Contemporary medical television and crisis in the NHS

This article maps the terrain of contemporary UK medical television, paying particular attention to Call the Midwife as its centrepiece, and situating it in contextual relation to the current crisis in the NHS. It provides a historical overview of UK and US medical television, illustrating how medical television today has been shaped by noteworthy antecedents. It argues that crisis rhetoric surrounding healthcare leading up to the passing of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 has been accompanied by a renaissance in medical television. And that issues, strands and clusters have emerged in forms, registers and modes with noticeable regularity, especially around the value of affective labour, the cultural politics of nostalgia and the neoliberalisation of healthcare

Secondary school pupils' preferences for different types of structured grouping practices

The aim of this paper is to explore pupils’ preferences for particular types of grouping practices an area neglected in earlier research focusing on the personal and social outcomes of ability grouping. The sample comprised over 5,000 year 9 pupils (aged 13-14 years) in 45 mixed secondary comprehensive schools in England. The schools represented three levels of ability grouping in the lower school (years 7 to 9). Pupils responded to a questionnaire which explored the types of grouping that they preferred and the reasons for their choices. The majority of pupils preferred setting, although this was mediated by their set placement, type of school, socio-economic status and gender. The key reason given for this preference was that it enabled work to be matched to learning needs. The paper considers whether there are other ways of achieving this avoiding the negative social and personal outcomes of setting for some pupils

Stakeholder perspectives on new ways of delivering unscheduled health care: the role of ownership and organisational identity

<b>Rationale, aims and objectives</b>: To explore stakeholder perspectives of the implementation of a new, national integrated nurse-led telephone advice and consultation service (NHS 24), comparing the views of stakeholders from different health care organisations. <b>Methods</b>: Semi-structured interviews with 26 stakeholders including partner organisations located in primary and secondary unscheduled care settings (general practitioner (GP) out-of-hours co-operative; accident and emergency department; national ambulance service), members of NHS 24 and national policymakers. Attendance at key meetings, documentary review and email implementation diaries provided a contextual history of events with which interview data could be compared. <b>Results</b>: The contextual history of events highlighted a fast-paced implementation process, with little time for reflection. Key areas of partner concern were increasing workload, the clinical safety of nurse triage and the lack of communication across the organisations. Concerns were most apparent within the GP out-of-hours co-operative, leading to calls for the dissolution of the partnership. Accident and emergency and ambulance service responses were more conciliatory, suggesting that such problems were to be expected within the developmental phase of a new organisation. Further exploration of these responses highlighted the sense of ownership within the GP co-operative, with GPs having both financial and philosophical ownership of the co-operative. This was not apparent within the other two partner organisations, in particular the ambulance service, which operated on a regional model very similar to that of NHS 24. <b>Conclusions</b>: As the delivery of unscheduled primary health care crosses professional boundaries and locations, different organisations and professional groups must develop new ways of partnership working, developing trust and confidence in each other. The results of this study highlight, for the first time, the key importance of understanding the professional ownership and identity of individual organisations, in order to facilitate the most effective mechanisms to enable that partnership working

Changes in motivation as expertise develops: Relationships with musical aspirations

Recent models of musical motivation have recognised the complex interactions which occur between environmental (cultural, institutional, familial, educational) and internal factors (cognition and affect) in enhancing or reducing motivation. Much previous research has been small scale and not taken account of long term musical aspirations. This article aims to address these issues exploring changes in motivation as expertise develops with a large sample of learners. A total of 3,325 young musicians, aged 6–19 playing a wide range of instruments participated. They represented nine levels of expertise ranging from beginner to higher education conservatoire entry level. Level of expertise was established in terms of the most recent graded independent instrumental examination taken. They were asked to respond to a series of statements on a 7-point Likert scale. The statements focused on well-established elements of motivation including: self-beliefs; enjoyment of musical activities; enjoyment of performance; level of support received from parents, friends and teachers; attitudes towards playing an instrument and perceptions of its value; and beliefs about the importance of musical ability. Participants were also asked to respond to statements about their long term musical aspirations. An exploratory factor analysis provided the basis for the development of a motivational scale which included five sub-scales: social support and affirmation; social life and the value of playing an instrument; enjoyment of performing; self-belief in musical ability; and enjoyment of instrumental musical activities. There were linear trends for each of the five sub-scales in relation to level of expertise with the exception of social support and affirmation. The five sub-scales collectively predicted a composite score relating to aspirations with a multiple R of .64

Are there gender differences in instrumental music practice?

