Paper 2: Conceptualizing the transition from advanced to consultant practitioner: role clarity, self-perception, and adjustment

Background Interest in the influence of emotions on behaviour, decision making, and leadership has accelerated over the last decade. Despite this, the influence of emotions on career advancement and behaviour within radiography and radiotherapy has largely been ignored. The ease of transition from one work role to another within an individual's career may be influenced by previous experience, personal characteristics, organizational environment, culture, and the nature of the role itself. Consequently, the transition from the often well-defined role of advanced or specialist practitioner to the more fluid role of consultant practitioner is associated with changing emotions as reported in the first part of this two-part series. What remains unexplored are the emotional triggers that pre-empt each stage in the transition cycle and how our understanding of these might support the successful implementation of consultant practitioner roles. Objectives To explore the emotional triggers that pre-empted each stage in the transitional journey of trainee consultant radiographers as they moved from advanced to consultant practitioner within a locally devised consultant development program. Design Longitudinal qualitative enquiry. Methods and Settings Five trainee consultant radiographers were recruited to a locally devised consultant practice development program within a single UK hospital trust. Semistructured interviews were undertaken at 1, 6, and 12 months with the trainees. Results Although all trainee consultant radiographers experienced the emotional events described in the first part of this two-part series in a predictable order (ie, elation, denial, doubt, crisis, and recovery), the timing of the events was not consistent. Importantly, four emotional triggers were identified, and the dominance of these and the reaction of individuals to them determined the emotional well-being of the individual over time. Conclusions This study provides a unique and hitherto unexplored insight into the transition journey from advanced or specialist practitioner. Importantly, the findings suggest that commonly adopted supportive change interventions may, in fact, trigger the negative emotions they are intended to alleviate and disable rather than enable role transition

Mitochondrial genome analysis reveals intraspecific variation within Australian hard tick species

Ticks rank second in the world as vectors of disease so it is paramount we understand their biology in order to advance disease control. Mitochondrial genome sequences of tick species have been used increasingly to resolve relationships of closely related species, correct taxonomic discrepancies and to understand intraspecific variation. Despite this, our understanding and advances in tick biology are obstructed by the lack of complete mitochondrial genomes available for most species, particularly amongst Ixodidae ticks that are highly prevalent and taxonomically diverse. Even fewer have more than one representative genome sequence meaning that answering questions over intra-species variation is rarely possible. Here, we present the adult tick mitochondrial genomes of two species which had not previously been sequenced, H. bancrofti and I. tasmani, as well as multiple representatives for both adult I. holocyclus and I. tasmani. Complete mitochondrial genomes were used to investigate the intraspecific variation within geographically dispersed I. tasmani ticks as well as I. holocyclus ticks parasitising different host species. Although sample sizes were limited, I. tasmani diversity appeared to be influenced by geography, while the genetic diversity observed in I. holocyclus was not influenced by host or geography. This genetic resource will support downstream studies into the population genetics of Australian hard ticks and inform efforts to expand this work to other Australian tick species. To build an appropriate repertoire, future analyses should include Australian tick species that are yet to be genome sequenced, particularly those that carry pathogens while including multiple representatives of each species

Phylogenetic relationships of New Zealand Lycopodiaceae

We examine the global relationships of all New Zealand’s Lycopodiaceae species through DNA sequencing of the chloroplast rbcL gene and phylogeny reconstruction. The molecular phylogeny largely agreed with recent taxonomic schemes based on morphology. However, the grouping of Lycopodiella serpentina with Lycopodiella caroliniana, as either Lycopodiella sect. Caroliniana or Pseudolycopodiella was not supported in the phylogeny, indicating that these classification schemes need adjustment. Several New Zealand species showed intraspecific genetic variation within New Zealand and/or compared to conspecific samples from overseas. The chloroplast sequences could not distinguish Lycopodiella diffusa and Lycopodiella lateralis, nor the different morphologies of Phlegmariurus varius characteristic of high and low altitudes

Novel Chlamydiales genotypes identified in ticks from Australian wildlife

Background: Members of the order Chlamydiales are known for their potential as human and veterinary bacterial pathogens. Despite this recognition, epidemiological factors such as routes of transmission are yet to be fully defined. Ticks are well known vectors for many other infections with several reports recently describing the presence of bacteria in the order Chlamydiales in these arthropods. Australian wildlife are hosts to an extensive range of tick species. Evidence is also growing that the marsupial hosts these ticks parasitise can also be infected by a number of bacteria in the order Chlamydiales, with at least one species, Chlamydia pecorum, posing a significant conservation threat. In the current study, we investigated the presence and identity of Chlamydiales in 438 ixodid ticks parasitizing wildlife in Australia by screening with a pan-Chlamydiales specific targeting the 16S rRNA gene. Results: Pan-Chlamydiales specific PCR assays confirmed the common presence of Chlamydiales in Australian ticks parasitising a range of native wildlife. Interestingly, we did not detect any Chlamydiaceae, including C. pecorum, the ubiquitous pathogen of the koala. Instead, the Chlamydiales diversity that could be resolved indicated that Australian ticks carry at least six novel Chlamydiales genotypes. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA sequences (663 bp) of these novel Chlamydiales suggests that three of these genotypes are associated with the Simkaniaceae and putatively belong to three distinct novel strains of Fritschea spp. and three genotypes are related to the "Ca. Rhabdochlamydiaceae" and putatively belong to a novel genus, Rhabdochlamydia species and strain, respectively. Conclusions: Sequence results suggest Australian wildlife ticks harbour a range of unique Chlamydiales bacteria that belong to families previously identified in a range of arthropod species. The results of this work also suggest that it is unlikely that arthropods act as vectors of pathogenic members of the family Chlamydiaceae, including C. pecorum, in Australian wildlife. The biology of novel Chlamydiales identified in arthropods remain unknown. The pathogenic role of the novel Chlamydiales identified in this study and the role that ticks may play in their transmission needs to be explored further

