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Robotic assisted surgery is becoming widely used for procedures such as radical prostatectomy. The use of robotic assisted surgery to perform partial and complete thyroidectomies using a transaxillary approach is being investigated in patient populations who wish to avoid a conspicuous cervical scar. Patient positioning for this approach as well as retraction during exposure has the potential to result in postoperative brachial plexopathy similar to what is seen in other types of surgery. We report the use of ulnar nerve somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) to detect and prevent positional related neuropathy in the first pediatric patient in the world to undergo this procedure. We conclude that upper extremity SSEPs should be routinely performed during robotic assisted thyroidectomy.

Five years ago we wrote a book titled Postmodern Public Adminis tration (1995) which, in chapter three, outlined the postmodern condi tion. The following essay may be regarded as a revisiting of that problematic. As a generalization we are not pleased?things have got ten worse; they have not improved. Such a position is not exceptional, indeed we fear that whatever insights we bring to bear are little more profound than CNN's Sunday show: Reliable Sources, with Howard Kurts and Bernard Kalb. Still, our analysis has always been informed by postmodern political philosophy. So, perhaps added depth can be claimed because we are grounded in insights of thinkers with funny sounding names. So, what can we add beyond the commonplace observations that there is a proliferation of media sources, a collapsing of entertainment with news, a further collapsing of tabloid news and "straight" elite news; the credentialing of talking heads hoping for celebrity status jux taposed against "serious" journalists, perhaps also hoping for the same status.

(2003). Dialogue: The Prosecutorial State The Prosecutorial State. Administrative Theory & Praxis: Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 63-90.

This paper is an attempt at what Habermas has called “discursive redemption.” I ask, what does it mean when people complement or accuse one another of being “rational”? Three goals are incorporated in this task. First, I survey the various meanings of rationality in the intellectual history of philosophy. In particular I cover Hume, Kant, instrumental rationality and the analytical school of logic. Second, frankly, I interweave a reply to critics of Fox/Miller's Postmodern Public Administration, as being too rational. Third, I attempt a positive and more constructive (I think) understanding of the underlying rationality of even the supposedly irrationalists.

It is my view that NASPAA is best understood as one of the institutional articulations of the strategy of the public administration community to cloak themselves with the legitimacy of professionalism. Normatively, this strategy has both admirable other-regarding aspects and understandable but less admirable self serving ones. On the one hand, National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) founders and activists do really and with integrity believe, not without good reason, that their institution serves the public interest. On the other hand, like the American Medical Association, American Bar Association or the Business Roundtable (although with less effect) do for their membership, NASPAA protects and advances the particularistic aspirations of university-based professional trainers. Both aspects of professionalism lead to oppressively limiting groupthink and/or unethical gaming. Let me first sketch the urge to professionalism. Second, I will explore the dilemmas attendant thereto. Finally, the recent stampeding of programs to Total Quality Management (TQM) mission based accreditation will be assessed.

This paper argues that, contrary to some points of view, most public administrators have sufficient discretion to act ethically; they have ‘ethical space’ within field constraints. This conclusion is arrived at by way of a theoretical perspective called phenomenology. Along the way we describe this orientation and try to show its relevance to practitioners.