Transgender Healthcare Teaching in the Undergraduate Medical School Curriculum

With increasing recognition of the diverse and specific needs of transgender individuals in a health care setting, lack of knowledge, poor attitudes and prejudice towards transgender patients can result in this population being afraid to access medical care. Educating medical students early in their career in a sensitive and inclusive manner could help change these attitudes. It has been shown that medical undergraduates and post-graduates often feel unprepared or uncomfortable in caring for transgender patients due to lack of training and experience2-4. The aim of this study was to address this through introduction of basic transgender healthcare education into the University of Glasgow undergraduate medical curriculum, with the goal of implementing further interactive and fully inclusive teaching

Editorial

An introduction to this re-launch edition of the journal by the new members of the editorial tea

Speaking for the Dead: Voice in Last Wills and Testaments

(Excerpt) This Article examines voice in wills. First, this Article considers the function of wills and the continued importance of the will in the age of will substitutes. Second, this Article explores the concepts of voice and persona, including the applicability of these terms to wills. Third, this Article analyzes voice in wills by contemplating voice in both non-attorney drafted wills and attorney drafted wills. Fourth, this Article highlights five opportunities that enable the draftsperson to consciously craft a persona that appropriately injects the individual\u27s voice into the will while ensuring that the will continues to be both substantively accurate and operative

Square Pegs and Round Holes: Differentiated Instruction and the Law Classroom

As the academic semester begins, law students enter the classroom with sharpened pencils and charged laptops. Law professors enter the classroom with prepared notes and tabbed casebooks. But how will law professors ensure that the learning of each individual student is supported? Students do not take one path to law school. From English majors to engineering majors, students enter law school immediately upon graduating from college or years after graduation with various professional experiences. Despite criticism that legal education is resistant to change and over-relies on the Socratic Method, law school educators know that learning is not a one-size-fits-all experience. Yet, law school educators need to do more to respond to the needs of all learners. Adapting to the needs of student learners while adequately preparing them for the challenges of the bar exam, and the demands of practice, may seem impossible. This Article shares a theoretical framework built from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and educational theories that legal educators can use. That theoretical framework, commonly referred to as an instructional strategy, is differentiated instruction. This Article first describes differentiated instruction, which originated in K-12 education and has now been translated into higher education. Second, this Article explores the value that differentiated instruction would add to the law school classroom. Third, this Article situates differentiated instruction within the context of popular teaching and learning theories to share how differentiated instruction is compatible with what law professors do now and how some modifications in current methods can amplify the learning process. Finally, this Article applies differentiated instruction in the law school classroom by presenting concrete examples that translate differentiated instruction to the law school classroom. This Article presents a series of modifications to commonly used law school instructional strategies to enhance the ability of the professor to respond to the needs of learners. In addition, this Article presents a series of more innovative instructional strategies that use student choice to leverage learning potential and achievement. Law students have a range of experiences, preparations, and interests. As this Article demonstrates, differentiated instruction is a framework that allows law school educators to adapt and respond to the needs of all learners rather than forcing square pegs into round holes

Speaking for the Dead: Voice in Last Wills and Testaments

(Excerpt) This Article examines voice in wills. First, this Article considers the function of wills and the continued importance of the will in the age of will substitutes. Second, this Article explores the concepts of voice and persona, including the applicability of these terms to wills. Third, this Article analyzes voice in wills by contemplating voice in both non-attorney drafted wills and attorney drafted wills. Fourth, this Article highlights five opportunities that enable the draftsperson to consciously craft a persona that appropriately injects the individual\u27s voice into the will while ensuring that the will continues to be both substantively accurate and operative

Calculating NMR parameters in aluminophosphates : evaluation of dispersion correction schemes

Periodic density functional theory (DFT) calculations have recently emerged as a popular tool for assigning solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra. However, in order for the calculations to yield accurate results, accurate structural models are also required. In many cases the structural model (often derived from crystallographic diffraction) must be optimised (i.e., to an energy minimum) using DFT prior to the calculation of NMR parameters. However, DFT does not reproduce weak long-range "dispersion'' interactions well, and optimisation using some functionals can expand the crystallographic unit cell, particularly when dispersion interactions are important in defining the structure. Recently, dispersion-corrected DFT (DFT-D) has been extended to periodic calculations, to compensate for these missing interactions. Here, we investigate whether dispersion corrections are important for aluminophosphate zeolites (AlPOs) by comparing the structures optimised by DFT and DFT-D (using the PBE functional). For as-made AlPOs (containing cationic structure-directing agents (SDAs) and framework-bound anions) dispersion interactions appear to be important, with significant changes between the DFT and DFT-D unit cells. However, for calcined AlPOs, where the SDA-anion pairs are removed, dispersion interactions appear much less important, and the DFT and DFT-D unit cells are similar. We show that, while the different optimisation strategies yield similar calculated NMR parameters (providing that the atomic positions are optimised), the DFT-D optimisations provide structures in better agreement with the experimental diffraction measurements. Therefore, it appears that DFT-D calculations can, and should, be used for the optimisation of calcined and as-made AlPOs, in order to provide the closest agreement with all experimental measurements.PostprintPeer reviewe

Global Gene Expression Profiling of Individual Human Oocytes and Embryos Demonstrates Heterogeneity in Early Development

Early development in humans is characterised by low and variable embryonic viability, reflected in low fecundity and high rates of miscarriage, relative to other mammals. Data from assisted reproduction programmes provides additional evidence that this is largely mediated at the level of embryonic competence and is highly heterogeneous among embryos. Understanding the basis of this heterogeneity has important implications in a number of areas including: the regulation of early human development, disorders of pregnancy, assisted reproduction programmes, the long term health of children which may be programmed in early development, and the molecular basis of pluripotency in human stem cell populations. We have therefore investigated global gene expression profiles using polyAPCR amplification and microarray technology applied to individual human oocytes and 4-cell and blastocyst stage embryos. In order to explore the basis of any variability in detail, each developmental stage is replicated in triplicate. Our data show that although transcript profiles are highly stage-specific, within each stage they are relatively variable. We describe expression of a number of gene families and pathways including apoptosis, cell cycle and amino acid metabolism, which are variably expressed and may be reflective of embryonic developmental competence. Overall, our data suggest that heterogeneity in human embryo developmental competence is reflected in global transcript profiles, and that the vast majority of existing human embryo gene expression data based on pooled oocytes and embryos need to be reinterpreted