This research aimed to consider whether there were gender differences in the amount of practice undertaken by boys and girls, the practice strategies adopted and motivation to practise. A sample of 2027 girls and 1225 boys aged 6-19 years, ranging in level of expertise from beginner through to conservatory entrance level, playing instruments representative of the classical and popular instruments played in the UK completed a self-report Likert scale questionnaire. There were no statistically significant gender differences in weekly practice time or motivation to practise. Factor analysis of statements relating to practice revealed seven factors. There were statistically significant gender differences in relation to the adoption of systematic practice strategies (girls were more systematic), concentration (boys perceived they had higher levels of concentration) and immediate correction of errors (girls reported more immediate correction). There were no statistically significant gender differences in relation to the organisation of practice, the use of recordings and a metronome, the use of analytic strategies, and the adoption of ineffective practice strategies although for this factor there was a statistically significant interaction between gender and level of expertise

Imaging and Treatment of Patients with Acute Stroke: An Evidence-Based Review

Evidence-based medicine has emerged as a valuable tool to guide clinical decision-making, by summarizing the best possible evidence for both diagnostic and treatment strategies. Imaging plays a critical role in the evaluation and treatment of patients with acute ischemic stroke, especially those who are being considered for thrombolytic or endovascular therapy. Time from stroke-symptom onset to treatment is a strong predictor of long-term functional outcome after stroke. Therefore, imaging and treatment decisions must occur rapidly in this setting, while minimizing unnecessary delays in treatment. The aim of this review was to summarize the best available evidence for the diagnostic and therapeutic management of patients with acute ischemic stroke

Relation of Childhood Home Environment to Cortical Thickness in Late Adolescence: Specificity of Experience and Timing

What are the long-term effects of childhood experience on brain development? Research with animals shows that the quality of environmental stimulation and parental nurturance both play important roles in shaping lifelong brain structure and function. Human research has so far been limited to the effects of abnormal experience and pathological development. Using a unique longitudinal dataset of in-home measures of childhood experience at ages 4 and 8 and MRI acquired in late adolescence, we were able to relate normal variation in childhood experience to later life cortical thickness. Environmental stimulation at age 4 predicted cortical thickness in a set of automatically derived regions in temporal and prefrontal cortex. In contrast, age 8 experience was not predictive. Parental nurturance was not predictive at either age. This work reveals an association between childhood experience and later brain structure that is specific relative to aspects of experience, regions of brain, and timing

Making Sense of Family Deaths in Urban Senegal: Diversities, Contexts, and Comparisons

Despite calls for cross-cultural research, Minority world perspectives still dominate death and bereavement studies, emphasizing individualized emotions and neglecting contextual diversities. In research concerned with contemporary African societies, on the other hand, death and loss are generally subsumed within concerns about AIDS or poverty, with little attention paid to the emotional and personal significance of a death. Here, we draw on interactionist sociology to present major themes from a qualitative study of family deaths in urban Senegal, theoretically framed through the duality of meanings-in-context. Such themes included family and community as support and motivation; religious beliefs and practices as frameworks for solace and (regulatory) meaning; and material circumstances as these are intrinsically bound up with emotions. Although we identify the experience of (embodied, emotional) pain as a common response across Minority and Majority worlds, we also explore significant divergencies, varying according to localized contexts and broader power dynamics

Introduction : screen Londons

Our aim, in editing the ‘London Issue’ of this journal, is to contribute to a conversation between scholars of British cinema and television, London historians and scholars of the cinematic city. In 2007, introducing the themed issue on ‘Space and Place in British Cinema and Television’, Steve Chibnall and Julian Petley observed that it would have been possible to fill the whole journal with essays about the representation of London. This issue does just that, responding to the increased interest in cinematic and, to a lesser extent, televisual, Londons, while also demonstrating the continuing fertility of the paradigms of ‘space and place’ for scholars of the moving image1. It includes a wide range of approaches to the topic of London on screen, with varying attention to British institutions of the moving image – such as Channel Four or the British Board of Film Classification – as well as to concepts such as genre, narration and memory. As a whole, the issue, through its juxtapositions of method and approach, shows something of the complexity of encounters between the terms ‘London’, ‘cinema’ and ‘television’ within British film and television studies