Private Lives: Confronting the inherent difficulties of reflective writing in clinical legal education

The use of reflective writing has long been recognised as an important component of clinical legal education pedagogy. However, current literature about reflective writing exposes a gap about student perceptions of reflective writing.This article provides an analysis of the results of formal qualitative research that was conducted into student perceptions of reflective writing in the clinical legal education context. The research was designed to investigate whether students perceived any benefit from reflective writing and what difficulties they actually encountered in the process of writing which is particularly different to other forms of academic assessment. The article explores the exact nature of the difficulties experienced by students and suggests an improved pedagogy of reflective writing in the clinical legal education context. The article offers several suggestions and recommendations as to how this might be achieved

‘First they tell us to ignore our emotions, then they tell us to reflect’: The development of a reflective writing pedagogy in clinical legal education through an analysis of student perceptions of reflective writing.

The use of reflective writing has long been recognised as an important component of clinical legal education pedagogy, not least because it provides an important link between the twin pillars of CLE. However, current literature about reflective writing exposes a gap about student perceptions of reflective writing.This article provides an analysis of the results of formal research that was conducted into student perceptions of reflective writing in the clinical legal education context. The research was designed to investigate whether students perceived any benefit from reflective writing and what difficulties they actually encountered in writing in a way that is particularly different to other forms of academic assessment.This article focusses on student perceptions of the benefits of reflective writing.  A further aim of the research was to develop an improved pedagogy of reflective writing in the clinical legal education context. The article concludes that students perceive limited benefits from reflective writing and offers several suggestions and recommendations as to how this limited perception might be enhanced

Holding Up the Mirror: A theoretical and practical analysis of the role of reflection in Clinical Legal Education

This article provides a summary of the broader literature on reflection that has been published over the last twenty years in a variety of disciplines. It then examines the literature from two major clinical legal education journals in relation to reflective writing as a component of clinical legal education courses. It attempts to provide answers to the questions: What do we mean when we say we ‘teach’ students to be ‘reflective’? How do we do that? How do we ‘teach’ students to write reflectively? The article looks at the problems we face in teaching ‘reflection’ in the clinical context and examines issues stemming from the reality of reflection being an important part of a clinical program. It also argues that being ‘reflective’ is not necessarily intuitive for students and that clinical teachers must teach students how to ‘be reflective’. The article demonstrates an example of reflection in action by the provision of examples from the writer’s own teaching experiences. Finally, the article collates and reproduces suggestions from the literature on best teaching practice on the use of reflection as a teaching and learning tool within clinical legal education courses

GP perspectives on hospital discharge letters : an interview and focus group study

Background: Written discharge communication following inpatient or outpatient clinic discharge is essential for communicating information to the GP, but GPs’ opinions on discharge communication are seldom sought. Patients are sometimes copied into this communication, but the reasons for this variation, and the resultant effects, remain unclear. Aim: To explore GP perspectives on how discharge letters can be improved in order to enhance patient outcomes. Design & setting: The study used narrative interviews with 26 GPs from 13 GP practices within the West Midlands, England. Method: Interviews were transcribed and data were analysed using corpus linguistics (CL) techniques. Results Elements pivotal to a successful letter were: diagnosis, appropriate follow-up plan, medication changes and reasons, clinical summary, investigations and/or procedures and outcomes, and what information has been given to the patient. GPs supported patients receiving discharge letters and expounded a number of benefits of this practice; for example, increased patient autonomy. Nevertheless, GPs felt that if patients are to receive direct discharge letter copies, modifications such as use of lay language and avoidance of acronyms may be required to increase patient understanding. Conclusion: GPs reported that discharge letters frequently lacked content items they assessed to be important; GPs highlighted that this can have subsequent ramifications on resources and patient experiences. Templates should be devised that put discharge letter elements assessed to be important by GPs to the forefront. Future research needs to consider other perspectives on letter content, particularly those of patients

iPad Innovations in Public Services: A Survey of the Use of Mobile Devices in ASERL Reference Departments

