Mental Surgery: Another Look at the Identity Problem: A Conversation with Jonathan Chimakonam

No Abstrac

The Implementation of Spirituality in School Counseling

Spirituality has been identified in empirical literature as a developmental asset for adolescence and a protective factor for areas including mental health, life satisfaction, purpose and behavior. These benefits emphasize the importance of spirituality exploration and development in this stage of life. School counselors, given their professional duties to support academics and social-emotional development, are in a prime position to achieve positive impact. Hesitations and limitations do exist for this practice, however. Lack of consensus and understanding surrounding the difference between religion and spirituality, as well as laws and policies complicating the incorporation of these areas in school have caused hesitation and confusion among counselors. This uncertainty of the counselor’s role and appropriate boundaries, as well as insufficient knowledge regarding the need for spiritual support, has caused a gap in support for the adolescent population. This literature review is an analysis of the impact that spirituality has on development, counselor obligations, challenges for implementation, as well as ethical applications for utilization in the school counseling profession

An essay concerning the foundational myth of ethnophilosophy

Ethnophilosophy, although glorified by some African philosophers, remains a problem in our undertakings in African philosophy. In its infancy, the problem revolved around the call for a total decolonization of African thought and philosophy, which eventually led to the proliferation of a vast array of mostly descriptive  literature about the cultural views and practices of the African, sold to us as not only philosophy but genuine African philosophy. In more recent times, due to the growing development of African philosophy, this drive towards description is gradually waning and from its dying flames, a new and more subtle problem has arisen. This problem lays in the call by most African philosophers, to make philosophy done in Africa to be more African in nature, the methodology and/or logic of African  philosophy becomes a narrow discourse which is based on the dogma of descriptive story telling of ethnophilosophy. This is the problem which this essay seeks to  address. Thus I shall in this essay, expose the myth of ethnophilosophy and  thereafter suggest that African philosophy builds its foundation on criticality rather than ethnophilosophy. As an addendum to this, it is also suggested here that the narrow nature of the false descriptive methodology of mainstream African philosophy (which is based on the more subtle implications of ethnophilosophy) be at the very least, de-emphasised. I shall employ conversationalism as the method of my inquiry.Keywords: Ethnophilosophy, myth, African philosophy, conversationalism, conversational schoo

Simulation in the time of COVID 19

© 2020 The Author(s). This an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.The Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19), FFP3 (filtering face piece-3), COVID, shielding, powered air-purifying respirator (PAPR), donning, doffing... are aA plethora of words and acronyms little known to the simulation community which have been added to our lexicon. A year ago the pre-conference editorial referred to the challenges of an ageing population, complex treatments, limited resources, and out of hospital care. To those we must now add a pandemic which continues to have a colossal impact on society. The world has momentarily been paralysed in order to find strategies to minimise and control the spread of the virus. The economy of every country has suffered as our way of living, working, travelling, and doing business changed. The aims were to minimise the loss of life and not overwhelm the healthcare system. While many “routine” simulation sessions have decreased or even ceased, simulation- based education (SBE) which is directly relevant to dealing with the particulars of an infectious agent has greatly increased. In one of the author’s own hospital, simulation was used to prepare healthcare staff for doffing and donning personal protective equipment (PPE), proning ventilated patients, optimising patient pathways and much more. The pandemic has, in many ways, forced the simulation community to put its money where its mouth is. Years of extolling the benefits of simulation in terms of upskilling, rapid cycle learning and resilience was now put to the test. Even people who were slightly skeptical about SBE became advocates of “trying things out in a safe environment” and encouraged the delivery of training sessions during which clinicians could practise to ensure their own safety and that of their colleagues.Peer reviewe

Managing medical emergencies in mental health settings using an interprofessional in-situ simulation training programme: A mixed methods evaluation study

