Graduating Physiotherapy Students’ Conceptions of their own Competence

A competence-oriented approach has recently emerged in higher education and thus far, not much attention has been paid to how “competence” itself is understood in education. The purpose of this study was to examine how graduating physiotherapy students perceive their competence at the end of their studies. The data comprised interviews with 33 graduating physiotherapy students. The data were analysed with the phenomenographic approach. The findings indicated that graduating students had different and wide-ranging conceptions of what competence in physiotherapy entails and what their own competence covers. The descriptive categories – mastering core skills, understanding the theoretical basis of physiotherapy, having a holistic view of physiotherapy, engaging in and developing multi-professional collaboration – varied hierarchically on the basis of seven themes. From a pedagogical point of view, four critical aspects were identified: focus of reflection, professional agency, cultural awareness and communication.peerReviewe

Purinergic signalling is required for calcium oscillations in migratory chondrogenic progenitor cells

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of chronic musculoskeletal disorders. A migratory stem cell population termed chondrogenic progenitor cells (CPC) with in vitro chondrogenic potential was previously isolated from OA cartilage. Since intracellular Ca2+ signalling is an important regulator of chondrogenesis, we aimed to provide a detailed understanding of the Ca2+ homeostasis of CPCs. In this work, CPCs immortalised by lentiviral administration of the human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) and grown in monolayer cultures were studied. Expressions of all three IP(3)Rs were confirmed, but no RyR subtypes were detected. Ca2+ oscillations observed in CPCs were predominantly dependent on Ca2+ release and store replenishment via store-operated Ca2+ entry; CPCs express both STIM1 and Orai1 proteins. Expressions of adenosine receptor mRNAs were verified, and adenosine elicited Ca2+ transients. Various P2 receptor subtypes were identified; P2Y(1) can bind ADP; P2Y(4) is targeted by UTP; and ATP may evoke Ca2+ transients via detected P2X subtypes, as well as P2Y(1) and P2Y(2). Enzymatic breakdown of extracellular nucleotides by apyrase completely abrogated Ca2+ oscillations, suggesting that an autocrine/paracrine purinergic mechanism may drive Ca2+ oscillations in these cells. As CPCs possess a broad spectrum of functional molecular elements of Ca2+ signalling, Ca2+-dependent regulatory mechanisms can be supposed to influence their differentiation potential