The availability of iPads and other mobile devices has provided new opportunities for communication, creativity, gaming, shopping, customer service, and more. With mobile devices surging in popularity among patrons, library innovators have started experimenting with these technologies in their services. Given the recent debut of these devices, the professional literature offers only a few studies about academic libraries that have harnessed mobile devices for reference, instruction, and outreach. In helping to expand this research, this paper presents the results of a survey of Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) reference departments about their use of mobile devices

Tools for primary care patient safety: a narrative review

Background: Patient safety in primary care is a developing field with an embryonic but evolving evidence base. This narrative review aims to identify tools that can be used by family practitioners as part of a patient safety toolkit to improve the safety of the care and services provided by their practices. Methods: Searches were performed in 6 healthcare databases in 2011 using 3 search stems; location (primary care), patient safety synonyms and outcome measure synonyms. Two reviewers analysed the results using a numerical and thematic analyses. Extensive grey literature exploration was also conducted. Results: Overall, 114 Tools were identified with 26 accrued from grey literature. Most published literature originated from the USA (41%) and the UK (23%) within the last 10 years. Most of the literature addresses the themes of medication error (55%) followed by safety climate (8%) and adverse event reporting (8%). Minor themes included; informatics (4.5%) patient role (3%) and general measures to correct error (5%). The primary/secondary care interface is well described (5%) but few specific tools for primary care exist. Diagnostic error and results handling appear infrequently (<1% of total literature) despite their relative importance. The remainder of literature (11%) related to referrals, Out-Of-Hours (OOH) care, telephone care, organisational issues, mortality and clerical error. Conclusions: This review identified tools and indicators that are available for use in family practice to measure patient safety, which is crucial to improve safety and design a patient safety toolkit. However, many of the tools have yet to be used in quality improvement strategies and cycles such as plan–do–study–act (PDSA) so there is a dearth of evidence of their utility in improving as opposed to measuring and highlighting safety issues. The lack of focus on diagnostics, systems safety and results handling provide direction and priorities for future research

The Effects of Road Salt on Lithobates clamitans Tadpoles

In areas that see heavy snowfall and icy roads, road salt is used to improve driving conditions. However, after snow melts, road salt does not disappear. Instead, it dissolves into melted snow and flows into bodies of water where amphibians breed and live. Altering the salinity of the environment has been seen to affect different species of frogs. It is unclear, however, whether those findings generalize to other anurans. Here, we examined how exposure to road salt affects the development of green frog tadpoles (L. clamitans). We caught 80 L. clamitans tadpoles at the Ross Biological Reserve near Purdue University. We divided 60 tadpoles of average Gosner stage 37 into three treatments: control (well water), road salt (860 mg Cl/L), and an alternative road deicing salt product (beet juice/20% salt brine mixture). To examine the effects of salt exposure at earlier developmental stage, 20 younger tadpoles (average Gosner stage 30) were exposed to road salt. These tadpoles were kept at 3 degrees Celsius for 21 days and warmed up post-exposure mimicking natural conditions at the end of the winter. Preliminary results revealed no significant differences in the developmental rate or size (mass and total length) of the tadpoles across all treatments. Following the individuals as they complete metamorphosis will provide more insights about the long-term effects to road salt. Overall this study will provide insights about the effect of road salt on green frog development and the consequences of using a relatively recently developed method for more efficient road deicing

Effects of Sudden Removal of High Social Enrichment upon Monoamine Levels in Cortical and Subcortical Structures of the Rat Brain

The goal of this study was to evaluate a novel stress-induced animal model in both male (n=28) and female (n=28) Sprague-Dawley rats. Stress was induced during adolescence by exposing the rats to standard social enrichment following a period of high* social enrichment (*frequent handling and playdates with 12 same sex non-cagemates). High Performance Liquid Chromatography was used to evaluate monoamine levels in post-mortem tissue from cortical structures (prefrontal cortex, motor cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex) and from subcortical structures (amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus, lateral thalamus, medial thalamus, dorsal striatum, ventral striatum). Overall, results showed that monoamine levels were lower in the rats that experienced a transition from high to standard social enrichment. Better understanding of the neurophysiological consequences of a sudden removal of social enrichment (such as experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic) has important translational value for the treatment of psychiatric disorders.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2023/1051/thumbnail.jp