Little Horses & Mindless: Please Press Pause!

Little Horses Spring is a season of newness, life, and growth. Cal Poly’s foals are born throughout spring quarter here, and it is such a treat to be able to watch them explore what it means to be alive. They grow into strong working animals in a short time, but for the spring, at least, they are small. Mindless: Please Press Pause! In the current political climate in the United States, normalcy rests in divisiveness, daily media lies, and inaccuracies. There are unclear moral and ethical precepts. With mass and social media slamming these concepts in our face, minute-by-minute, I often wonder, “What is coming next and how soon will it arrive? Will we face all-encompassing invasion by technology? Will daily mental bombardment be so mainstream that complete desensitization is the norm?” My art is currently evolving as a response to these looming societal questions. This work harkens back to the Pop era when art was graphic, direct, ironic, humorous, and yet still innovative. It is my hope that the clear, solid, humorous, and unambiguous work which I am making provides a needed pause. It is a moment to feel happy and unencumbered by current social dialogues

Junior Recital: Linda Morris, Viola; Bonnie Fletcher, Piano; April 23, 1977

Centennial East Recital HallSaturday EveningApril 23, 19777:00 p.m

Long-Run Success In The Accounting Profession: A Study Of Student Perceptions

Accounting students are generally well aware of the skills, education, and accomplishments needed to get that first job and initially enter the accounting profession. However, it is equally important that accounting students approaching graduation have a good understanding of the skills, education and accomplishments required for an experienced accountant (an accountant who is three, five, or even ten years into their career). Armed with this information, students will be better equipped to make the best decisions as they complete their undergraduate degree and begin their careers. This would include decisions about graduate studies, pursuing certifications, accepting a job in a particular industry or one which provides specific experiences or training. Unfortunately, many students do not have accurate or complete information regarding the requirements for continued, long-run success in the profession. This paper reports the results of a project which (1) measured accounting students perceptions of the education, training, knowledge and experience required for experienced accountants, (2) implemented a class project exposing students to employers requirements for experienced accountants, and (3) measured student perceptions after the project was completed

Enhancing health care non-technical skills: the TINSELS programme

Background and Context: Training in ‘non-technical skills’, social (communication and team work) and cognitive (analytical and personal behaviour) skills, in healthcare have been of great interest over the last decade. Whilst the majority of publications focus on ‘whether’ such education can be successful, they overlook the question of ‘how’ they enhance skills. We designed and piloted an original, theoretically robust and replicable teaching package that addresses non-technical skills in the context of medicines safety through simulation-based inter professional learning: the TINSELS (Training In Non-technical Skills to Enhance Levels of Medicines Safety) Programme. Innovation: A modified Delphi process was completed to identify learning outcomes, and recruitment of multi-professional teams was through local publicity. The faculty developed a three-session simulation based intervention: session one was a simulated ward encounter with multiple medicine related activities; session two was an extended debrief and facilitated discussion; and session three a ‘chamber of horrors’ where inter professional teams identified potential sources of error. Each session was completed in the simulation suite with 6 – 9 participants, lasted approximately 90m minutes, and took place over 2 weeks. Full details of the course will be presented to facilitate dissemination. Implications: Likert scale feedback was collected after the course (1 strongly disagree-5 strongly agree). Mean scores were all greater than 4, with qualitative feedback noting the fidelity of the authentic inter professional learner groups. A previously validated safety attitudes questionnaire found changes in attitudes towards handover of care and perceptions of safety levels in the workplace post intervention. An original, simulation based, multi-professional training programme has been developed with learning and assessment materials available for widespread replication

Oral Cavity and Pharynx Cancer Incidence Trends by Subsite in the United States: Changing Gender Patterns

Objective. To evaluate oral cavity and pharynx cancer (OCPC) patterns by gender. Methods. We used Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program data for 71,446 cases diagnosed during 1975–2008 to classify OCPC by anatomic subsite as potentially HPV-related or not, with oral tongue cancer considered a separate category. Results. Total OCPC rates among men were 2–4 times those among women. Among whites, total OCPC rates rose in the younger age groups due to substantial increases in successive birth cohorts for HPV-related cancers, more rapid among men than women, and oral tongue cancers, more rapid among women than men. Among blacks, total OCPC rates declined among cohorts born since 1930 reflecting the strong downward trends for HPV-unrelated sites. Among Hispanics and Asians, HPV-unrelated cancer rates generally declined, and oral tongue cancer rates appeared to be converging among young men and women. Conclusions. Decreases in total OCPC incidence reflect reductions in smoking and alcohol drinking. Rising HPV-related cancers among white men may reflect changing sexual practices. Reasons for the increasing young oral tongue cancer rates are unknown, but the narrowing of the gender differences provides a clue

