Forging Partnerships in Health Care: Process and Measuring Benefits

Universally, there is concern that much academic learning has dealt mainly in theory, removing knowledge from context with a resultant lack of practical experience. Here, the catalyst for strengthening university-community engagement, emanated from a desire to foster greater propensity within students to make connections between their academic courses and responsibility toward the community and people in need, and thus develop enhanced skills in social interaction, teamwork and effectiveness. This paper explores a variety of models of university-community engagement that aim to achieve and model good practice in policy making and planning around healthcare education and service development. Ways of integrating teaching and learning with community engagement, so there is reciprocal learning with significant benefits to the community, students, the university and industry are described. The communities of engagement for a transdisciplinary approach in healthcare are defined and the types of collaborative partnerships are outlined, including public/private partnerships, service learning approaches and regional campus engagement. The processes for initiating innovation in this field, forging sustainable partnerships, providing cooperative leadership and building shared vision are detailed. Measuring shared and sustained benefits for all participants is examined in the context of effecting changes in working relationships as well as the impact on students in terms of increased personal and social responsibility, confidence and competence. For the health professions, it is considered vital to adopt this approach in order to deliver graduates who feel aware of community needs, believe they can make a difference, and have a greater sense of community responsibility, ethic of service and more sophisticated understandings of social contexts. In the longer term, it is proposed the strategy will deliver a future healthcare workforce that is more likely to have a strengthened sense of community, social and personal responsibility and thus effect positive social change

ACTIVATION OF A 250 MEV SC-CYCLOTRON FOR PROTON THERAPY

Beam losses in dedicated 230-250 MeV cyclotrons for<br />proton therapy cause radioactivity in machine parts. A<br />systematic study has been performed of the activation of<br />PSI&rsquo;s 250 MeV SC-cyclotron for proton therapy. Since<br />the start of the cyclotron operation dose rate<br />measurements have been made as a function of time at<br />several locations in and around the cyclotron. Gamma ray<br />spectra have been measured of selected iron inserts in the<br />pole and of copper disks in the liner of the RF system.<br />The isotopic composition of the activation has been<br />derived and compared with activations calculated with<br />Monte Carlo calculations (MCNPX). The data and beam<br />history of the cyclotron allow predictions of the dose rate<br />during service activities shortly after beam interruption as<br />well as after a specified period of operation