‘A Procedure Without a Problem’, or the face transplant that didn’t happen:The Royal Free, the Royal College of Surgeons and the challenge of surgical firsts

Face transplants are an innovative and unusual form of modern surgery. There have been 47 face transplants around the world to date, but none as yet in the UK. Yet in 2003, the UK was poised to undertake the first face transplant in the world. The reasons why it didn't take place are not straightforward, but largely unexplored by historians. The Royal College of Surgeons, concerned about the media attention given to face transplants and the ethical and surgical issues involved, held a working party and concluded that it could not give approval for face transplants, effectively bringing to a halt the UK’s momentum in the field. This extraordinary episode in medical history has been anecdotally influential in shaping the course of British surgical history. This article explores and explains the lack of a face transplant in the UK and draws attention to the complex emotional, institutional and international issues involved. Its findings have implications beyond the theme of face transplants, into the cultural contexts and practices in which surgical innovation takes place

Child Social-Care Recording and the Information Rights of Care-Experienced People : A Recordkeeping Perspective

Recent reports by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) emphasised the critical importance of records throughout the lives of care-experienced people. Records not only contain information about what happened to a person in their past, but also have long-term effects on memory and identity. Research emerging in the context of analogous national inquiries into the systemic abuse and neglect of children in care—particularly the Royal Commission in Australia and the Shaw Report in Scotland—have highlighted the significance of records to campaigns for reparative justice. This article introduces MIRRA: Memory—Identity—Rights in Records—Access, which is a participatory action research project co-produced with care-leavers and researchers based at University College London (UCL). This ongoing study seeks to deepen our understanding of the creation, use and management of care records and protocols to access them. In this article, we consider the practice of social work recording with children and families in England since the 1970s from a ‘recordkeeping perspective’, importing theory from the information studies field to provide a new perspective on the information rights of care-leavers

Good practice in recording and access to records

This briefing is for managers and senior leaders in children’s social care. Its purpose is to support strategic leaders and managers in achieving best practice in participatory, person-centred recording and access to records.The briefing :> Offers an overview of recent research in children’s social care record-keeping, drawing on the views of careexperienced people – in particular, learning from the MIRRA project (see Box 1). > Discusses the complex legislative and regulatory landscape in England around recording in children’s socialcare, including information rights under data protection law. > Explains the crucial importance of person-centred recording and discusses how children’s social care canengage more directly with children, families and others in creating children’s records. > Considers how children’s social care can develop a more participatory approach to record-keeping, includingpotential improvements to digital recording systems. > Offers valuable guidance on providing and supporting access to records, including best practice in redaction.This briefing draws on learning from the MIRRA (Memory, Identity, Rights in Records, Access) research project as well as wider research

Towards a Human-Centred Participatory Approach to Child Social Care Recordkeeping

In 2019 there were over 75,000 children and young people in out-of-home care in England and Wales. Recent estimates suggest that up to half a million British people were in state or voluntary care as children, around 1% of the adult population. While individual experiences vary enormously by time and place, care-experienced people share in common the intensive documentation of their lives by social workers, educators, health professionals and associated practitioners. A complex, fragmented legislative and regulatory framework governs the creation and use of these records at the national level. Under UK law a ‘care file’ must be retained for at least seventy-five years, so that a substantial legacy of care data is held across the public, voluntary and private sectors. MIRRA: Memory – Identity – Rights in Records – Access, a participatory research project co-produced with care leavers, investigated recordkeeping practices in child social care from multiple perspectives. Interviews, focus groups and workshops with stakeholders identified critical failings in the creation, use, management and access of care records, which do not account for the needs and capabilities of multiple stakeholders. These failings have direct impact on the wellbeing and health of care-experienced people throughout their lives. MIRRA researchers developed a human-centred participatory recordkeeping approach to child social care, which this article describes. The approach combines the participatory continuum model (Rolan, 2017) and the capabilities approach to social work, rooting child social care recordkeeping in information rights principles

“A Procedure Without a Problem,” or, The Face Transplant That Didn’t Happen : The Royal Free, the Royal College of Surgeons and the Challenge of Surgical Firsts

Face transplants are an innovative and unusual form of modern surgery. There have been 47 face transplants around the world to date, but none as yet in the UK. Yet in 2003, the UK was poised to undertake the first face transplant in the world. The reasons why it didn't take place are not straightforward, but largely unexplored by historians. The Royal College of Surgeons, concerned about the media attention given to face transplants and the ethical and surgical issues involved, held a working party and concluded that it could not give approval for face transplants, effectively bringing to a halt the UK's momentum in the field. This extraordinary episode in medical history has been anecdotally influential in shaping the course of British surgical history. This article explores and explains the lack of a face transplant in the UK and draws attention to the complex emotional, institutional and international issues involved. Its findings have implications beyond the theme of face transplants, into the cultural contexts and practices in which surgical innovation takes place

Assessing the Potential of Tortistilus (Hemiptera: Membracidae) from Northern California Vineyards as Vector Candidates of Grapevine Red Blotch Virus.

