that the nation's quality of care has improved. Among the findings:

• Forty percent of those surveyed said the quality of health care has gotten worse in the past five years; 17 percent said the quality of care has gotten better.
• More than half (55 percent) of respondents said they are dissatisfied with the quality of health care in this country.
• One in three people reported that they or a family member have experienced a medical error; one in five of those say the error was serious.
• Of those reporting medical errors with serious consequences, one in seven filed malpractice lawsuits.

For more information or to view the report, please visit http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/pomr111704pkg.cfm.

NIH proposes best practices for genomic inventions
The National Institutes of Health has proposed suggested best practices for licensing of patented genetic sequences or other "genomic inventions." In a notice in the Federal Register, Nov. 19, NIH encouraged its funding recipients, for example, to reserve in license agreements the right to use patented information for their own research and educational uses, and to allow other non-profit institutions to do the same. Other practices are also outlined. The deadline for public comments is Jan. 18. For more information, contact Stephen Heinig, AAMC Division of Biomedical and Health Sciences Research, at sheinig@aamc.org or (202) 828-0488.

Applicants sought for spirituality, medicine curriculum awards
The George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health is soliciting applications for a curricular awards program available to allopathic and osteopathic medical schools and to residency training programs in psychiatry and primary care. The "GWish Spirituality and Medicine Curricular Awards" are funded by the John A. Templeton Foundation.

Medical school awards are given to outstanding undergraduate medical education programs that incorporate issues related to spirituality and medicine into their curriculum; recipients will be awarded $50,000 over four years. Residency program awards are given to outstanding training programs that address spirituality and health and to encourage the implementation of such programs; recipients will be awarded $30,000 over three years. Applications must be received by April 1. Award-winning courses will begin in the 2005-2006 academic year.

For more information, visit http://www.gwish.org or contact Nina Fry, GWish, at hcsnaf@gwumc.edu or (202) 496-6411.

Health policy internship available
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation is seeking applications for a congressional internship program for minority college students, hosted by Howard University in Washington, D.C. African-American, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander and American-Indian/Alaska-Native college seniors and recent graduates interested in the field of health policy are encouraged to apply for the Barbara Jordan Health Policy Scholars Program, which honors the legacy of the late U.S. congresswoman. Participants in the summer program will receive approximately $5,000 in support, including a stipend, daily expense allowance, airfare and lodging. The application deadline is Jan. 7. For more information, please visit http://www.kff.org/docs/topics/jordanscholars.html.