BACKGROUND: In the UK, people with severe mental illness die up to 20years earlier than the general population, prompting increased focus on physical health in mental illness. However, training for mental health inpatient staff to meet patients' physical health needs has not received the same attention, with physical health training often being reactive and lacking evidence of effectiveness. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate an interprofessional, in situ, simulation training intervention for managing medical deterioration in mental health settings. Investigating the impact of training on: 1. Participants' knowledge, confidence, and attitudes towards managing medical deterioration; and 2. Incident reporting, as an objective index of incident management. Participants' perceptions of the impact on their practice were qualitatively explored. DESIGN: This evaluation employed a mixed-methods pre-post intervention design. PARTICIPANTS & SETTINGS: Fifty-three healthcare professionals participated including: mental health nurses, psychiatrists, healthcare assistants, and activity co-ordinators from two busy psychiatric triage wards in South London, UK. METHODS: The intervention comprised eight half-day sessions delivered weekly across two wards. Structured surveys assessed participants' knowledge, confidence, and attitudes towards medical deterioration pre and post training. Participants' experience of training was qualitatively captured through post-course surveys and focus groups three months post training. Incident reporting rates for seven-month periods pre and post training were compared. RESULTS: Following training, participants showed significant improvement in knowledge (p<0.001), confidence (p<0.001), and attitudes towards (p<0.02) managing medical deterioration. Incident reporting increased by 33% following training. Participants' reported improved confidence in managing medical deterioration, better understanding of effective communication, improved self-reflection and team working, and an increased sense of responsibility for patients' physical health. CONCLUSIONS: Interprofessional, in situ simulation training for medical deterioration yielded promising outcomes for individuals and teams. Simulation is an under-used training modality in mental health, offering a holistic training approach with the potential to provide educational and clinical benefits while supporting workforce resilience

Student interprofessional mental health simulation (SIMHS): evaluating the impact on medical and nursing students, and clinical psychology trainees

Purpose: Mental health simulation is the educational practice of recreating clinical situations in safe environments using actors, followed by structured debriefing, to foster professional development and improve care. Although evidence outlines the benefits of simulation, few studies have examined the impact of interprofessional mental health simulation on healthcare trainees, which is more reflective of clinical care. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of mental health simulation training on students’ confidence, attitudes, knowledge and perceived professional development and anticipated clinical practice. Design/methodology/approach: Participants (n=56) were medical (41 per cent) and mental health nursing students (41 per cent), and clinical psychology trainees (18 per cent). Six simulated scenarios, involving one to three trainees, were followed by structured debriefs with trained facilitators. Scenarios, using actors, reflected patient journeys through emergency, medical and psychiatric settings. Participants’ confidence, knowledge and attitudes were measured quantitatively using pre- and post-course self-report questionnaires. Perceptions of impact on professional development and clinical practice were assessed using thematic analysis of post-course questionnaire responses. Findings: Knowledge, confidence and attitudes scores showed statistically significant increases, with large effect sizes. Thematic analyses highlighted themes of: interprofessionalism, communication skills, reflective practice, personal resilience, clinical skills and confidence. Research limitations/implications: Further research should clarify the impact of interprofessional simulation training on mental health practice in the context of other training received. Practical implications: Simulation training may begin to influence participants’ professional development and future clinical practice and subsequently care delivered, supporting its increased use in mental health. Originality/value: This study adds to nascent understandings of the use and potential of interprofessional mental health simulation, outlining innovative training, its positive outcomes and implications

The Covid-19 pandemic and meaning in life

In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, where death, sickness and suffering persist, there is some hint that there is nothing so special about the human race that particularly makes it immune to decimation. This is at odds with the general feeling that there is something significant, purposeful and/or meaningful about human life. Thus, the question that immediately comes to mind is whether the present pandemic and the negative situations it presents, destroy any hope of attaining meaning in life. In this article, we critically examine how the Covid-19 pandemic affects meaning in life. While it is not far-fetched to assume that the pandemic, suffering, isolation, economic hardship, and so forth disrupt humanity’s abilities at creating moments of meaning in life, it is our claim that it does not destroy it altogether, as many persons have found new ways of creating such moments, albeit small, through self-sacrifice/care, solidarity, and more. Finally, we conclude that in the face of this tragedy, what humanity can best hope for is the continuous creation of moments of meaning in life in order to reduce despair and sustain hope, however small. We expect that this article will foster future discussions about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the question of meaningfulness.https://upjournals.co.za/index.php/Phronimonhj2021Philosoph