Ceresini treehoppers are present in northern California vineyard ecosystems, including the closely related Spissistilus and Tortistilus (Hemiptera: Membracidae). These membracids are not direct pests of wine grapes, but S. festinus is a vector of grapevine red blotch virus (GRBV). No information is available on the ability of Tortistilus spp. to transmit GRBV. In this study, Tortistilus were collected on yellow panel cards across 102 vineyard sites and surrounding areas in Napa Valley, California, USA in 2021-2023. Specimens were morphotyped, sexed and tested for GRBV ingestion and acquisition by multiplex PCR or qPCR. Phylogenetic analysis of the partial sequence of mt-COI and ITS gene fragments of a subset of 40 Tortistilus specimens revealed clustering in a monophyletic clade with T. wickhami with the former barcode sequence. Only 6% (48/758) of the T. wickhami tested positive for GRBV, but none of the heads with salivary glands (0%, 0/50) of the dissected specimens tested positive for GRBV, indicating no virus acquisition. In contrast, half of the dissected heads with salivary glands of S. festinus (52%, 12/23), from the same collection vineyard sites, tested positive for GRBV. Together, our findings confirmed the presence of T. wickhami in northern California vineyards and suggested a dubious role of this treehopper as a vector of GRBV

Effectiveness of psychoeducational interventions for family carers of people with psychosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Psychoeducational interventions for family carers of people with psychosis are effective for improving compliance and preventing relapse. Whether carers benefit from these interventions has been little explored. This systematic review investigated the effectiveness of psychoeducation for improving carers' outcomes, and potential treatment moderators. We searched for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) published in English or Chinese in eight databases. Carers' outcomes included wellbeing, quality of life, global morbidities, burden, and expressed emotion. Thirty-two RCTs were included, examining 2858 carers. Intervention duration ranged from 4 to 52weeks, and contact times ranged from 6 to 42hours. At post intervention, findings were equivocal for carers' wellbeing (SMD 0.103, 95% CI -0.186 to 0.392). Conversely, psychoeducation was superior in reducing carers' global morbidities (SMD -0.230, 95% CI -0.386 to -0.075), perceived burden (SMD -0.434, 95% CI -0.567 to -0.31), negative caregiving experiences (SMD -0.210, 95% CI -0.396 to -0.025) and expressed emotion (SMD -0.161, 95% CI -0.367 to -0.045). The lack of available data precluded meta-analysis of outcomes beyond short-term follow-up. Meta-regression revealed no significant associations between intervention modality, duration, or contact time and outcomes. Further research should focus on improving carers' outcomes in the longer-term and identifying factors to optimise intervention design

Centro de retiro espiritual en el centro poblado de Collambay, distrito de Simbal, provincia de Trujillo, departamento La Libertad

El proyecto propuesto “Centro de retiro espiritual en el centro poblado de Collambay”, trata de un equipamiento referido a la arquitectura religiosa y recreación; el cual será promovido por la empresa privada: Raymi Tours, persona jurídica que hará posible la realización del proyecto, el cual no solo servirá como establecimiento impulsor para la economía zonal en el centro poblado de Collambay, sino que aportará beneficios espirituales a la población de Trujillo provincia. El establecimiento tiene como fin supremo que sus usuarios directos puedan “Ser uno con DIOS”, lo cual se logrará a través de didácticas tanto espirituales como recreativas; lo cual se complementará con la arquitectura religiosa plasmada en el proyecto, cuyo fin es que, a través de su distribución espacial, materiales propuestos para su construcción, conceptualización de diseño, y entorno mediato en el que se plantea el proyecto. Adicionalmente, cabe indicar que el proyecto no solo pretende acabar con la ausencia de infraestructura adecuada para la realización de actividades de retiro espiritual en la provincia de Trujillo, sino que a su vez se pretende potencializar a través de un proyecto de magnitud la zona en la que se planteó el proyecto, mejorar el estilo de vida de los ciudadanos de la provincia de Trujillo, impulsándolos a empaparse en espiritualidad, lo cual tiene como fin generar mejor calidad de personas en la provincia y a su vez mejorar tanto la imagen urbana del centro poblado Collambay como la calidad de vida de sus pobladores, a través del trabajo.Tesi

A framework for person-centred recordkeeping drawn through the lens of out-of-home childcare contexts

This article examines the concept and needs for co-created and person-centred recordkeeping in out-of-home childcare contexts drawing out a recordkeeping framework. The article uses the research of the UK MIRRA project as its critical evidence base. MIRRA (Memory-Identity-Rights in Records-Access) is a participatory research project hosted at the Department of Information Studies at UCL since 2017 which places care leavers as co-researchers at the heart of the work. The study gathered evidence from care-experienced people, social workers, archivists, records managers and researchers. The case context of care-experienced people provides a powerful focus for shifting viewpoints of records creation and ownership. Care-experienced people across the globe are situated within organizational systems which act as surrogate parents, but where the child or young person is often powerless to co-create and store their own memories, which would enable positive identities to be forged and revisited through time. Positive and holistic life story narratives are rarely found. In addition, children’s care records are often only accessible to care-experienced people through legislative processes and without critical support. This research reframes the recordkeeping model placing the care-experienced person at the heart of the process in order to ensure the co-creation of records and maintenance of identity through time. The research acknowledges the complex and sometimes conflicting needs of diverse actors in children’s recordkeeping including social workers, archivists, records managers and researchers. It rethinks the actors’ relationship and responsibilities around the records and systems drawing out a framework which makes explicit the value of active person-centred recordkeeping