Individual Nurse Productivity in Preparing Patients for Discharge Is Associated with Patient Likelihood of 30-Day Return to Hospital

Objective: Applied to value-based health care, the economic term “individual productivity” refers to the quality of an outcome attributable through a care process to an individual clinician. This study aimed to (1) estimate and describe the discharge preparation productivities of individual acute care nurses and (2) examine the association between the discharge preparation productivity of the discharging nurse and the patient’s likelihood of a 30-day return to hospital [readmission and emergency department (ED) visits]. Research Design: Secondary analysis of patient-nurse data from a cluster-randomized multisite study of patient discharge readiness and readmission. Patients reported discharge readiness scores; postdischarge outcomes and other variables were extracted from electronic health records. Using the structure-process-outcomes model, we viewed patient readiness for hospital discharge as a proximal outcome of the discharge preparation process and used it to measure nurse productivity in discharge preparation. We viewed hospital return as a distal outcome sensitive to discharge preparation care. Multilevel regression analyses used a split-sample approach and adjusted for patient characteristics. Subjects: A total 522 nurses and 29,986 adult (18+ y) patients discharged to home from 31 geographically diverse medical-surgical units between June 15, 2015 and November 30, 2016. Measures: Patient discharge readiness was measured using the 8-item short form of Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale (RHDS). A 30-day hospital return was a categorical variable for an inpatient readmission or an ED visit, versus no hospital return. Results: Variability in individual nurse productivity explained 9.07% of variance in patient discharge readiness scores. Nurse productivity was negatively associated with the likelihood of a readmission (−0.48 absolute percentage points, P\u3c0.001) and an ED visit (−0.29 absolute percentage points, P=0.042). Conclusions: Variability in individual clinician productivity can have implications for acute care quality patient outcomes

Postmortem Cerebrospinal Fluid Pleocytosis: A Marker of Inflammation or Postmortem Artifact?

The aim of this paper is to reassess the significance of postmortem cerebrospinal fluid pleocytosis. Published articles of CSF changes after death were reviewed, and reanalysis, in the light of modern views on the significance of bacterial postmortem isolates, was undertaken. There is theoretical and experimental evidence that the blood brain barrier to the movement of protein and cells is preserved in the first few hours after death. The number of mononuclear cells in the cerebrospinal fluid does rise in the first 24 hours after death, and this is most probably due to detachment of leptomeningeal lining cells. But the marked increase in lymphocyte counts seen in some cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and in other deaths in the paediatric age range could well be a marker of inflammation

Individualized quality of life, standardized quality of life, and distress in patients undergoing a phase I trial of the novel therapeutic Reolysin (reovirus)

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the individualized and standardized quality of life (QL) and psychological distress of patients participating in a Phase I trial of the novel therapeutic reovirus (Reolysin). METHODS: 16 patients with incurable metastatic cancer were interviewed prior to being accepted into the phase I trial with a semi-structured expectations interview, the Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual Quality of Life – Direct Weighting (SEIQoL-DW), the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30), the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Spiritual Health Inventory (SHI). RESULTS: Patients were able to complete all measures. They felt hopeful and excited about the trial, with about two thirds hoping for disease regression and one third hoping for a cure. The most commonly spontaneously nominated areas of QL were family relationships, activities and friends, and the overall SEIQoL mean index score was 69. Health was nominated by only 38% of the sample. Scores on the SEIQoL were correlated with global QL on the EORTC QLQ C-30. Scores on the BDI and BSI were lower than reported for similar populations, and on the SHI scores were similar to other samples. Global QL on the EORTC QLQ C-30 and depression scores were associated with time to death in the nine patients who had died at the time of writing. CONCLUSIONS: Individualized QL is easy to assess in seriously ill cancer patients, provides useful information relative to each individual, and is related to standard QL measures. Repeated assessment of individualized QL of patients in Phase I trials would be a useful addition to the research