Beyond the clinical team: evaluating the human factors-oriented training of non-clinical professionals working in healthcare contexts

Background: As clinical simulation has evolved, it is increasingly used to educate staff who work in healthcare contexts (e.g. hospital administrators) or frequently encounter clinical populations as part of their work (e.g. police officers) but are not healthcare professionals. This is in recognition of the important role such individuals play in the patients’ experience of healthcare, frequently being a patients’ first point of contact with health services. The aim of the training is to improve the ability of the team to communicate and co-ordinate their actions, but there is no validated instrument to evaluate the human factors learning of non-clinical staff. Our aim was to develop, pilot and evaluate an adapted version of the Human Factors Skills for Healthcare Instrument, for non-clinical professionals. Method: The 18-item instrument was developed reflecting the human factors skills of situation awareness, decision making, communication, teamwork, leadership, care and compassion and stress and fatigue management. The instrument was piloted pre- and post-training with non-healthcare professionals (n = 188) attending mental health simulation training within an 11-month period (June 2017–April 2018). Trainees were hospital/primary care administrators (n = 53, 28%), police officers (n = 112, 59%), probation officers (n = 13, 7%) and social workers (n = 10, 5%). Most participants were female (n = 110, 59%) and from White ethnic backgrounds (n = 144, 77%). Results: Six items were removed, five were not sufficiently sensitive to change (d  .7). Cluster analysis revealed that participants with lower pre-training scores showed the greatest improvement. Discussion: The Human Factors Skills for Healthcare Instrument-Auxiliary version (HuFSHI-A) provides a reliable and valid instrument for the evaluation of human factors skills learning following training of non-clinical populations working in healthcare contexts. Although this instrument has been developed and evaluated with training courses specifically focusing on mental health topics, HuFSHI-A is applicable for any training where teamwork and co-ordination between clinical and non-clinical professionals is considered

Response of Late Season Maize/Soybean Intercropping to Nitrogen in the Humid Environment of South Southern Nigeria

Intensification of maize/legume production during early rains in the High Rainforest region of South Southern Nigeria is limited by heavy rainfall. Production of late season maize/legume by peasant farmers is gaining prominence though yields are low due to low soil fertility and improper crop arrangement. The objective of this research was to investigate the yield performance of late season maize/soybean intercropping in response to nitrogen fertilization and spatial arrangement of the intercrops. The trial was a split-plot design in randomized complete block with three replications. Treatments consisted of five rates of nitrogen (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 kg ha-1) and five crop arrangements (sole maize at 53,333 plants ha-1, sole soybean at 266,666 plants ha-1 and maize: soybean additive mixture arrangements of 1:1, 2:2 and 1:2). Nitrogen fertilization increased yield in both maize and soybean at all the treatment levels, when grown sole or in mixtures. Application of 100 kg N ha-1 to maize increased number of ears per plant, 100-grain weight, cob yield and grain yield by 46, 35, 138 and 153 percents, respectively in 2007, and by 15, 48, 88 and 109 percents, respectively in 2008, over no nitrogen application. Similarly, application of 100 kg N ha-1 to soybean increased number of pods per plant, number of barren pods and 1000-seed weight by 53, 120 and 16 percents, respectively in 2007, and by 55, 99 and 14 percents, respectively in 2008, over no nitrogen application. Optimum seed yield in soybean was obtained at 50 kg N ha-1. The yield values of 1,352.8 and 1,158.2 kg ha-1 were higher than those obtained at 0 kg N ha-1 by 31 and 21 percent in 2007 and 2008. Increasing the nitrogen level further to 100 kg ha-1 depressed seed yield by 8 percent in 2007 over 0 kg ha-1. The nitrogen x crop arrangement interaction effects on grain yield and all other parameters were not significant (p&lt; 0.05). Late season maize and soybean populations may be superimposed on each other and fertilized with 50 kg N ha-1 to take advantage of optimum soybean seed yield and 66-76 percent of the maize grain yield. Key words: maize, soybean, intercropping, additive mixtures, nitrogen fertilize