Right Under Our Noses: Nursing Homes and COVID-19.

A medical mission volunteer bears witness to nightmarish inequalities

A Comparison of Skills Competency Test Scores Among Philippine-educated Nursing Students After an Intensive Medical-surgical Course

Objective: This study examined the effect of a 10-week intensive medical-surgical course on ability to perform 16 common, acute care skills among Philippine educated nursing students seeking licensure in California. The aims of the study were to (1) determine competency in performing skills at the start of the medical-surgical course and (2) evaluate the effectiveness of the medical-surgical course in improving skill competency. Methods: Twenty-three Philippine educated nursing students participated in a 4-hour skills competency test procedure that involved 4 patient care stations and 16 common acute care skills. During the last week of the 10-week medical-surgical course that included 24 open simulation lab practice hours, these same 23 students repeated the testing procedure. Results: At the start of the course skill competency scores were low with many of the participants unable to complete the skills stations. A significant improvement occurred in scores for 14 of the 16 skills when tested in the final week of the medical-surgical nursing course under the same conditions (p \u3c .05). Conclusions: Conducting the nursing skills competency testing procedure at the start of the course informed faculty about the abilities of Philippine educated nursing student participants. Because of potential differences in nursing education abroad, graduates of nursing programs in the Philippines might benefit from competency testing to evaluate initial skill levels, followed by intensive review of commonly performed nursing skills in the United States, if warranted by initial results

Self-reported management of breast cancer-related lymphoedema

Background: Improvements in breast cancer treatment and early diagnosis are leading to increasing numbers of breast cancer survivors, many of whom are experiencing upper limb lymphoedema as a post-treatment outcome. Current management techniques of breast cancer-related lymphoedema produce uneven results, signifying a need for research in this area. Aims: To assess the symptom management practices of breast cancer survivors experiencing cancer-related lymphoedema by identifying and quantifying self-care management practices. Methods: The Lymphoedema Breast Cancer Questionnaire (LBCQ) was given to 40 breast cancer survivors with either self- or medical diagnosis of upper limb lymphoedema ipsilateral to the breast treated for cancer. Results: Findings revealed three main themes: recommended management techniques, pharmaceutical treatments, and lay symptom management techniques. Further categorisation suggested that clusters of similar related symptoms (e.g. heaviness, aching, tenderness, and tightness/firmness) tend to be managed or not managed in similar ways. Conclusions: Healthcare professionals need to recognise the scope and diversity of self-management practices that breast cancer survivors choose in managing their lymphoedema symptoms. A critical next step is the rigorous evaluation of the effectiveness of these self-management modalities

Teaching Big History

Big History is a new field on a grand scale: it tells the story of the universe over time through a diverse range of disciplines that spans cosmology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and archaeology, thereby reconciling traditional human history with environmental geography and natural history.Weaving the myriad threads of evidence-based human knowledge into a master narrative that stretches from the beginning of the universe to the present, the Big History framework helps students make sense of their studies in all disciplines by illuminating the structures that underlie the universe and the connections among them.Teaching Big History is a powerful analytic and pedagogical resource, and serves as a comprehensive guide for teaching Big History, as well for sharing ideas about the subject and planning a curriculum around it. Readers are also given helpful advice about the administrative and organizational challenges of instituting a general education program constructed around Big History. The book includes teaching materials, examples, and detailed sample exercises.This book is also an engaging first-hand account of how a group of professors built an entire Big History general education curriculum for first-year students, demonstrating how this thoughtful integration of disciplines exemplifies liberal education at its best and illustrating how teaching and learning this incredible story can be transformative for professors and students alike.https://scholar.dominican.edu/books/1073/thumbnail.jp