A history of the Medical Artists' Association of Great Britain 1949-1997

Medical Illustration has a long and interesting history, but as a profession it is relatively new. At the beginning of this century there was a small group of artists working in a freelance capacity for individual medical men, hospitals, medical schools and publishers. After World War II, artists began to be employed by hospitals and medical schools as members of staff. As a consequence of this new type of employment, one of the artists decided to form an association, and on 2 April 1949, the Medical Artists' Association of Great Britain was inaugurated. The Founder was Dorothy Davison, who had visited some of the other artists working at the time. She sought their advice and enlisted their help. The early development of this Association, is recorded in the words of the Founder Members. These are taken from the letters and documents written at the time. Once inaugurated, the Association developed quickly and was soon organizing its own Exhibitions, Conferences and a Training Scheme for young artists, which flourishes today and is connected with several Universities. Reports are given of the unsuccessful negotiations which took place with the Department of Social Security in an effort to be recognised as a professional body. Over thirty years the number of Departments of Medical Illustration increased and a comprehensive service of illustrative work was enjoyed by medical institutions throughout the country. In the 1980s, owing to financial cuts in the Universities and National Health Services, when posts became vacant they remained unfilled and some artists were offered early retirement or were made redundant. Now, in 1997, over fifty per cent of the Members of the Association are working in private practice. The situation has turned full circle and is similar to that at the beginning of the century

Counselling students with depressive tendencies for better educational and personal-social adjustment: The cognitive restructuring approach

The paper explores the contextual meaning of depressive tendency as could be measured by a score of 20 and above on Beck Depression Inventory and still functioning in a normal population such as school. Evidence of depressive symptoms in Colleges of Education is cited. Reasons why students are at risk for depression are discussed, such as no age barrier for depression, stress and hassles of life emanating from high academic pressures, new financial responsibility, new relationship etc. Problems associated with depressive tendency are discussed such as inability to do what one ought to do at the right time, or not doing it satisfactorily due to symptom interference; may lack creative endeavour which requires thinking and action; poor interaction and less information. Cognitive restructuring as a counseling strategy is expounded upon for adaptation by professional counsellors and psychologists. Emphasis is laid on teaching students self-monitoring in order to identify negative automatic thoughts that are fueling the depressive symptoms and to replace them with more adaptive thoughts, which help one feel better

Effective Implementation of Counselling Curriculum and National Policy on Education in Cross River State Public Secondary Schools: Implications for Counselling

This study looked at the effective implementation of counselling curriculum and national policy on education in Cross River State public secondary schools. It employed the descriptive survey method. It made use of three hypotheses, 230 secondary schools as its population, 1,900 students (854 boys and 1,046 girls) as sample, randomly selected from the 18 local government areas of the state and a twenty-item questionnaire called Effective Implementation of Counselling Curriculum (EICC) as instrument. Simple count, percentage- and t-test statistics were used to analyse the data. The study revealed that there is effective implementation of the counselling curriculum in some public secondary schools in urban areas, lopsided posting of specialised personnel in some urban schools. Some public secondary schools in some local government areas do not have counsellors at all to handle the teeming population of 88,621 students in the state's public secondary schools. Moreover, it revealed that there is a dire need for counselling equipment as well as more interpersonal relationship skills to ginger the realisation of counselling curriculum goals. Counselling implications were indicated to foster adequate implementation of the secondary school counselling curriculum all over the state

The Challenges of Socio-Psychological Factors as Correlates of Adolescent Students’ Cigarette Smoking In Cross River State, Nigeria

This study investigated adolescent students’ cigarette smoking behaviour as correlates of the challenges socio-psychological factors in Cross River State. Snowball sampling technique was used to select 200 participants across the state who were male and female. Their ages ranged between 14 and 19 years with a mean average of 16.5 years and standard devotion of 2.53. Two validated instruments: Smoking behaviour inventory (SBI) and APDI were used to collect data from the participants. Data analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between adolescent students’ cigarette smoking and socio-psychological factors. It was found that peer group, self-concept and smoker-parents significantly impacted on the adolescent students cigarette smoking behaviour. Based on the outcome of the study, the need to mount counseling intervention programme was advocated. Such intervention should be targeted at providing psychological support among other.Key words: socio-psychological factors self-concept, psychological support, peer group influence

The Predictive Effect of Big Five Factor Model on Social Reactivity among Adolescents in Cross River State, Nigeria: Personality Assessment and Basis for Counselling

The study tested a model of providing a predictive explanation of Big Five Factor on social reactivity among secondary school adolescents of Cross River State, Nigeria. A sample of 200 students randomly selected across 12 public secondary schools in the State participated in the study (120 male and 80 female). Data collected involved NEO Five Factor and social reactivity scale, which are commonly used and have demonstrated acceptability and reliability. The data were analysed using multiple regression and path analysis in order to estimate the coefficient of structural equations of the hypothesized model. The result indicates that the predictor variables jointly contributed significantly to the prediction of social reactivity. The sixpredictor variables also accounted for direct and indirect effect on social reactivity and the implications of the study were highlighted and conclusion made

Antagonizing the spindle assembly checkpoint silencing enhances paclitaxel and Navitoclax-mediated apoptosis with distinct mechanistic

Antimitotic drugs arrest cells in mitosis through chronic activation of the spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC), leading to cell death. However, drug-treated cancer cells can escape death by undergoing mitotic slippage, due to premature mitotic exit. Therefore, overcoming slippage issue is a promising chemotherapeutic strategy to improve the effectiveness of antimitotics. Here, we antagonized SAC silencing by knocking down the MAD2-binding protein p31comet, to delay mitotic slippage, and tracked cancer cells treated with the antimitotic drug paclitaxel, over 3 days live-cell time-lapse analysis. We found that in the absence of p31comet, the duration of mitotic block was increased in cells challenged with nanomolar concentrations of paclitaxel, leading to an additive effects in terms of cell death which was predominantly anticipated during the first mitosis. As accumulation of an apoptotic signal was suggested to prevent mitotic slippage, when we challenged p31comet-depleted mitotic-arrested cells with the apoptosis potentiator Navitoclax (previously called ABT-263), cell fate was shifted to accelerated post-mitotic death. We conclude that inhibition of SAC silencing is critical for enhancing the lethality of antimitotic drugs as well as that of therapeutic apoptosis-inducing small molecules, with distinct mechanisms. The study highlights the potential of p31comet as a target for antimitotic therapies.The authors gratefully acknowledge CESPU—Cooperativa de Ensino Superior Politécnico e Universitário, which financed this work under the projects “ComeTarget_CESPU_2017” and “ComeTax”. Ana C. Henriques acknowledge FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia for financial support (Grant SFRH/BD/116167/2016)