Doctors under the knife

With Bill Clinton's new reforms only a month away, the health-care system is on the operating table--and the doctors are under the knife. Americans have a love-hate relationship with physicians: they like the care that doctors provide but hold them to blame for the nation's health-care mess. NEWSWEEK looks at how the culture of medicine may change, assesses doctors' fears--and examines the brave new world of HMOs.     

Explaining “Pain and Suffering” Awards: The Role of Injury Characteristics and Fault Attributions

The present research explored factors thought to affect compensatory awards for non-economic ham (pain and suffering) in personal injury cases. Experiment 1 showed that the nature and severity of the plaintiffs injury had a strong effect on perceptions of the extent of harm suffered and on award amounts. The parties' relatively active or passive roles in causing the injury affected assessments of their degree of fault, but perceived fault had little influence on awards. Experiment 2 replicated with more varied cases the strong impact of injury severity on harm perception and on awards for pain and suffering. In both studies, the disability and the mental suffering associated with injuries were stronger predictors of awards than were pain and disfigurement.     

Reviews

Stephen Sestanovich (ed.), Rethinking Russia's National Interests. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, 1994, xii + 115pp., $14.95 p/b.

Neil Malcolm, (ed.), Russia and Europe: An End to Confrontation? London and New York: Pinter Publishers, for The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1994, xi + 240pp., £35.00.

Douglas W. Blum (ed.), Russia's Future: Consolidation or Disintegration? Boulder, CO, San Francisco, CA & Oxford: Westview Press, 1994, 173pp., £33.50 h/b, £9.95 p/b.

Lynn D. Nelson & Irina Y. Kuzes, Property to the People. The Struggle for Radical Economic Reform in Russia. New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xi + 268 pp., £48.00 h/b, £16.00 p/b.

Richard F. Kaufman & John P. Hardt (eds) for the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, The Former Soviet Union in Transition. Armonk, NY, York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1993, xxiv + 1222pp.

Michael Jakobson, Origins of the Gulag. The Soviet Prison Camp System 1917–1934. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1993, xiv+ 176pp., $28.00.

Paul R. Gregory, Before Command: An Economic History of Russia from Emancipation to the First Five‐Year Plan. Princeton; NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, viii + 188pp., £30.00.

Helene Seppain, Contrasting US and German Attitudes to Soviet Trade, 1917–91. Politics by Economic Means. New York & Basingstoke: St Martin's Press and Macmillan, 1992, xiv + 349pp.

Graham Smith (ed.), The Baltic States: The National Self‐determination of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. London: The MacMillan Press Ltd, 1994, xii + 214pp., £40.00.

Jan Zaprudnik, Belarus: At a Crossroads in History. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992, xxiii + 278pp., £11.95 p/b.

Dirk Kretzschmar, Die Sowjetische Kulturpolitik 1970–1985. Bochum: Universitatsverlag Dr N. Brockmeyer, 1993, xxvi + 873pp., DM89.80.

Jan Kubik, The Power of Symbols against the Symbols of Power; The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland. Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994, xiv + 322pp., £38.00 h/b, £13.95 p/b.

Ljerka Fulgosi & Vlasta Vince‐Ribaric (eds), Hundred Testimonies: The Moving Accounts of Croatian Displaced Persons and War Prisoners. Zagreb: Society of Croatian Professional Women and INA Consulting, 1994, 196pp., $20.00.

Theodor Bergman, Gert Schaefer & Mark Seldon (eds), Bukharin in Retrospect. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xxv +251pp.