Reinventing bodies and practice in medical education

Thesis (Ph. D. in History and Social Study of Science and Technology (HASTS))--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, June 2004."May 2004."Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-253).This dissertation recounts the development of graphic models of human bodies and virtual reality simulators for teaching anatomy and surgery to medical students, residents, and physicians. It considers how researchers from disciplinary cultures in medicine, engineering, and computer programming come together to build these technologies, bringing with them values and assumptions about bodies from each of their disciplines, values and assumptions that must be negotiated and that often are made material and embedded in these new technologies. It discusses how the technological objects being created privilege the body as a dynamic and interactive system, in contrast to the description and taxonomic body of traditional anatomy and medicine. It describes the ways that these technologies create new sensory means of knowing bodies. And it discusses the larger cultural values that these technologies reify or challenge. The methodology of this dissertation is ethnography. I consider in-depth one laboratory at a major medical school, as well as other laboratories and researchers in the field of virtual medicine. I study actors in the emerging field of virtual medicine as they work in laboratories, at conferences, and in collaborations with one another. I consider the social formations that are developing with this new discipline. Methods include participant observation of laboratory activities, teaching, surgery, and conferences and extensive, in-depth interviewing of actors in the field. I draw on the literatures in the anthropology of science, technology, and medicine, the sociology of science, technology, and medicine, and the history of science and technology to argue that "bodies of information" are part of a bio-engineering revolution.(Cont.) that is making human bodies more easily viewed and manipulated. Science studies theorists have revealed the constructed, situated, and contingent nature of technoscientific communities and the objects they work with. They also have discussed how technoscientific objects help create their subjects and vice versa. This dissertation considers these phenomena within the arena of virtual medicine to intervene in debates about the body, about simulation, and about scientific cultures.by Rachel Prentice.Ph.D.in History and Social Study of Science and Technology (HAST

Washington University Magazine and Alumni News, Summer 1993

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Roving scopes, flickering screens, and abnormal gastric bodies : digesting the endoscopic gaze

The inner body is simultaneously familiar and foreign to most people--we experience its continuous workings every day, though are not always conscious of them. Medical technologies such as the endoscope have allowed physicians to extend their eye into this territory of the closed inner body, alive and in motion. More recent technological advances have been made in the production of high-quality digital images via a camera-like device integrated into the endoscope. This evolution in the technology moves it beyond medical exploration and technique and into being a technology of mediated representation, where images of the inner body represent not only a medical perspective, but the more complex world of the body as a system within broader, diverse cultural contexts. "The body," and medically accepted representation of a common, homogenous physiology, becomes many bodies that present in many different ways. The digestive or gastroenterological system in particular is as an example of universality and bodily centrality while at the same time has qualities specific to each individual. It is a tangible way of bringing the world into our bodies and our bodies into the world. Much like the study of how information relates to knowledge and power, we can gather surface information (images), collate that with other known data, and come to conclusions. These images and their contexts connect to a continuum of knowledge and information about not only human biology and medical science, but to how specialized discourses are communicated within wider discourses, specifically within popular culture

Women's Internet Portals: Negotiating Online Design Environments within Existing Gender Structures in Order to Engage the Female User

This thesis encapsulates my investigation of women's commercial Internet portals as examples of design practice targeting female users. I present a case study of BEME. com, an Internet portal created as a direct development of the traditional women's magazine publishing industry in response to a boom in dot. corn industries at the end of the 1990s. I explore the design environment responsible for the interpretations of the aims of the publishing house into material outcomes and analyse the ability of design practice to develop strategies to counter gender representations within the women's magazine publishing industry. It is my argument that there is a need for Internet designers to be aware of how gender is represented and furthermore be conscious of their ability and responsibility to apply this awareness to design practice. Most importantly, the notion of 'many truths' rather then one 'design practitioners' truth', introduces the possibility of alternative epistemologies. This is crucial to the question of how design practice as a tool of creative production can embody alternative meanings through recognition of existing gender structures. Furthermore, locating the BEME. com case study within feminist postmodernism incites a new way of understanding the problematic relationship between design practice and theory, the Internet and female users. Therefore, I assert the potential of online portal design to offer alternative ways of communicating to female users in such a way as to resist and combat the gendered status quo. The new knowledge obtained from this research provides important insight into the ways design practice attempts to reconcile a critical agenda with gender structures. It also illuminates female users' tendency to disassociate with identities constructed in gendered niche marketing. It is clear from my research that current commercial imperatives are deeply implicated in gendered structures. Therefore, three key indications for better design for a female niche market emerge from the BEME. com case study. They are (a) centre all aspects of the design process on the actual end-user; (b) consciously recognise the folly of using gender alone as an appropriate description of female audiences; (c) be aware of social, cultural and political factors that exert influence over the design process. Finally the obtained knowledge offers insight into the general lack of interest on the part of designers working within industry that trades heavily in gender stereotypes, to problematise this process and their role within it. Rather, as feminist critiques of design practice reveal, design practitioners maintain gender values by constructing consumer profiles by means of gendered assumptions

1990-1995 Brock Campus News

A compilation of the administration newspaper, Brock Campus News, for the years 1990 through 1995. It had previously been titled The Blue Badger

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ROMANIA

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main opportunities and limitations of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The survey was defined with the aim to involve the highest possible number of relevant CSR topics and give the issue a more wholesome perspective. It provides a basis for further comprehension and deeper analyses of specific CSR areas. The conditions determining the success of CSR in Romania have been defined in the paper on the basis of the previously cumulative knowledge as well as the results of various researches. This paper provides knowledge which may be useful in the programs promoting CSR.Corporate social responsibility, Supportive policies, Romania

