Reflections of physiotherapy students in the United Arab Emirates during their clinical placements: A qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Although Western models of education are being used to establish health professional programs in non-Western countries, little is known about how students in these countries perceive their learning experiences. The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the reflections of physiotherapy students from a Middle East culture during their clinical placements and to compare them to reflections of physiotherapy students from a Western culture. METHODS: Subjects were six senior students (3 females, 3 males, mean age 22.6 years) and 15 junior, female students (mean age 20.1 years) in the baccalaureate physiotherapy program at a university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They wrote weekly entries in a journal while in their clinical placements. They described an event, their reaction to it, and how it might affect their future behavior. Two evaluators independently read and coded the content of all the journals, and then worked together to categorize the data and develop themes. A third evaluator, an UAE national, independently read the journals to validate the content analysis. A feedback session with students was used to further validate the data interpretation. The themes were compared to those derived from a similar study of Canadian physiotherapy students. RESULTS: The content of the students' reflections were grouped into 4 themes: professional behavior, awareness of learning, self-development and shift to a patient orientation, and identification and analysis of ethical issues. Although the events were different, students from the UAE considered many of the same issues reflected on by Canadian students. CONCLUSION: Physiotherapy students from a Middle East culture consider many of the same issues as students from a Western culture when asked to reflect on their clinical experience. They reflect on their personal growth, on how they learn in a clinical setting, and on the ethical and professional behaviors of themselves and others

Tradeoff between robustness and elaboration in carotenoid networks produces cycles of avian color diversification

BACKGROUND: Resolution of the link between micro- and macroevolution calls for comparing both processes on the same deterministic landscape, such as genomic, metabolic or fitness networks. We apply this perspective to the evolution of carotenoid pigmentation that produces spectacular diversity in avian colors and show that basic structural properties of the underlying carotenoid metabolic network are reflected in global patterns of elaboration and diversification in color displays. Birds color themselves by consuming and metabolizing several dietary carotenoids from the environment. Such fundamental dependency on the most upstream external compounds should intrinsically constrain sustained evolutionary elongation of multi-step metabolic pathways needed for color elaboration unless the metabolic network gains robustness - the ability to synthesize the same carotenoid from an additional dietary starting point. RESULTS: We found that gains and losses of metabolic robustness were associated with evolutionary cycles of elaboration and stasis in expressed carotenoids in birds. Lack of metabolic robustness constrained lineage's metabolic explorations to the immediate biochemical vicinity of their ecologically distinct dietary carotenoids, whereas gains of robustness repeatedly resulted in sustained elongation of metabolic pathways on evolutionary time scales and corresponding color elaboration. CONCLUSIONS: The structural link between length and robustness in metabolic pathways may explain periodic convergence of phylogenetically distant and ecologically distinct species in expressed carotenoid pigmentation; account for stasis in carotenoid colors in some ecological lineages; and show how the connectivity of the underlying metabolic network provides a mechanistic link between microevolutionary elaboration and macroevolutionary diversification. REVIEWERS: This article was reviewed by Junhyong Kim, Eugene Koonin, and Fyodor Kondrashov. For complete reports, see the Reviewers' reports section.This item is part of the UA Faculty Publications collection. For more information this item or other items in the UA Campus Repository, contact the University of Arizona Libraries at [email protected]

X-linkage is not a general inhibitor of tissue-specific gene expression in Drosophila melanogaster

As a consequence of its difference in copy number between males and females, the X chromosome is subject to unique evolutionary forces and gene regulatory mechanisms. Previous studies of Drosophila melanogaster have shown that the expression of X-linked, testis-specific reporter genes is suppressed in the male germline. However, it is not known whether this phenomenon is restricted to testis-expressed genes or if it is a more general property of genes with tissue-specific expression, which are also underrepresented on the X chromosome. To test this, we compared the expression of three tissue-specific reporter genes (ovary, accessory gland and Malpighian tubule) inserted at various autosomal and X-chromosomal locations. In contrast to testis-specific reporter genes, we found no reduction of X-linked expression in any of the other tissues. In accessory gland and Malpighian tubule, we detected higher expression of the X-linked reporter genes, which suggests that they are at least partially dosage compensated. We found no difference in the tissue-specificity of X-linked and autosomal reporter genes. These findings indicate that, in general, the X chromosome is not a detrimental environment for tissue-specific gene expression and that the suppression of X-linked expression is limited to the male germline