Evidence for co-evolutionary history of early diverging Lycopodiaceae plants with fungi

Lycopods are tracheophytes in the Kingdom Plantae and represent one of the oldest lineages of living vascular plants. Symbiotic interactions between these plants with fungi and bacteria, including fine root endophytes in Endogonales, have been hypothesized to have helped early diverging plant lineages colonize land. However, attempts to study the lycopod rhizobiome in its natural environment are still limited. In this study, we used Illumina amplicon sequencing to characterize fungal and bacterial diversity in nine Lycopodiaceae (club moss) species collected in New Zealand. This was done with generic fungal ITS rDNA primers, as well as Endogonales- and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF)-selective primer sets targeting the 18S rDNA, and generic bacterial primers targeting the V4 region of the 16S rDNA. We found that the Lycopodiaceae rhizobiome was comprised of an unexpected high frequency of Basidiomycota and Ascomycota coincident with a low abundance of Endogonales and Glomerales. The distribution and abundance of Endogonales varied with host lycopod, and included a novel taxon as well as a single operational taxonomic unit (OTU) that was detected across all plant species. The Lycopodiaceae species with the greatest number and also most unique OTUs was Phlegmariurus varius, while the plant species that shared the most fungal OTUs were Lycopodiella fastigiatum and Lycopodium scariosum. The bacterial OTU distribution was generally not consistent with fungal OTU distribution. For example, community dissimilarity analysis revealed strong concordance between the evolutionary histories of host plants with the fungal community but not with the bacterial community, indicating that Lycopodiaceae have evolved specific relationships with their fungal symbionts. Notably, nearly 16% of the ITS rDNA fungal diversity detected in the Lycopodiaceae rhizobiome remained poorly classified, indicating there is much plant-associated fungal diversity left to describe in New Zealand

Clinical Burkholderia pseudomallei isolates from north Queensland carry diverse bimABm genes that are associated with central nervous system disease and are phylogenomically distinct from other Australian strains.

BackgroundBurkholderia pseudomallei is an environmental gram-negative bacterium that causes the disease melioidosis and is endemic in many countries of the Asia-Pacific region. In Australia, the mortality rate remains high at approximately 10%, despite curative antibiotic treatment being available. The bacterium is almost exclusively found in the endemic region, which spans the tropical Northern Territory and North Queensland, with clusters occasionally present in more temperate climates. Despite being endemic to North Queensland, these infections remain understudied compared to those of the Northern Territory.Methodology/principal findingsThis study aimed to assess the prevalence of central nervous system (CNS) disease associated variant bimABm, identify circulating antimicrobial resistance mutations and genetically distinct strains from Queensland, via comparative genomics. From 76 clinical isolates, we identified the bimABm variant in 20 (26.3%) isolates and in 9 (45%) of the isolates with documented CNS infection (n = 18). Explorative analysis suggests a significant association between isolates carrying the bimABm variant and CNS disease (OR 2.8, 95% CI 1.3-6.0, P = 0.009) compared with isolates carrying the wildtype bimABp. Furthermore, 50% of isolates were identified as novel multi-locus sequence types, while the bimABm variant was more commonly identified in isolates with novel sequence types, compared to those with previously described. Additionally, mutations associated with acquired antimicrobial resistance were only identified in 14.5% of all genomes.Conclusions/significanceThe findings of this research have provided clinically relevant genomic data of B. pseudomallei in Queensland and suggest that the bimABm variant may enable risk stratification for the development CNS complications and be a potential therapeutic target

Additional file 1: Table S1. of Novel Chlamydiales genotypes identified in ticks from Australian wildlife

Summary of wildlife host and species, number and location of adult female Ixodidae ticks screened for Chlamydiales in this study. (DOCX 14 kb

Comparative genomics and antimicrobial resistance profiling of Elizabethkingia isolates reveals nosocomial transmission and in vitro susceptibility to fluoroquinolones, tetracyclines and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole

The genus has gained global attention in recent years as a sporadic, worldwide, nosocomial pathogen. spp. are intrinsically multidrug resistant, primarily infect immunocompromised individuals, and are associated with high mortality (∼20-40%). Yet, gaps remain in our understanding of transmission, global strain relatedness, antimicrobial resistance and effective therapy. Over a 16-year period 22 clinical and six hospital environmental isolates were collected from Queensland, Australia. Identification using the MALDI-TOF MS (VITEK® MS) and whole-genome sequencing was compared with a global strain dataset. Phylogenomic reconstruction robustly identified 22 , three , two and one , most of which branched as unique lineages. Global analysisrevealed some Australian isolates are genetically closely related to strains identified from the USA, England and Asia. Comparative genomics of clinical and environmental strains identified evidence of nosocomial transmission in patients, indicating probable infection from a hospital reservoir. Furthermore, broth microdilution against 39 antimicrobials revealed almost ubiquitous resistance to aminoglycosides, carbapenems, cephalosporins and penicillins. Like other international strains, our isolates expressed susceptibility to minocycline and levofloxacin and the less common trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. Our study demonstrates important new insights into the genetic diversity, environmental persistence, transmission of and potential effective therapy for Australian species

Incidence of melioidosis in Queensland, Australia*.

Torres and Cape & Cairns and Hinterland were not included in the analysis (Map created using ArcGIS Pro version 3.1 & data from Queensland Spatial Catalogue https://qldspatial.information.qld.gov.au/catalogue/custom/detail.page?fid={A4661F6D-0013-46EE-A446-A45F01A64D46}).</p