Next Generation Access in a Rural Community Context: An Innovation Analysis

This thesis explores how to resolve the digital divide in Wales. This is important because access to advanced broadband is considered an essential requirement, particularly post-COVID19. UK Government is advocating next generation access (NGA) to capitalise on Industry 4.0. However, the financial costs and complexities of connecting the final few rural areas is a persisting problem area. Hence, this thesis explores new innovative approaches to provide NGA (product) to a final few (market). Studies revealed superfast broadband in remote rural communities has four-fold human, social, environmental and financial capital benefits. Analysis resulted in a new conceptual framework which combines neo-endogenous theories alongside a four-fold capital model to characterise the complex ecosystem. Previous literature focused on either supply or demand, but few studies had investigated both together at the local level. Human & social capital were identified as critical success factors in community-led initiatives, thus providing a theoretical underpinning for this thesis. This study employed a novel mutual business approach utilising the Hybrid Value System (HVS) as an ecosystem connecting the core assets of several stakeholders. Furthermore, the World Bank Social Capital Assessment Tool was modified to investigate social capital fertility to enhance investment. Henceforth, a qualitative multi-method and in-depth intrinsic case study was used to explore the ecosystem. The contribution to knowledge is how to engage multi-stakeholder and multi-capital analysis to resolve the problem area. The results identified human capital productivity, social capital collective action, and shared financial capital are required at the local level to reach the final few. The mutual business paradigm challenges all stakeholders to value non-financial capital alongside financial capital for problem area resolution. This thesis concludes that HVS methodology coupled with complex ecosystem-network visualisation techniques, provide academics, management and government policy makers with practical tools to value four-fold capital resources and bridge the digital divide

Understanding Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching for primary students with vision impairment: a qualitative inquiry

Orientation and Mobility is a uniquely crafted pedagogical practice blending specific microteaching skills to enable students with vision impairment to achieve functional interpretation of extra-personal and peri-personal space. Linked to student wellbeing, social participation, employment and self-determination, Orientation and Mobility is a cornerstone of equity and access for students with vision impairment. Despite this, in mainstream primary education little is known about Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching and how it aligns with the Australian Curriculum. Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching is examined from the perspectives of three female primary school students with vision impairment, a parent, a teacher, the researcher, and a panel of Orientation and Mobility specialists. These perspectives are interwoven with a detailed reflexive interrogation of the Orientation and Mobility lessons over one school semester within the contexts of the Far North and North Queensland Department of Education regions and the Australian Curriculum. This study explores how one Queensland Orientation and Mobility teacher, the researcher, explicitly communicates nonvisual, visual, tactile, and auditory concepts to primary school students with vision impairment. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's bioecological systems theory, the Orientation and Mobility learning experiences are captured through an interpretative methodology comprising narrative inquiry and autoethnography, both underpinned by hermeneutic phenomenology. Insider researcher data are gathered from semi structured interviews, online panel responses, and audio recordings of the Orientation and Mobility lessons. Autoethnographic field notes, document materials, and reflexive teaching journals are used to support the thematic and discourse analysis. Results confirm that for the non-expert participants there was a substantial lack of awareness of the impact of vision impairment on learning and development, and the potential contribution of Orientation and Mobility. Systemic and cultural barriers to equitable inclusive education for these North and Far North Department of Education students with vision impairment were uncovered. Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching was clearly shown to overlap with and embed content from the Australian Curriculum. A key finding was the isolation of a core set of micro-teaching skills pertinent to Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching. These skills were identified as: Orientation and Mobility teacher attention to dialogic language and feedback, extended interaction wait times, and shared attention to spatial and contextual environments within the Orientation and Mobility lesson. As this skill set can be used to design Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching experiences that explicitly scaffold the development of non-visual, visual, tactile, auditory, and kinaesthetic pre-cursor concepts, it was given the appropriated name of practice architecture. An important practical outcome of the research was the formulation of an ontogenetic model of Orientation and Mobility learning and teaching. This model, which closely follows the natural development of each student with vision impairment, may serve as a tool that enables teachers to more systematically chart the biophysical attributes of the student with vision impairment. It thereby provides a learning and teaching framework for designing interactions with students with vision impairment. The ontogenetic framework has the potential to facilitate greater integration of what–and–how learning occurs in Orientation and Mobility with what–and–how learning might occur in the regular classroom

The impact of a digital children's literature program on primary students' reading motivation

This qualitative study stemmed from a concern of the perceived decline in students' reading motivation after the early years of schooling, which has been attributed to the disconnect between the media students are accustomed to using outside the classroom and the media they predominantly use within the classroom. This research documented the effectiveness of a digital children's literature program and a postreading multimedia program on eight grade 1 students' reading motivation, word recognition, and comprehension abilities. Eight students were given ten 25-minute sessions with the software program over 15 weeks. Preprogram, interim-program, and postprogram qualitative data were collected from students, teachers, and parents through questionnaires, interviews, standardized reading assessment tools, classroom observations, field notes, and student behaviour observation checklists. Findings are summarized into 3 themes. The motivational aspects and constructivist styles of instruction in the digital reading programs may have contributed to 5 student participants' increased participation in online storybook reading at home. Qualitative data revealed that the digital children's literature program and multimedia postreading activities seemed to have a positive influence on the majority of grade 1 student participants' reading motivation, word recognition, and listening comprehension skills. These findings suggest the promise of multimedia and Internet-based reading software programs in supporting students with reading andlor behavioural difficulties. In keeping with current educational initiatives and efforts, increased use of media literacy practices in the grade 1 curriculum is suggested