Resetting the compass: exploring the implicit messages of orientation to a community-engaged medical school

Background: Although students’ transition into medical school is a critical step in their professional journey, orientation has been relatively under-researched, particularly with regard to its intersections with schools’ social missions. This paper reports on a study looking at the implicit messages of orientation to the Northern Ontario School of Medicine’s undergraduate program.Methods: An extended mixed methods study was conducted to look at different aspects of the School’s Orientation Week. The term “hidden curriculum” was used to shape inquiry, both in its broad sense of implicit educational experiences and messages and in its more specific sense of the educational messages sent by a medical school’s culture and activities. Data were collected using participant surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Transcripts and free-text survey responses were analyzed to identify underlying themes.Results: Orientation Week was generally well received and was generally perceived by different stakeholders (such as students, school leaders, and community members) as a positive and necessary undertaking. However, there were points of contention and confusion that created a hidden curriculum with respect to participants’ identities, both as students and as future health professionals.Conclusion: Orientation to undergraduate medical training can be successfully linked to a school’s social mission, but in doing so it can send complex and unintended messages to the participants that may be perceived quite differently based on their circumstances and expectations

Communication, trust and dental anxiety:a person-centred approach for dental attendance behaviours

Effective communication forges the dentist-patient treatment alliance and is thus essential for providing person-centred care. Social rank theory suggests that shame, trust, communication and anxiety are linked together, they are moderated by socio-economic position. The study is aimed to propose and test an explanatory model to predict dental attendance behaviours using person-centred and socio-economic position factors. A secondary data analysis was conducted on a cross-sectional representative survey of a two-stage cluster sample of adults including England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Data were drawn from structured interview. Path analysis of proposed model was calculated following measurement development and confirmation of reliable constructs. The findings show model fit was good. Dental anxiety was predicted negatively by patient’s trust and positively by reported dentist communication. Patient’s shame was positively associated with dental anxiety, whereas self-reported dental attendance was negatively associated with dental anxiety. Both patient’s trust and dentist’s communication effects were moderated by social class. Manual classes were most sensitive to the reported dentist’s communications. Some evidence for the proposed model was found. The relationships reflected in the model were illuminated further when social class was introduced as moderator and indicated dentists should attend to communication processes carefully across different categories of patients.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Impact Evaluation of the European Employment Strategy in Ireland. ESRI General Papers

Recent years have seen dramatic growth in employment following unprecedented economic growth and development during the 1990s. Total employment in Ireland grew by a remarkable 534,000, or by 46%, in the eight years from 1993 to 2001, and over 220,000 of this was achieved between 1998 and 2001. In very recent years, the rate of growth in employment fallen somewhat, from a peak of almost 7% in 1997-1998 to about 4% in 2000- 2001. The rapid growth in the economy and in employment after 1993 led to a steady decline in unemployment from 220,000 in 1993 to 127,000 in the 2nd quarter of 1998 and to 65,000 in the 2nd quarter of 2001. The unemployment rate thus fell from 15.7% of the labour force in 1993 to 7.8% in the 2nd quarter of 1998 and to 3.7% in the 2nd quarter of 2001. With the deterioration in the international economy, and the slowdown in the Irish growth rate in 2001, unemployment increased to just under 80,000, or 4.3% of the labour force, in the 3rd quarter of 2001

Cheers, proost, saúde: cultural, contextual and psychological factors of wine and beer consumption in Portugal and in the Netherlands

Wine and beer consumption are an integral part of European culture: Southern Europe is associated with wine and Northern Europe is associated with beer. When consumed in moderation, these alcoholic beverages can be part of a balanced and healthy diet. In the 1990s, non-alcoholic beer (NAB), which has no cultural roots, became available in the market. This review identifies determinants for consumption of wine, beer, and NAB, using data on consumption patterns from Portugal and the Netherlands. Since the 1960s the image of Portugal as a wine country declined, whereas the image of the Netherlands as a beer country remained stable. In each country beer is now the most consumed alcoholic beverage and is mainly a men's beverage, whereas wine is the second most consumed and is consumed by both genders. Cultural differences define Portuguese as "outdoors, everyday drinkers", within a meal context, and Dutch as "at home, weekend drinkers." Wine is perceived as the healthiest beverage, followed by NAB, and regular beer. Motivation for consumption is related to context: wine for special occasions, beer for informal occasions, and NAB for occasions when alcohol is not convenient. Moderate wine and beer consumption seems to be surrounded by positive emotions. This review is relevant for public health, for industry market strategies, and identifies opportunities of future research on drinking behaviour.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Employability, Skills Development and Enterprise Creation (Momentum, University of Worcester)

Background to the Momentum project : PSS1 (Sept 2014 - July 2016): funded by HEFCE to promote Postgraduate Education and Employability. A discussion of group demographics, student experience, employer feedback, and enterprise creation through the establishment of the University of Worcester Business Incubator. The presentation concludes with a number of lessons learned from the project

