Medical decision making using knowledge of patient identification as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander: what do medical students think?

Objective Best-practices guidelines require Australian health practitioners to ask all patients “are you [is the person] of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin?”. The present study investigated medical student attitudes regarding medical decisions made after asking this standard status question. Methods A hypothetical interaction between a doctor and an Aboriginal patient was presented in a pen-and-paper questionnaire in which: (1) the doctor considered (or did not consider) the patient’s Indigenous status relevant to make a medical diagnosis, and (2) the doctor registered (or did not register) the patient for the Closing the Gap PBS co-payment. Participants were first- and second-year medical students at the Australian National University who evaluated the doctor’s decisions against 20 attributes characterising professionalism and prejudice. Results Students evaluated the doctor more favourably when the doctor registered the patient for the co-payment and when the doctor did not consider Indigenous status relevant to making a medical diagnosis. Conclusions Encouragingly, medical students recognise that withholding registration for the co-payment is unprofessional. At the same time, medical students clearly do not think medical diagnoses should be made using the knowledge a patient identifies as Aboriginal. Implications With the continual development of policy and guidelines (and the prospect of diagnostic guidelines) to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, students and practitioners must understand how to use this knowledge of a patient’s status to benefit health outcomes

When are anti-fat attitudes understood as prejudice versus truth? An experimental study of social influence effects

Background/Objectives If people who hold anti-fat attitudes believe these attitudes to be true, then anti-prejudice appeals are likely to be unsuccessful, if only because the targets will not see their attitudes as in need of change. The current study examined processes that may lead people to see their anti-fat attitudes as 'truth' or as 'prejudice'. Subjects/Methods Participants (N = 482) read anti-fat statements and were then presented with an interpretation of these statements as 'truth' or 'prejudice'. The source of this interpretation was either an (i) in-group or out-group member and (ii) expert or non-expert. Participants' judgements of the statements were expected to vary such that in-group others and experts would exert more influence than would out-group others and non-experts. Results Participants aligned their own interpretations of an anti-fat statement with those of an expert, but not with those of a non-expert, F(1,466) = 8.97, p <0.05, eta(2)(p) = 0.02. The group membership variable had no effect on judgements of 'truth' or 'prejudice' of the anti-fat statement. Conclusion The expressions that people believe constitute anti-fat prejudice versus truth about people described as overweight are influenced by exposure to expert opinion (in this case, by medical doctors). Implications for the success of weight-based anti-prejudice appeals and for healthcare provision are discussed

Spin pumping and magnetization dynamics in metallic multilayers

We study the magnetization dynamics in thin ferromagnetic films and small ferromagnetic particles in contact with paramagnetic conductors. A moving magnetization vector causes \textquotedblleft pumping\textquotedblright of spins into adjacent nonmagnetic layers. This spin transfer affects the magnetization dynamics similar to the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert phenomenology. The additional Gilbert damping is significant for small ferromagnets, when the nonmagnetic layers efficiently relax the injected spins, but the effect is reduced when a spin accumulation build-up in the normal metal opposes the spin pumping. The damping enhancement is governed by (and, in turn, can be used to measure) the mixing conductance or spin-torque parameter of the ferromagnet--normal-metal interface. Our theoretical findings are confirmed by agreement with recent experiments in a variety of multilayer systems.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Magnetization relaxation in (Ga,Mn)As ferromagnetic semiconductors

We describe a theory of Mn local-moment magnetization relaxation due to p-d kinetic-exchange coupling with the itinerant-spin subsystem in the ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As alloy. The theoretical Gilbert damping coefficient implied by this mechanism is calculated as a function of Mn moment density, hole concentration, and quasiparticle lifetime. Comparison with experimental ferromagnetic resonance data suggests that in annealed strongly metallic samples, p-d coupling contributes significantly to the damping rate of the magnetization precession at low temperatures. By combining the theoretical Gilbert coefficient with the values of the magnetic anisotropy energy, we estimate that the typical critical current for spin-transfer magnetization switching in all-semiconductor trilayer devices can be as low as $\sim 10^{5} {\rm A cm}^{-2}$.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Rapid Communication

Data from an International Multi-Centre Study of Statistics and Mathematics Anxieties and Related Variables in University Students (the SMARVUS Dataset)

This large, international dataset contains survey responses from N = 12,570 students from 100 universities in 35 countries, collected in 21 languages. We measured anxieties (statistics, mathematics, test, trait, social interaction, performance, creativity, intolerance of uncertainty, and fear of negative evaluation), self-efficacy, persistence, and the cognitive reflection test, and collected demographics, previous mathematics grades, self-reported and official statistics grades, and statistics module details. Data reuse potential is broad, including testing links between anxieties and statistics/mathematics education factors, and examining instruments’ psychometric properties across different languages and contexts. Data and metadata are stored on the Open Science Framework website [https://osf.io/mhg94/]