Prospectus, September 14, 1977

TWO VIE FOR VEEP POST: STUDENT GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS TODAY; Elections scheduled today and tomorrow; District 505 entitled to minimum credit grants; Activities postponed; Unopposed; Shiloh\u27s and Sonshine Circle to perform; Survival of democratic society topic at forum; Vets must go by book; \u27Self Defense\u27 is under attack; Youngest brew master is nun; Warners, women battle over \u27Jump On It\u27; Male prostitute makes history; News From \u27Her Say\u27: Ten women earn wings; UAW asks Congress for maternity benefits \u27as soon as possible\u27; Career Awareness Course for women Wednesday eve.; Instructors earn high grades from PC students; Back orders on home insulation cause woes; Blowing of the shofar means Rosh Hashanah, start of 5,738 New Year; Springfield news: senior citizens, equal language; The gas man cometh...; Holograph exhibit at PC tomorrow; Letting out some Slack...: Answers for queries on PC; Chicago painter displays at KCPA; Prospectus Pigskin Preview: Cobra Grid Schedule, Parkland Roster, Fight on Cobras; Alaskan wilderness is summer home to Basler; Parkland Learning Laboratory: Early help available to students; Stu-Go explores check cashing for PC people; PC music groups have many openings; Jumers: German touch; \u27Elite\u27 women to get public house; Home care topic to be presented; Classifieds; X-country opens Saturday; Spikettes look good; Sports shorts; Bio instructor Cox wins Fast Freddy; Intramural sign up closing; The continuing battle for Number 1; Parkland to host nationalshttps://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_1977/1013/thumbnail.jp

Adjunctive rifampicin to reduce early mortality from Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (ARREST): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia is a common and serious infection, with an associated mortality of ~25%. Once in the blood, S. aureus can disseminate to infect almost any organ, but bones, joints and heart valves are most frequently affected. Despite the infection's severity, the evidence guiding optimal antibiotic therapy is weak: fewer than 1,500 patients have been included in 16 randomised controlled trials investigating S. aureus bacteraemia treatment. It is uncertain which antibiotics are most effective, their route of administration and duration, and whether antibiotic combinations are better than single agents. We hypothesise that adjunctive rifampicin, given in combination with a standard first-line antibiotic, will enhance killing of S. aureus early in the treatment course, sterilise infected foci and blood faster, and thereby reduce the risk of dissemination, metastatic infection and death. Our aim is to determine whether adjunctive rifampicin reduces all-cause mortality within 14 days and bacteriological failure or death within 12 weeks from randomisation. METHODS: We will perform a parallel group, randomised (1:1), blinded, placebo-controlled trial in NHS hospitals across the UK. Adults (≥ 18 years) with S. aureus (meticillin-susceptible or resistant) grown from at least one blood culture who have received ≤ 96 h of active antibiotic therapy for the current infection and do not have contraindications to the use of rifampicin will be eligible for inclusion. Participants will be randomised to adjunctive rifampicin (600-900 mg/day; orally or intravenously) or placebo for the first 14 days of therapy in combination with standard single-agent antibiotic therapy. The co-primary outcome measures will be all-cause mortality up to 14 days from randomisation and bacteriological failure/death (all-cause) up to 12 weeks from randomisation. 940 patients will be recruited, providing >80% power to detect 45% and 30% reductions in the two co-primary endpoints of death by 14 days and bacteriological failure/death by 12 weeks respectively. DISCUSSION: This pragmatic trial addresses the long-standing hypothesis that adjunctive rifampicin improves outcome from S. aureus bacteraemia through enhanced early bacterial killing. If proven correct, it will provide a paradigm through which further improvements in outcome from S. aureus bacteraemia can be explored.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Variability in COVID-19 in-hospital mortality rates between national health service trusts and regions in England: A national observational study for the Getting It Right First Time Programme

Background A key first step in optimising COVID-19 patient outcomes during future case-surges is to learn from the experience within individual hospitals during the early stages of the pandemic. The aim of this study was to investigate the extent of variation in COVID-19 outcomes between National Health Service (NHS) hospital trusts and regions in England using data from March–July 2020. Methods This was a retrospective observational study using the Hospital Episode Statistics administrative dataset. Patients aged ≥ 18 years who had a diagnosis of COVID-19 during a hospital stay in England that was completed between March 1st and July 31st, 2020 were included. In-hospital mortality was the primary outcome of interest. In secondary analysis, critical care admission, length of stay and mortality within 30 days of discharge were also investigated. Multilevel logistic regression was used to adjust for covariates. Findings There were 86,356 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 included in the study, of whom 22,944 (26.6%) died in hospital with COVID-19 as the primary cause of death. After adjusting for covariates, the extent of the variation in-hospital mortality rates between hospital trusts and regions was relatively modest. Trusts with the largest baseline number of beds and a greater proportion of patients admitted to critical care had the lowest in-hospital mortality rates. Interpretation There is little evidence of clustering of deaths within hospital trusts. There may be opportunities to learn from the experience of individual trusts to help prepare hospitals for future case-surges